Understanding international student persistence in the first year.
Keith's dissertation examines the first-year experiences of international students attending Ontario colleges, with a particular focus on the factors that influence whether students remain, persist, and move toward completing their credentials. The research is grounded in the reality that the first year of study in Canada is often a period of significant transition, where students are navigating academic expectations, cultural adjustment, financial pressure, housing concerns, employment barriers, and the emotional weight of being far from familiar support systems.
The study uses a sequential explanatory longitudinal design to better understand how students experience belonging, confidence, support, and academic meaning over time. By combining survey data with follow-up interviews, the research aims to move beyond surface-level retention measures and listen more closely to what students perceive, experience, and draw meaning from during their first year.
The goal is to contribute practical and evidence-informed insight for colleges, faculty, student affairs professionals, and institutional leaders. The work seeks to identify where institutional systems can better support international students, where barriers are being unintentionally created, and how teaching, advising, and student support practices can be strengthened to improve persistence, belonging, and student success.