Institutional support, social support, and academic performance: mediating role of academic adaptation

Academic adaptation and performance are core aspects of international students’ academic experience in the host academic context. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship among institutional support, social support, and academic performance of international graduate students, as well as the mediating role of academic adaptation. This study was conducted grounded in Berry’s cross-cultural acculturation framework (1997) and Schlossberg’s transition model (1995). Survey data were gathered from a sample of 410 international graduate students from five universities in central China. As predicted, the results showed that institutional support, social support, academic adaptation, and academic performance were positively related. Mediation analysis showed that academic adaptation acted as a full mediator between support factors (institutional and social) and academic performance. This study provides evidence of the way in which academic adaptation mediates between support and performance, meaning that institutional and social support increased academic adaptation which enhanced performance in turn. The present study also discusses some implications based on the findings for universities, faculty, and international student academic advisors in China and in other countries.