Transitional Experience of International Students from African Countries Studying in Canada: A Systematic Literature Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to understand the transitional experience of international students from African countries who are studying in Canada, provide guidance on how post-secondary institutions in Canada can best support these international students from African countries to enable them to settle and succeed in their academics, add to the limited body of literature on African students in Canada and give a voice and advocate for African students in BC. Therefore, this research aims to answer the following questions in line with this purpose: What are the transition experiences of international students from African countries studying in Canada? What are some of the barriers or challenges that hinder the success of African international students in Canadian post-secondary institutions? What factors affect African international student success in post-secondary educational institutions? A scoping review of the literature was conducted. The review included research studies focused on international students from African countries studying in Canada. The core concept underpinning the review was transitional issues, with the outcome being their ability to successfully settle in Canada. Thematic analysis across studies was used to identify key themes emerging. Over 50 articles (with a date range between 1995 and 2024) from different authors were included in the review. Four key factor groups emerged from the review: Academic adjustment, institutional support, social-related concerns, and geographical location. Drawing from a literature synthesis that provides a holistic perspective on transitional student experiences and using Social Support Theory, this paper will provide guidance on how post-secondary institutions in Canada can support these international students from African countries to enable them to settle and succeed in their academics.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.042 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.021 | 0.035 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".