Understanding the Importance of English Education in South Korea and Exploring the Reasons Why South Korean Students Come to a University in the Midwest

Reasons that International Students Come to the United States 
Many international educators and higher educational administrators have 
researched the perceptions of international students who made a decision to come to the 
United States.  Lee, who is an associate professor of Center for Higher Education at 
University of Arizona and has studied this kind of area for over 10 years, found that the 
number of international students who came to the United States has been significantly 
increasing for several decades (Lee, 2008).  Interestingly, Lee (2008) designed her 
research study to discover “how [international students’] background (i.e., gender, region 
of origin, and familial education) relates to the information sources and reasons for 
studying in the United States” (p. 8).  To explore her research questions and the purpose 

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of her study, Lee used both quantitative research and qualitative research.  She utilized 
the online survey for the quantitative research, and interview for the qualitative research 
to collect the data from a public university located in the Southwest region of the United 
States (Lee, 2008). 
Lee’s study explained how international students chose their American colleges 
and universities. Through analyzing the survey data, Lee (2008) found the following 
results:  
Approximately 36% of the students relied on friends, 14% were informed by 
school counselors and teachers, and 13% relied on family members who studied 
abroad.  Four percent used recruiters and exchange agreements, which may reflect 
U.S. universities’ limited recruitment efforts, especially compared with the 
aggressive recruitment efforts among universities outside the United States (such 
as those in Australia and Britain). (p. 10) 
 
These previous findings and results will be investigated by this study’s researcher, and 
new findings and results will be discussed later in this research study.  Moreover, 
facilitating the previous findings and results helps a reader to understand how South 
Korean students receive the proper information about American colleges and universities.  
In other words, the new results and findings of this research study will explain how and 
why South Korean students make the decision to come to UNK.  
Furthermore, Lee (2008) interviewed 24 international students for the qualitative 
research study, and she discovered that the majority of the interviewees pointed out the 
importance of the institution’s reputation to make the decision to choose an American 
college or university.  School’s reputations influence the students’ study abroad 
destination, especially students who are from East Asian countries  
(i.e., South Korea, Japan, and China).  The previous research results and findings which 

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were analyzed through the qualitative research processes will help the researcher to 
develop the interview protocol and to answer the research questions of this study.  At the 
end of Lee’s research study, she mentioned that “future research should explore [multiple 
reasons] related to international student college access” (Lee, 2008, p. 16).  Therefore, 
this research study will consider the other reasons that South Korean students choose to 
come to UNK.