There is little research on the study success factors of refugee students in higher education. One approach to meeting the growing global demands is to provide online education specifically for refugees. This study examines specific personal characteristics of refugee students and their influence on success and retention in online education. Individual factors such as intrinsic motivation and language proficiency, cognitive functioning, and sociodemographic factors such as gender and country of residence influence retention of refugee students during online studies. The results indicate that sociodemographic factors (e.g., gender), cognitive factors (e.g., English proficiency), and external factors (e.g., country of residence) have a significant influence on study retention on refugee students.
International student mobility has increased in the past years. The inclusion of a highly heterogeneous group of students requires updated recruitment and admission strategies. A particularly vulnerable group of international students are refugees, who have an exceptionally high risk of dropping out of their studies. We present an entrance assessment of incoming international students from 77 countries who are at the beginning of their studies in Germany. Based on this unique sample, we examine (i) whether there are systematic country-specific effects on the economic literacy of beginning students of business and economics and (ii) whether refugee students differ from the group of international students. The results show that refugee students have a higher level of economic literacy although their country-specific prerequisites are worse. Hence, the results highlight the high relevance of an international assessment of heterogeneous vulnerable learner groups to promote their integration into the increasingly internationalized higher education sector.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.