International students in Kazakhstani universities: A quantitative survey case study

Abstract

Global demand for international higher education has led many students across the countries to seek international education. Nowadays, more and more students seek studies overseas than ever and there has been a strong competition for international students. The purpose of the study is to explore international students' satisfaction with academic environment, psychological adaptation, socio-cultural adaptation in Kazakhstan. To better understand the international students' adaptation quantitative non-experimental design is used. 168 international students of one private university were surveyed both online and on campus. Some advanced inferential test such as PLUM and ANOVA analyses were conducted to examine factors that influenced the international students’ satisfaction. The findings show that international students’ satisfaction with their psychological, academic and socio-cultural adaptation. While these findings are very significant, this research cannot be generalized since the data was collected through the survey among undergraduate international students at one private university of South Kazakhstan region. Therefore, this is a case study for which findings are applicable only to this specific case. However, implications of this study can be interpreted in the context of the whole country, particularly given that higher education is centrally governed in Kazakhstan. The result of this study is beneficial to many stakeholders at the university governance level, such as international relations department, educational faculty and staff, administration as one of the most related public to better enrolling and retaining process of international students.