Listening to Student Persistence: Examining the Academic Experiences of the Korean Immigrant Students at Universities in Toronto

As one of the largest non-European ethnic groups in Canada, the continuous increase in the Korean population is projected with its consistent growth in Canada. However, there is a lack of academic literature on the experiences of Korean immigrant students in Canadian postsecondary institutions. Through semi-structured focus group and individual interviews, this study examined the academic experiences of Korean immigrant undergraduate students at two universities in Toronto, particularly what barriers they encountered and what certain skills they developed to succeed, by utilizing Reason’s (2009) persistence framework. Approached as a multiple case study, two cases compared the academic experiences of a total of ten participants studying sciences and social sciences disciplines. Results showed that students encountered a great level of linguistic barriers and low self-confidence, which hindered their desire to actively participate in their studies and that there was still a lack of understanding of this student population.M.A