As the education of international students has developed into a key component of the economic mix for many Western democracies, approaches to the evaluation of success or failure have become increasingly based on the type of buyer—seller relationship that features strongly in the management and marketing literature. As a result, an activity that has historically been assessed in terms of its contribution to the public good is now more likely to be measured through application of the language of business. This article analyzes the comments of 160 Chinese students attending courses at a New Zealand institution and suggests that the criteria that contribute to a positive experience evaluation, when viewed through the eyes of students, may not entirely coincide with the “business language” criteria that education providers believe to be critical. The article concludes that significant changes in institutional philosophy are necessary if the true value of providing tertiary education to international students is to be optimally realized.

Social presence is a theory derived from social psychology to explain social interactions in a mediated communication and is defined as the degree to which interlocutors in a communications medium perceive each other as real. This study investigates the effect of computer-mediated communication on the social presence of international students who spoke English as a foreign language in two Web-based graduate courses offered in the United States and aims to explore how linguistic and cultural differences influenced their social presence.

This research introduced the concept of resilience into the study of adjustment of international graduate students at U.S. universities. The purpose of this study was to explore relationships among resilience characteristics, background variables, and adjustment problem areas, and to gauge the effects of resilience and background variables on adjustment. The Organizational Development Resources’ Personal Resilience Questionnaire and the Michigan International Student Problem Inventory were used, and 207 usable responses were gathered. Statistical analyses revealed that resilience characteristics were moderately associated with background variables, highly negatively correlated with adjustment problem areas, better correlated with adjustment problem areas than were background variables, and resilience had the greatest effect on adjustment.

Given the political, economic, and social events surrounding 9/11, the major issue addressed concerns the impact of federal legislation on international students/scholars. The study explored several research questions that can be summarized as, What are the relevant laws affecting international student study in the United States, and What are the consequences of having those laws? To date, there has not been a comprehensive compilation identifying such regulations nor an analysis and charting of the broader public policy at various levels of implementation. This article attempts to do this. Sifting through the miasma of regulations, certain themes emerge from the analysis: philosophical changes, entry and exit registration, intended and unintended consequences, impact on Arab and Muslim students, effects on U.S. citizens, and emergent problems.