Academic adjustment of Chinese graduate students in United States institutions of higher education

This study proposed the International Academic Adjustment Model as a theoretical framework to explain international students' academic adjustment. The model contains ten predictors of international students' academic adjustment: (1) academic major, (2) English language proficiency, (3) academic achievement, (4) housing situation, (5) extracurricular involvement, (6) peer relationships, (7) interactions with faculty, (8) pre-departure preparedness, (9) financial and employment status, and (10) orientation and advising experiences.; The research tested the model with a population of graduate students from Mainland China who were enrolled in a major Midwestern university in the U.S. during the spring semester of the academic year 2005-06. Except for academic major, all other nine predictors were found to significantly correlate with academic adjustment, with academic achievement as the strongest predictor.; The model explained 66.7% of the variance in academic adjustment. However, except for the strongest predictor "academic achievement" that explained 13.7% of the variation, the unique contribution of each predictor to the variation in the dependent variable was very small (less than 2%). About 50% of the variance in the dependent variable was explained by the combination of all predictors.; The study also found that older students who had stayed longer in the U.S., at their current university, and in their current programs tended to be more academically adjusted. Those who were working only toward Ph.D. tended to be more academically adjusted than those working toward both a master's and Ph.D. degree at the same time. Gender, marital status, number of countries traveled to, and length of stay in those countries were not related to academic adjustment.