The social integration experiences of international doctoral students at Russian universities

Transformation in Higher Education

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The social integration experiences of international doctoral students at Russian universities
 
Creator Abdul-Rahaman, Nurudeen Terentev, Evgeniy Iddrisu, Issah
 
Subject Higher Education social integration; department; international student; domestic student; attrition persistence.
Description Social integration (SI) plays a critical role in doctoral students’ success. However, SI experiences could differ depending on the characteristics of students and their programmes. The study investigates differences in the SI of doctoral students at Russian universities and identifies the main groups at risk who have more difficulties with SI. To achieve this, the study utilized data from a cross-institutional online survey of doctoral students conducted in 2021 on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education. A total of 4,454 doctoral students from 249 universities responded to the survey. Findings from the study indicate international students were less socially integrated in terms of having more friends and having problems interacting with others, either in person or remotely. Generally, no clear and significant difference was observed between their experiences and all aspects of social integration analysed in the study. Secondly, international doctoral students (IDS) are divided into groups (groups with low SI scores and groups with high SI scores) and compared them in terms of their subjective assessment of their chances for defence during the normative period of their studies and their overall satisfaction with the doctoral programme. The results for both variables revealed significant differences between IDS and varying degrees of SI. Significantly, the IDS group with a higher SI score reported high chances of defending their dissertation within the normative period of five years. The study concludes by suggesting that that activities that foster informal communication should be implemented and standardized within all departments in Russian universities to properly absorb all doctoral students into the social and academic cultures of their universities.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2022-11-08
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/the.v7i0.206
 
Source Transformation in Higher Education; Vol 7 (2022); 8 pages 2519-5638 2415-0991
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/206/491 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/206/492 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/206/493 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/206/494
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Nurudeen Abdul-Rahaman, Evgeniy Terentev, Issah Iddrisu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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