How much do International Students Contribute to Diversity on the CMU Campus?

1. How much do International Students Contribute to Diversity on the CMU Campus? John Gu (jxg@andrew) Selim Baykal(selimbaykal@cmu) Marcus Chen (caixingc@andrew) Dmitry Nulman (dnulman@andrew)

2. Content • Our Goal and Motivation • Our method • Survey • Regression model and data analysis • Discussion and conclusion • Our Recommendation • Reference • Survey Lucky Draw winner: Riddhi Roy (HK)

3. Motivation for this Project • International students make up a significant proportion of the student body • 595 out of 3252 total are undergraduate • About 18% of the CMU student population • 3rd in Pennsylvania, 37th in USA. • Diversity Matters • Enhance inter-cultural communication, cooperation • Increase flexibility and adaptability • Provide opportunities to challenge own beliefs • President Cohen gave a “B” for CMU efforts in increasing diversity in MLK day address 2005.

4. Our Goal • How much do international students contribute to diversity • School • Nationalities • Are international students more diverse than American students • What hinders interaction • What affects diversity in CMU • What has been done and are they effective • Our recommendation

5. Our method • Extension of Diversity Definition • presence of a wide range of variation in the qualities or attributes, e.g. nationalities, ethnicities. • Our Diversity Definition: noticeable heterogeneity, well mixed population, active inter-cultural interaction. • To contribute to Diversity we assume that a student needs to be social • Why people socialize: • Proximity: where one lives, works etc • Likeness: Gender, Culture, Race, Hobbies etc

6. The Surveys • Two Surveys were administered through http://www.surveymonkey.com • The first survey was administered by the Office of International Education (OIE) and was given to ONLY International Students • Total of 652 International Students at CMU • 171 students (26.2% of population size) responded • 139 were used in the Analysis • The rest were incomplete or finished too fast; 4 minutes or under • Second Survey was of American Students • Sample size of 42 and only 36 participants were used • Participants were put into draw to win $100 for both surveys

7. Survey data validity control • A pilot test to find out mean time taken • 7 minutes for the survey on international students • 5 minutes for the survey on American students • Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale test for bias detection • 4 False direction, e.g. I like to gossip at times • 5 True Direction, e.g. I am always willing to admit it when I make a mistake • Check against population, survey response are good representative of population

8. Survey Response

9. The Dependant Variables • Number of hours spent with American Friends Weekly • Number of hours spent with cross-nationalities friends weekly • Number of hours spent with cross-nationalities cross ethnics friends weekly • Number of hours spent on academic work daily • Number of American friends out of 6 closest friends • Number of cross-national and ethnical friends out of 6 closest friends • Number of friends from the same majors out of 6 closest friends

10. The Independent Variables • MCSD score: to test bias • # of units per semester : to represent time allocation • Whether participate in any student organization • Whether holds any leadership position • Gender • whether participants had high school in USA • Evaluation of Importance of Diversity • Whether Native language is English • School year • Home country • Major

11. The Diversity Index Diversity scores = = score of each diversity factor = weight of each diversity factor. Thus a person with higher diversity score contributes more to the diversity of our school.

12. Regression Results

13. Hypothesis 1 • International students interact mostly with their own ethnicities/nationalities; by excluding themselves from other ethnic groups, they don’t contribute to mutual understanding of the cultures. • No. of cross-national friends out of 6 closest friends = C + 1.445755 INT_STU_YES (p = 0.01%) • No. of cross-ethnic cross national out of 6 closest friends = C + 0.945220 INT_STU_YES (p = 7.39%) • Conclusion: International students actually have more cross-ethnic friends as a whole than Americans. Including American students in our model, American students are one of the least diverse groups.

14. Regression Results

15. Hypothesis 2 • International students are more engaged in educational activities such as projects, or meetings. A heavier workload prevents them from interacting with others. • No. of hours spent on academic activities daily = C -1.034498 INT_STU_YES (p = 8.09%) • Average number of units taken a semester = C + -0.012302 INT_STU_YES (p = 95.37%) • Conclusion: There insufficient evidence to conclude that international students take more courses than their American counterparts. However, they do spend more time on academic activities, such as projects and meetings so we do not reject the null hypothesis.

16. Hypothesis 3 • Among international students, girls are more sociable than guys on CMU campus • Conclusion: From the regression, there is no clear evidence that girls are more diverse than guys in CMU. • However, we can see that on average girls have 0.5 more American close friends than guys with p= 10.71%.

17. Hypothesis 4 • International students from CIT or SCS are not as diverse as other schools in CMU campus. • Conclusion: SCS is the less diverse than CFA and Tepper school, However, there is no statistically significant difference between CIT and SCS.

18. Hypothesis 5 • The language barrier is the main reason that international students don’t diversify themselves • There isn’t sufficient statistical evidence to show that language barrier affects interaction between international students and other students

19. Hypothesis 6 • CMU is not supportive enough in helping international students to socialize with one another • Overall international students are not active in activities organized by OIE. They don’t have strong opinions on whether these offices help them to adapt to American Culture

20. More regressions SCS

21. Why Korean and Thailand Score low in Diversity Metric Korea South Thailand

22. Interaction Hindrance Factors International Student

23. Interaction Hindrance Factors American Student

24. What did some say… • What some American students said… • “Some students do not try to reach out and simply remain with the people of their ethnicity/nationality.” • “There are just aren’t as many International students as American Ones” • What some International students said… • “Some people refuse to talk outside their cliques” • “Cultural Difference” • What did some Korean students say… • “Language is very important, I am more comfortable with Korean speaking friends” • “I have some American friends, but now I mix with Koreans most of time in senior year.”

25. Interaction Drivers (ranking) International Student: • Dormitory Life • Course work • Freshman Orientation Program • Interest, clubs, associations • Freshman Orientation Program • International Orientation Program • Religion American Student: • Dormitory Life • Interests/clubs/associations • Interests/clubs/associations • Others • Course work • Religion

26. Discussion (continue) • Similarity vs Proximity • Korean and Thais students have most friends from their own nations • Malaysian Students have more friends from same major, doing project with them before • Dormitory life is ranked first both by American and international students for cross-cultural friendship building • School year contributes to friendship from same major and through project work. • Course work is ranked 2nd by international students as friendship building factor, 2nd last by American students • Gender: • On average, female has 0.5 American close friends than male. • Language Barrier is not significant factor that preventing international students from socializing, but American students ranked it as 1st hindrance factor

27. Discussion (continue) • Course work: • SCS students on average spend 2 hrs more than other school daily on academic work • Heavy work load are both ranked 2nd (very close to 1st) as friendship hindrance factor by both American and international students. • CMU efforts: • Majority of students are neutral about whether CMU is supportive in helping them to adapt to American culture • Most of them are NOT active in activities organized by OIE, ICC etc • American students value diversity, but has no strong opinion whether CMU should increase intake of international students

28. Discussion (continue) • Some of primary goals of International students: • Case 1: a student aims to learn as much as he can in university, then he goes back to his home country.[11] • Case 2: To ace his classes, “Combat for honors” [11] • Case 3: to work in USA after graduate • University Demands: • GPA system • Heavy workload for some schools • Some classes adopt “Only top percentage students get A”

29. Larger circle Clique 2 Clique 1 Clique 2 Clique 1 Our Recommendation • Our proposed model for activities: • joint student association events • Set a common circle to mix cliques: e.g. dormitory life, freshman orientation • Orient int’s students’ needs to socialize • Train interaction multiplier

30. Our Recommendation (continue) • Tailored along int’l students’ primary goal: cross-disciplinary courses, projects (intellectual interaction) • To maintain friendship built during freshman year • Tailored along American students’ primary friendship driver, interests/clubs

31. References [1] Carnegie Mellon Diversity Resource Guide. Appendices to the International Student Task Force Report 1. Retrieved Sept 2006 from http://hr.web.cmu.edu/drg/overview/ISTF-Appendices.pdf [2] AllPsych ONLINE. Research Methods. Retrieved Sept 2006, from http://allpsych.com/research methods/ [3] Survey & Questionnaire Design. Retrieved Sept 2006 from http://statpac.com/surveys/ [4] Crowne, Marlowe. (1960). Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirablity Scale (MCSD). (pp27-31, Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes, edited by John, P.,Philip R. and Lawrence S.). [5] Shihmei S. The impact of International Students on Domestic Students in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education. (2004, PHD dissertation). [6] Chun-mei Z., George D. and Robert M. A comparison of International student and American Engagement in Effective Educational Practices. [7] Nicholson, Michael W. Adaption of Asian Students to American Culture. (2001). [8] International Education Matters. Retrieved Sept 2006 from http://www.udel.edu/iepmedia/home.thml. [9] Opendoors. Open Dorrs 2006 Report on Foreign Students Studying in the U.S.. Retrieved Sept 2006 from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89189 [10] Office of International Education. OIE Statistics and Reports. Retrieved Sept 2006 from http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/oie/admins/stats.cfm [11] Henry A. Selby and Clyde M. Woods. Foreign Students at a High-Pressure University. Sociology of Education, Vol 39. No. 2 (Spring 1966), pp.138-154.