Strangers in a Strange Land: How Non-Traditional International Adult Students See a United States University

Abstract

Little is known about Central American adult international students' perceptions of their U.S. host institutions. This is problematic because international students' perceptions of an institution's students, faculty, facilities, and the broader social environment may shape their overall learning-abroad experience. This constructivist case study used collaborative inquiry to explore the perceptions that 20 adult international students from Central American countries had of a medium sized public university in the Rocky Mountain west. The participants actively worked to make sense of the institution during their learning-abroad experience process. They perceived that the undergraduate students and the local community possessed a mixture of values, behaviors, and self-expressions that were difficult to reconcile with their own traditions