Asian international doctoral students’ experiences at two American universities: Assimilation, accommodation, and resistance.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the sojourn experiences of Asian international students enrolled in graduate programs at American universities. The six participants (3 women, 3 men) were Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese doctoral students at two universities in the Big Ten Conference. The research design was exploratory multiple-case study (R. K. Yin, 2003) informed by the concept of the Sojourner (P. C. P. Siu, 1952) in terms of assimilation, accommodation, and resistance. The primary data sources were a demographic survey (C. M. Golde & T. M. Dore, 2004) and focused interviews (R. K. Yin, 2003). The demographic data were analyzed descriptively. The interview data were analyzed with constant comparative method (S. B. Merriam, 1998). The major themes that emerged from the data were (a) language differences, (b) academic plight, (c) mixed relationships, and (d) emerging selfawareness. Implications and strategies to promote Asian international students' academic and social success in graduate programs are discussed.

Asian international graduate students’ extrinsic motivation to pursue degrees

“…This means that students perceived faculty as more than just their advisors. This finding is inconsistent with another study (Sato & Hodge, 2009). They reported that Asian international student's relationship with faculty tended to be more academic than social relationships.…”

“…The result of faculty influence matched with the line of study that the relationship with Asian international doctoral students and their advisors helped most likely to succeed in their graduate programs (Sato & Hodge, 2009). Since it is not easy for Asian international students to navigate graduate programs smoothly due to aforementioned issues in the introduction, the influence of faculty is inevitable.…”

“…Some research investigated Asian international graduate students' experiences (e.g. Le & Gardner, 2010;Sato & Hodge, 2009), Chinese international students' personal and sociocultural stressors (e.g. Yan & Berliner, 2013), and international students' cultural adaption (Chirkov, Safdar, de Guzman, & Playford, 2008).…”

“…In addition, because relationships were important to the students, the author included relational questions, which could influence students' extrinsic motivation. The relationships with faculty and cohorts, especially Asian cohorts can lead Asian graduate students to be successful (Sato & Hodge, 2009). These two contextual themes were included in the instrument.…”

“…Relationships with their peers, faculty, and family members in their host country are more likely to play a role in their extrinsic motivation. Sato and Hodge (2009) reported that Asian international graduate students had perceived the relationships with Asian peers and with faculty to be important. Especially in graduate school, the relationship with faculty is considered to be essential for graduate students.…”