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International student enrollment has been increasing and remains a central focus for many institutions. Research on international student leadership and involvement is much less than that of their domestic peers. In addition, researchers regularly treat international students as a homogenous group, largely ignoring the significant within-group differences. Most studies have examined difficulties reported by international students, but very few have studied the positive impact of the campus environment. Student involvement and participation in co-curricular activities can have a positive effect on students’ academic and social outcomes on campus. In addition, leadership capacity and leadership efficacy are linked to important academic, career, and life benefits, such as career and leadership aspirations, work performance, the ability to cope and overcome stereotypes, and the adaptation to and persistence of challenging situations. This study used data from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership to examine within-group differences among international students' leadership self-efficacy. Leadership self-efficacy refers to one’s confidence to lead and often impacts whether one actually leads. The results reflected statistically significant differences between domestic and international students indicating that campus is less impactful to the leadership self-efficacy of international students. The within-group differences among the international students indicated that their choice of academic major was a greater impact to their efficacy than their international student status. While the models did not produce significant results among the various nationalities, the study compared leadership self-efficacy between the international student racial groups. More intimate and culturally engaging campus activities had larger influence on their efficacy than large, academic, campus-wide activities. The research supports understanding international student diversity and provides insights into the differences between their domestic peers and among themselves. The study also provides awareness into how practice can best support development of leadership self-efficacy for international students. |
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