Ruben De Pena

IDS801 Evaluate Journal Article

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Using an article you already found or a new article, provide proper citation for the article and
1-3 paragraphs evaluating the article using Chapter 9s guidelines of relevance, purpose, and
validity.
Name of journal article to be evaluated: Understanding academic performance of international
students: the role of ethnicity, academic and social
integration
Journal:
Higher Education
Authors:
Rienties, B.; Beausaert, S., Grohnert, T.,
Niemantsverdriet, S., & Kommers, P.
Year of online publication:
2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Relevance
I consider this article to be relevant for my topic because the authors provide substantial
evidence on various factors affecting academic achievement of international students. While
their research is based on international college students, I am considering extrapolating some of
their findings as I develop my argument for international students within a high school
environment. The rational for that is to determine if the factors of ethnicity, academic, and social
integration in postsecondary education are also relevant for academic victory of international
students in the two public schools systems I am analyzing for my paper, as the authors
emphasize the multi-faceted nature of success among international students (2011, pp. 685-686).
Purpose: Scope, depth, and style
The authors clearly inform about an increasing number of students enrolling in
international universities, particularly those located in the western hemisphere. More important,
they compare how well these students perform in comparison to native students based on
ethnicity, academic, and social integration factors. To prove their thesis, they survey a number of
international students in five business schools in the Netherlands (p. 686). Regarding style, I
contend it is consistent with the educational level of the authors intended target audience: words

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IDS801 Evaluate Journal Article

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are carefully chosen to inform and persuade current and future educational leaders in higher
learning institutions about key findings to take into consideration when accepting international
students to maximize learning opportunities for these students (pp. 696-698).
Validity: Timeliness, accuracy, and authority
The article proves to be valid as the authors provide solid evidence for its timeliness,
accuracy and authority. The article was first published online in 2011 and the vast majority of the
sources they cite are less than ten years old, including several from 2010. That makes the article
absolutely timely. As far as accuracy, by doing a spot check of some of their sources, they seem
to support the authors thesis. To illustrate this, the authors provide 26 citations, but only one
them belongs to Rienties, one of the authors for this article. This factor would make the work
very reliable. Additionally, I found that their arguments are undoubtedly logical and corroborated
by facts. This is particularly true when the authors say that ...Research at one of the
participating business schools (Rienties et al. 2006; Tempelaar et al. 2011) has found that
providing online summer course for international students in economics or mathematics not only
enhances their domain-specific knowledge but also provides a social network for international
students at the institute itself (2011, p. 698). As with authority, the article was published by the
prestigious Springer Science & Business Media (also known as Springer). To support this, the
renowned institution Bloomberg (www.bloomberg.com) states that The Company provides
scientific and professional communities with superior specialist information produced by authors
and colleagues across cultures (2013). Also, the Springer website (www.springer.com) claims
the company has 170 years of publishing history. Last, While no further investigation was
conducted to determine authority for each individual author for the purpose of this assignment
(except for one work by one of the authors referenced at the end of the article) , the fact they are

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backed by Springer should be sufficient to prove authority. Additionally, the authors provide
detailed contact information including name and address of their respective academic
institutions, and even their e-mail addresses.
Conclusion
Based upon my thorough analysis of the article, it is my conclusion that it definitely
meets all the criteria for purpose, validity, and authorship that Lanning (2012) contends (pp. 6774).

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References
Bloomberg, L.P. (2013). Company Profile for Springer Science+Business Media GmbH
(648808Z). Retrieved from ttp://www.bloomberg.com/quote/648808Z:GR/profile

Lanning, S. (2012). Evaluating information. Concise guide to information literacy, 9, 67-74.

Rienties, B., Beausaert, S., Grohnert, T., Niemantsverdriet, S., & Kommers, P. (2011).
Understanding academic performance of international students: the role of
ethnicity, academic and social integration. Higher Education, 63(6), 685-700.
doi: 10.1007/s10734-011-9468-1