Needs of Foreign Students from Developing Nations at U.S. Colleges and Universities
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ff ('n.:yfor Irils ; i ioi ;; ',,,- : .. Needs of Foreign Students from Developing Nations at U.S. Colleges and Universities by Motoko Y. Lee Mokhtar Abd-Ella Linda A. Burks Edited by Stephen C. Dunnett Published by the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs through a contract with the United States Agency for International Development Washington, D.C., April 1981 1/ About NAFSA The National Association for Foreign Student Affairs (NAFSA) is a professional association of institutions and individuals committed to inter nationai educational interchange. Its membership includes public and private educational institutions, private organizations, and individuals, both employees and volunteers, who work with students and scholars either coming to the United States from abroad or going from the United States to other countries. The Association serves as a source of professional training, as a guide to standards of performance, and as a spokesman for inter national educational exchange programs in government and educational circles. The Association consists of five professional sections: Council of Ad visers to Foreign Students and Scholars (CAFSS), Admissions Section (ADSEC), Association of Teachers of English as a Second Language (ATESL), Community Section (COMSEC), and Section on U.S. Students Abroad (SECUSSA). For additional information about NAFSA and its publications, write: NAFSA 1860 19th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009. ii PREFACE The National Association for Foreign Student Affairs (NAFSA), under a contract with the Agency for International Development (A.I.D.), com missioned a national study to assess the needs of foreign students from developing nations who were studying in academic degree programs at U.S. colleges and universities. The study was initiated in April 1978, under a subcontract with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Iowa State University. The overall study consisted of two phases: Phase I (the formulation of a research design, including the construction of a questionnaire and a pre-test for a nationwide survey), and Phase II (a nation-wide survey to assess the self-perceived needs of the above-mentioned population). This report per tains to Phase II of the study. Work on Phase II started in April 1979, and was completed in March 1980. The principal investigator was Motoko Y. Lee, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Iowa State University. She was assisted by Mokhtar Abd-Ella of the College of Agriculture, University of Tanta, Kafr-EI-Sheikh, Egypt, and Linda A. Bvrks, Graduate Assistant in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Iowa State University. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs and the Agen cy for International Developnnt. ..Iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We wish t- extend our special gratitude to Stephen C. Dunnett of the State University of New York at Buffalo, who wai the NAFI'4 Advisor for Phase II, for his valuable advice and constant encoura' . inent. We ap preciated his gent.ine interesi in the research and the faith ne maintained in us through all tlie stages of the study. We are grateful to the following persons at Iowa State University who assisted us in Phase IT: Di. Gerald E. Kionglan, the chairman of the Depart ment of Sociology and Atthropology, who assisted us as our sociological ad visor; Dr. Richard D. Warren, our statistical advisor and the director of the Research Institute of Education; and Dr. C. P. Haim and Dr. Wayne A. Fuller, both of the Department of Statistics. We are iidebted to Dr. Fuller for his assistance with data analyses, using Super Carp, a program devel oped by Dr Fuller and his associates in the Department of Statistics. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to Mr. Anil Londhe for com puter programming of our data anlyses, and Mrs. Charlotte Latta and Mrs. Shu Huang of the Economics Computing Section for processing our data with great care. We wish to express our gratitude to Mrs. Barbara Munson and Mrs. Colleen Ryan for their assistance in every aspect of Phase II. We received a great deal of encouragement and assistance from numerous foreign student advisors across the nation. We regret that we can not acknowledge their contributions to this study by identifying them publicly. Our sincere appreciation is extided to the foreign students who spared their precious time for this study. Many of them sent us kind words of encouragement along with their responses. Last but not least, we wish to expr-ss our sincere appreciation to the NAFSA personnel, in particular Miss. Ellen Wise, for assisting us during the study. We are grateful to both NAFSA and A.I.D. for giving us this op portunity to conduct a study which we hope will contribute, to some extent, to a better understanding of fellow human beings everywhere. Motoko Y. Lee Mokhtar Abd-Ella Linda A. Burks iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface ........... .............................................. iii Acknowledgem ents ............................................... iv Introduction ...................................................... x I. OBJECTIVES OF PHASE II .................................... 1 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................... 3 Overview ..................................................... 3 Description of Problems and Needs in the Literature ............... 5 Independent \ uriables Suggested in the Literature ................ 11 III. THEORETICAL ORIENTATION .............................. 21 Conceptual Framework ........................................ 21 Hypotheses .......... ....................................... 26 IV. M ETHODOLOGY ........................................... 29 The Sam pling Procedure ...................................... 29 Data Collection .............................................. 34 Com posite Construction ...................................... 38 Statistical Analysis ........................................... 47 V. FIN DIN G S .................................................. 49 VI. RECOMMENDATIONS .................................... 131 VII. REFERENCES CITED ...................................... 135 APPENDIX A: OTHER RESPONSES ............................. 147 APPENDIX B: QUESTIONNAIRE ............................... 153 V LIST OF TABULATIONS Table No. Page 1. The Estimating Distribution of Clusters and Students in the Survey Population ........................................... 30 2. The Sampled Schools by Geographic Location Within the U.S. and Stratum ................................................ 33 3. The Numbers of Students Chosen in Each Stratum ............ 34 4. Sample: Initial Contacts and Responses ....................... 37 5. C om posites .................................................. 46 6. Needs for Inform ation ........................................ 51 7. Needs Related to Degree Programs in the U.S .................. 52 8. Needs Related to Relevance of the U.S. Degree Program and Needs for Extracurricular Professional Activities in the U.S. .... 53 9. Needs Related to University Student Status in the U.S ........ 54 10. Needs Related to Money and Jobs in the U.S .................. 55 11. Needs Related to Local Community Life and Housing Needs in the U .S . .................................................. 56 12. Needs Related to Family Life and Interpersonal Relationships in th e U .S . .................................................... 57 13. Needs for Pre-Return Information and Needs Related to An ticipated Conditions After Returning Home .................... 58 14. Importance of Various Goals and Likelihood of Achieving Them 59 15. Importance and Evaluation of English Language Skills, and Evaluation of English Language Courses ....................... 61 16. English Language Data ...................................... 62 17. Barriers to Establishing Good Relationships with U.S. Nationals 62 18. Self-Rating of Oneself and Country of Origin .................. 63 19. Selected Personal Characteristics ............................. 64 20. Region and Country of Origin ................................ 65 21. Living Arrangem ents ......................................... 66 22. R eturning H om e ............................................. 66 23. C om posites .................................................. 68 24. Importance and Satisfaction of Needs and Differences Between Scores: Composite Means, Standard Errors and Items Averages .70 25. Importance of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by Sponsorship Categories ....................................... 73 26. Satisfaction of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by Sponsorship Categories ....................................... 74 27. Comparison of Importance and Satisfaction Composites of Needs by Sponsorship Categories ............................. 75 vi 28. Importance and Satisfaction of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by Sex ...................................... 77 29. Importance of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by M arital Status .............................................. 78 30. Satisfaction of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by M arital Status .............................................. 79 31. Importance and Satisfaction of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by Classification ............................. 82 32. Importance of Needs: Composite Means and Standard Errors by M ajor, Recoded ............................................