College students classified with ADHD and the foreign language requirement

The conventional assumption of most disability service providers is that students classified as having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) will experience difficulties in foreign language (FL) courses. However, the evidence in support of this assumption is anecdotal. In this empirical investigation, the demographic profiles, overall academic performance, college entrance scores, and FL classroom performance of 68 college students classified as having ADHD were examined. All students had graduated from the same university over a 5-year period. The findings showed that all 68 students had completed the university's FL requirement by passing FL courses. The students' college entrance scores were similar to the middle 50% of freshmen at this university, and their graduating grade point average was similar to the typical graduating senior at the university. The students had participated in both lower (100) and upper (200, 300, 400) level FL courses and had achieved mostly average and above-average grades (A, B, C) in these courses. One student had majored and eight students had minored in an FL. Two thirds of the students passed all of their FL courses without the use of instructional accommodations. In this study, the classification of ADHD did not appear to interfere with participants' performance in FL courses. The findings suggest that students classified as having ADHD should enroll in and fulfill the FL requirement by passing FL courses.     

Students classified as LD who petitioned for or fulfilled the college foreign language requirement-are they different? A replication study

This replication study compared 86 petition students who received course substitutions for the college foreign language (FL) requirement with 40 nonpetition students who fulfilled the FL requirement by passing FL courses on cognitive and academic achievement measures and graduating grade point average. The results showed significant differences between the two groups, favoring the nonpetition group on one measure, the American College Testing (ACT) score, when IQ was used as a covariate; however, no significant group differences remained when ACT score was used as a covariate. More than half of the 126 petition and nonpetition students did not meet a minimum criterion for classification as learning disabled (LD), and more than half of both groups (54% and 63%, respectively) were not classified as LD before enrolling in college. Sixty percent of the petition students either had not taken an FL course in college or had achieved only grades of withdrawal before petitioning for substitution of the FL requirement. Implications addressed include petition students' persistence in fulfilling the FL requirement, students' use of instructional accommodations and services, criteria used to classify students as LD, use of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT), and why some students classified as LD pass FL courses and other students classified as LD do not.     

How Administrators Can Influence Student University Selection Criteria

Five main stages generally make up the decision-making processes of transnational students as they select a university. These stages involve problem recognition, search behaviour, evaluative criteria, and purchase and post-purchase evaluation. This article investigates the decision-making processes of international students, particularly selection criteria, relative to attending an overseas university. The study upon which it is based revealed that while many variables such as course offerings, facilities, distance, and fees are important, the major force behind selection criteria is word-of-mouth communication. The research, undertaken with approximately 400 students enrolled in Southeast Asian programmes offered by an Australian university in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, and with transnational students studying in Australia, is described. Strategy options are suggested by which business faculties can take advantage of word-of-mouth communication to enhance transnational offerings.     

Quality Faculty: the Key to Ensuring Successful Transnational Educational Offerings in Southeast Asia

In the past year, the competition for transnational educational offerings in the Asian region has become more intense. One of the latest strategies in an attempt to win enrolments is the lowering of fees by international educational institutions and the reduction in the number of classes required for degree completion. The press and prospective students have made it clear that with the current economic crisis, price is the major consideration in their selection. The results of a study of the experience of Curtin University, an Australian university operating in Singapore and Malaysia, indicate that if quality faculty are involved in transnational educational offerings, even in these turbulent economic times, students will pay above the going rate for the opportunity to obtain the educational experience.