Applying Student Development Theories: Enhancing International Student Academic Success and Integration

Abstract

Student development theories (SDT) focus on the growth and change occurring in students while attending higher education. In this article, we propose that the application of student development theories supports holistic development in international students and helps us understand international students’ academic success and integration. We outline a combination of student development models, derived from SDT, and interact them with concepts from international student mobility and migration (ISM). These models, when applied to student services, may assist higher education institutions (HEIs) in designing student services for international students enhancing academic success and integration.

Starting university during the pandemic: First-year international students’ complex transitions under online and hybrid-learning conditions

“…To best understand how students experienced transitions during the pandemic, two theories within the person-environment framework: ecological systems theory and transition theory, are utilized (Schlossberg, 1981;Bronfenbrenner, 1994;Goodman et al, 2006). The person-environment framework serves as a lens for analyzing college student growth and outcome, and embedding transitions within the ecological systems provides a way to understand and assess student development holistically (Ballo et al, 2019). It incorporates the interdependent variables of ideology and culture, social and organizational structure, time, and individual agency (Arnold et al, 2012).…”

‘Edugration’ as a wicked problem: the ethics of higher education-migration

“…Although growing (Bozheva et al, 2021;Chen & Skuterud, 2020), research examining edugration remains limited, particularly within education (Brunner, 2017). The Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education [JCIHE], for example, contains several explorations of higher education and international student integration (Ballo et al, 2019;Nilsson, 2019;Sin & Tavares, 2019;Yao, 2015). However, few explore how this process is concurrently tied up in migration systems (Cong & Glass, 2019;Etshim, 2019).…”

South-South student migration: socially integrating students from Portuguese-speaking Africa at UNILAB, Brazil

“…As with migrants in general, incoming students must pass through an acculturation process, learning the cultural codes of the new society. This can be stressful, alongside settling into a new educational context, as despite differences relating to language, religion, previous mobility experiences, gender and race, international students tend to be considered by their host institution as a homogenous group, without taking into account their specific needs (Ballo et al, 2019). Furthermore, they may have to cope with homesickness, cultural shocks and discrimination at a time when they have limited social support due to separation from family, home country friends and social networks (Rienties et al, 2012).…”