Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Abstract

In this paper we investigated how internationally mobile students diverge from domestic students regarding social origin, grades obtained at upper secondary school and motivation to study. Data from two comparable surveys were used, one relating to students abroad and one relating to domestic students. Results showed that on average, mobile students were of higher social origin than domestic students, but this did not apply across all fields. In some subject fields, mobile students had higher grades than domestic students, while they were lower in other. Mobile students clearly demonstrated higher motivation than domestic students, even when controlling for subject field and background variables. In sum, we found that mobile students constitute a select group in several ways, most prominently regarding study motivation. This suggests that mobile students potentially represent a positive contribution to the learning environment in more ways than just bringing diversity in cultural background.

International Students in Norway: Satisfaction, Coping and Social Networks

“…As satisfaction and motivation have been shown to be related (Astin, 1993;Diseth et al, 2010), this suggests that international students constitute a selected group regarding motivation. This interpretation is supported by a study showing that Norwegian students who participate in ISM abroad are more motivated for studies than domestic students (Hovdhaugen & Wiers-Jenssen, 2021b).…”

“…The latter type of motivation is more often shown in research on students from developing countries. However, admission restrictions are also relevant to certain groups of students from Western countries (Brooks & Waters, 2009;Findlay et al, 2011;Hovdhaugen & Wiers-Jenssen, 2021a, 2021b. Rivza and Teichler (2007) distinguish between vertical and horizontal mobility.…”

International student mobility and labour market outcomes: The role of personality dimensions

“…Mobile students tend to be of higher social origin than non-mobile students (King et al, 2010; Netz et al, 2021; d’Hombres and Schnepf, 2021) and have better grades from upper secondary school (d’Hombres and Schnepf, 2021). There are also indications that ISM students diverge from other students regarding personality (Zimmermann and Neyer, 2013) and motivation (Hovdhaugen et al, 2021). However, the relation between such features and labour market outcomes are rarely investigated.…”

What can explain the socio-economic gap in international student mobility uptake? Similarities between Germany, Hungary, Italy, and the UK

“…An intermediate level between individual and university is field of study which is associated with both, socioeconomic status and mobility uptake, the reasons of which can be manifold. These include the tendency of advantaged students being more likely to choose prestigious fields of study (Triventi, 2013) or different traditions and reasoning behind mobility uptake by students from different fields of study (Hovdhaugen and Wiers-Jenssen, 2021). Schnepf and Colagrossi (2020) show for the UK, that disadvantaged students cluster in those fields of study that have on average lower mobility uptake, like for example, education, nursing or communication studies.…”