Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which five engagement benchmarks that encompass educationally purposeful activities namely: (i) level of academic challenge , (ii) active and collaborative learning ,(iii) student-faculty interaction , (iv) enriching educational experiences and (v) supportive campus environment predict various dimensions of self- reported or perceived academic, personal, and social development/ growth for senior international students at Research Universities. The benchmarks were regressed against the following self-reported outcomes: i) acquiring a broad general education, acquiring job or work-related knowledge and skills, thinking critically and analytically, working effectively with others learning effectively on your own, and understanding yourself. Results indicated that for this sub-population, a supportive campus environment and the level of academic challenge were the best predictors of the self- assessed outcomes. Students had lower means in the student-faculty interaction and enriching educational experiences indicating less engagement in these benchmarks. On average, students reported gaining more in thinking critically and analytically and acquiring a broad and general education, although their average gains were still lower compared to the grand mean for the overall NSSE 2005 sample.