Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how international graduate students in their first-year of doctoral study selected their faculty advisor and how this selection process influenced their advising relationship. Our results found that a majority of students in our sample were assigned to an interim advisor and most reported a positive advising experience. However, disquieting patterns emerged from the data: low frequency of advisor-advisee interaction, occurrences of mismatching between advisor-advisee, and an unknowingness of how to engage with one’s faculty advisor. Our study adds to the literature focusing on international students by shedding a light on nuanced advising experiences of first-year international doctoral students and by providing recommendations for faculty advisors and directors of graduate studies on ways to improve and systematize their advising practices so as to encourage retention and success among international doctoral students.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2019

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education, v. 11.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v11iWinter.1503

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