Arab Educational Information Network

This article reports on an empirical study that aims to predict international postgraduate students’ academic achievement using three main variables, namely English language proficiency, English reading proficiency and metacognitive knowledge of strategic reading. The participants were 125 Chinese international postgraduate students who were in their second semester in an Australian university. Through the use of a survey research method (i.e. questionnaire) and a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach for data analysis, it was found that English language proficiency (as measured by IELTS tests), English reading proficiency (as measured by IELTS tests) and metacognitive knowledge of strategic reading (as measured by a Likert-scale questionnaire) accounted for 7%, 10% and 5% of their academic performance, respectively. This article discusses the findings, the implications for international education and future research in this topic. (Published abstract)