Abstract:

Increasing numbers of international students enroll and pursue higher education degrees in the U.S. every year, bringing notable demographic changes and an economic, social, and cultural impact to American higher education institutions. Furthermore, a large percentage of the international student body achieves their career goals in America after pursuing their degrees and make outstanding contributions to economic, social, and cultural growth. In spite of the upward impact of international students in academia, society, and culture in America, only diminutive information about this particular population has been explored. In order to expand the understanding of the international student body in American higher education, this study investigated their motivation, resilience, and satisfaction.
The research questions are: 1) how do gender and degree influence the level of international students’ satisfaction?; 2) how do resilience and motivation explain the level of international students’ satisfaction?; 3) is the predictive power of motivation and resilience able to predict a significant amount of the variance in satisfaction after controlling gender and the types of degrees?
To examine these research questions, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis has been conducted with two sets of independent variables- 1) set 1, gender and degree, 2) set 2, motivation and resilience, and one dependent variable- satisfaction. Motivation is defined as the reason that international students come to U.S. universities to pursue their higher educational degrees. Resilience refers to the force of moving forward. Satisfaction demonstrates whether international students are satisfied or not with their experience in American higher education.
A total of 174 international students from three leading four-year research higher education institutions participated in a one-time survey. The results exhibit noteworthy relationships among motivation, resilience, and satisfaction with substantial differences between men and women as well as graduate and undergraduate international student groups. In addition, this study presents a cooperative insight for international students, faculty, administrators and those who work close with international students in U.S. universities. The study also provides some implications.

Keywords:

Higher education, international students, motivation, resilience, satisfaction.