Academic Competence, Self-Efficacy, and Achievement Expectations Among International Students at the University of Central Florida

With the vast and continued growth of international students in the U.S., it is important to focus on this expanding group and identify factors that aid or hinder academic performance, achievement, expectations, and competence. Factors known to affect academics among international students, such as language barriers, acculturation to American society, university support and structure, social integration at the university, family support, and motivating factors to study in the U.S were examined. It was hypothesized that these known factors would negatively correlate with the academic outcomes of international students examined in the current study. It was also hypothesized that these factors can combine to best predict the academic outcomes of international college students. First, intercorrelations were conducted with the independent and dependent variables to determine if the factors examined in the study (i.e., language barriers, acculturation to American society, university support and structure, social integration at the university, family support, and motivating factors to study in the U.S.) are negatively correlated with the academic outcomes of international students. Then a series of linear regressions was conducted to test the hypothesis that these factors can combine to best predict the academic outcomes of international college students. Results found significant relationships between the predictor variables and the outcome variables in this study, specifically among support (university, familial, and social), acculturation, language barriers, motivating factors to study, and self-efficacy