International students are critical for a flourishing U.S. higher education landscape (Younger, 2018). During the Trump presidency, however, these students faced significant cultural, economic, and social challenges (Peters & Anderson, 2021). To better understand international students’ success, this study sought to identify pathways to their thriving. Thriving derives from positive psychology and views student success as an appreciative, holistic enterprise (Schreiner, 2016). We investigated whether college experiences and environments contributed to the variation in international student thriving at U.S. universities. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we specified a statistical model that explained nearly 70% of the variation in this population’s thriving. Psychological Sense of Community, Institutional Integrity, student-faculty interaction, and spirituality were the most significant contributors to the variation in international student thriving. The implications of these results include a focus on culturally responsive pedagogy and redefining acculturation to include the university’s responsibility to create environments where international students can thrive.
Set in the context of four-year colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, this study examined how the level of thriving differs for international students and their domestic peers, how the level of thriving differs across various subgroups within international students, and how academic self-confidence is associated with the level of thriving for international students. Using data from the 2017 Thriving Quotient, this study found that international students were less likely to thrive during their college years than their domestic peers and that Asian international students were less likely to thrive than their international peers of other racial groups. Findings also suggested that academic self-confidence was significantly and positively related to international students’ thriving during their college years.
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