WHAT IS ACADEMIC SUCCESS FOR INTERNATIONAL POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS? A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF STUDENT AND STAFF PERSPECTIVES AT A MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Business, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This thesis presents an exploratory study of the nature of academic success for postgraduate international students in the context of one Malaysian research university, based on the perspectives of postgraduate international students, academic staff and professional staff members. Existing literature on international students predominately emanates from Western settings and offers rich insights into international students’ adjustment experiences. However, the literature has failed to fully explore the meaning of academic success, typically conflating it with grades and/or timely completion of studies. This study fills that gap in the literature, investigating the nature of, and key factors/challenges to, academic success, and thus seeks to contribute to scholarship on international student development. It adopts a qualitative and hermeneutic phenomenological approach and is based on 55 semi-structured interviews, analysed thematically. The study demonstrates that academic success is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, subject to multiple and interdependent factors and challenges, with important implications that extend Astin’s I-E-O model.