The link between high-impact practices and college success among international students in the U.S.

Abstract

To promote learning and academic success among undergraduates, many colleges and universities offer or require students to participate in high-impact practices, which include first-year seminars, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, service-learning, diversity/global learning, internships, and capstone projects. However, the research findings on the effectiveness of these practices for promoting academic achievement and retention is mixed. Moreover, few studies have examined the link between these practices and student outcomes among international students, and there is reason to believe that international students may face challenges with fully engaging and benefitting from these experiences. The present study explored the relationships between nine high-impact practices and three student success outcomes: college grades, sense of belonging in college, and satisfaction with the overall college experience. Within a sample of 5,800 international students at 15 universities, participation in high-impact practices was occasionally associated with favorable student success outcomes, particularly for academic diversity experiences. However, all of these relationships were modest in size, more than three quarters of the results were nonsignificant, and service-learning was significantly and negatively related to college grades. The findings were highly consistent across student demographics and postsecondary institutions.

The devil in the details: How high‐impact practices can miss the mark

“…A growing body of research suggest that these factors influence an array of outcomes among both White students and students of color, including their college adjustment, engagement, motivation, self‐efficacy, sense of belonging, and eventual success (Castro Samayoa, 2018; Druery & Brooms, 2019; Muñoz & Espino, 2017; Museus, 2008; Museus & Chang, 2020; Museus et al., 2019). Despite these advances, with few exceptions (Katsumoto & Bowman, 2021), research that centers these marginalized voices and the frameworks they inform have largely been minimized, if not ignored, in HIPs discourse.…”

Internationalizing International Students’ Experiences: Analysis of Intercultural Dispositions for International Students who Engage in Study Abroad and Internationalization at Home

“…While both SA from U.S. universities and IaH have been examined intensively as explained above, the target beneficiaries of those practices have been predominantly domestic students. Some scholars have examined the potential benefits of general experiences on international students (e.g., high impact practices, Katsumoto & Bowman, 2021), studied international students’ unique barriers to engaging in learning (e.g., linguistic barriers, Yao, 2016), or compared psychosocial outcomes of international students with domestic students (e.g., mental health, Liu et al 2019). However, in contrast to the growing attention paid to such general experiences of international students, scholars have barely examined whether international education offered by a host country can be meaningful for international students.…”

Powerful and Life-Changing Learning Communities

“…An unpublished dissertation found that learning communities were positively linked with retention at community colleges (Wurtz, 2014, cited in Katsumoto & Bowman, 2021. Katsumoto and Bowman (2021) in their study on international student success, found that participation in learning communities was one of the few HIP experiences that positively impacted international students' GPA, sense of belonging, and college satisfaction, which they attributed to the "collectivistic environment" in learning communities.…”