A Performance Evaluation of an Alternative Approach for Training International Students

For many international students who study agricultural economics in the United States, English is not their first language nor the language of academic instruction in their home country. This paper evaluates a program designed to permit international students with English deficiencies to begin their graduate training while simultaneously taking an intensive course in English as a second language. It is found that there is no significant difference in the performance of students in this program and other international students who begin their training with a capability in English. The international student has long been a significant part of the student body in depart-ments of agricultural economics in the United States, especially at the graduate level [AJAE]. A 1978 survey con-cluded that "there is a continuing strong demand for graduate level training in the U.S. departments of agricultural and re-source economics as measured by the total number of entering (international) graduate students " [Stevenson, p. 105]. Graduate students from less developed coun-tries (LDC) represent 31.5 percent of all graduate students entering fields of study related to the economics of agriculture [Stevenson]. Training in agricultural economics is one of the areas of critical human resource deficien-cy for the developing countries. Since many of these countries currently lack the facilitie