The Synthesis and Future Directions of Empirical Research on International Students in the United States

Abstract

The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the trends in empirical research on international students in the United States produced between 2010 and 2019. After reviewing and synthesizing the characteristics of 334 research articles published over the past decade, the author identified the areas that have been overly researched and the domains that have not yet been adequately explored. The overall findings of this review indicated that recent scholarly efforts were not always aligned with the international student representation on U.S. campuses. Consequently, the author generated nine critical recommendations for future research in the field. The recommendations were produced and presented in the context of overly- and under-researched institutional sites (i.e. institutional type and control), international student populations (i.e. academic level, field of study, and country of origin), research methods employed, and research questions examined.

Accompanying international students in Germany to academic success: Results and recommendations from the SeSaBa project

“…The subject of academic success and drop-out has a long research tradition in the disciplines of sociology, education, psychology and economics (Astin, 1964(Astin, , 1984Bean & Metzner, 1985;Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980, 1983Spady, 1971;Tinto, 1975Tinto, , 1988, especially in the US, but less so in Germany, where it is a comparatively recently established field of research (Hüther & Krücken, 2016). The analysis of the educational trajectories of international students is also already a firmly established subsidiary field of higher education research in the English-speaking world (see Krsmanovic, 2021).…”

Concerns for International Graduate Students in Political Science

“…One of the biggest concerns for international students is the lack of appropriate matching with an academic adviser (Krsmanovic 2021). Having a clear career plan before and during the application process will help you considerably.…”

“I lost myself”

“…In particular, international students enroll in postgraduate education programs. As Krsmanovic (2021) noted, graduate students tend to have different characteristics than undergraduate students; they tend to be older and are more likely to travel with their families. In the 2018/2019 academic year, there were over 350,000 new international students enrolled in a graduate program in the United States (IIE, 2019); and the most recent data accounted for over 135,000 dependents (Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], 2014).…”

“…It is a term that refers to the dependence of family members' immigration status on the students' immigration status. More than language barriers and acculturation which have been widely studied by Krsmanovic (2021), becoming a student or a dependent has implications on individual's perception of themselves and their relationships, given that identity is a life-long developmental process and is constantly changing (Hopkins, & Blackwood, 2011;Marcia, 1980). When identity development takes place continuously in a particular context, few life-altering events could lead to an in-depth exploration of the self that requires a person to reinvent their core notions of identity (Tajfel, 2010).…”