Determinants of International College Student's Performance in Mathematics

AbstractThis research paper places an emphasis on the relationship between mathematical skills and the qualifications of international college students in Thailand whose mathematics related courses were taught in English. 428 international college students were used as samples representing the population of approximately 30,000 international college students in Thailand. This study tries to determine the qualifications which may affect the academic performance of students in math related courses. The study employed Log-linear multiple regression as a tool to represent this relationship. The results yielded from Covariance Analysis suggested that sciences/math subject area from high school interacts significantly with both student's age and their English skills – negatively for age and positively for English skills. Moreover, the three nationalities of students – Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese – interact significantly with student's ages and moves in the same direction. Lastly, quadratic relationships were expressed on both students’ ages and their IQs, implying that as student's ages and IQs increase, their academic performances in mathematics related courses increase with increasing rates