Academic resilience among international students: lived experiences of postgraduate international students in Malaysia
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Academic resilience among international students: lived experiences of postgraduate international students in Malaysia Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh1 Received: 20 April 2020 / Revised: 30 October 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 © Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2020
Abstract In previous studies, scholars have noted that challenges experienced by international students have an impact on their academic success. However, limited research has been conducted on how international students overcome the challenges they face in non-Western countries, such as Malaysia. This paper aims to fills this gap by investigating essential resilience strategies adopted by international students in overcoming academic obstacles, thus contributing to the literature regarding international student development. To achieve this, it adopts a qualitative approach based on 33 semi-structured interviews with postgraduate international students that were analyzed thematically. The results reveal that international students develop resilience strategies through group assignments, in classroom settings, and by seeking university and personal support services. Understanding the resilience strategies adopted by postgraduate international students in Malaysia has imperative implications for all universities as it influences the manner in which they develop guidelines to promote international students’ resilience strategies and help them cope with academic adversity and difficulties. Keywords Postgraduate international students · Academic resilience · Malaysia
Introduction International student mobility in Malaysia has increased in the last 25 years. In 2017, Malaysia’s public and private universities attracted around 133,860 international students (undergraduate and postgraduate), of whom 32,042 were postgraduate students with 21,170 of them attending public universities and 10,872 attending private universities (Ministry of Higher Education 2018). In that year, international students to Malaysia came from 163 countries, with Bangladesh being the leading country, followed by China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran (Ministry of Higher Education 2018). Due to the rapidly growing population of international students, Knight and Lee (2014) have defined Malaysia as a student hub that focuses on widening access to higher education, modernizing and internationalizing local higher learning institutions, generating revenue from international students, and raising the ranking of the country’s higher education system. In this
* Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh [email protected] 1
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
paper, international students are defined as “students who have chosen to travel to Malaysia for tertiary education and have not attended secondary or preparatory education in Malaysia” (Devi and Nair 2008, p. 180). The literature on international students has been inclined toward unpacking their academic and social challenges. This is evidenced by research co
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