The Diversity Issue Revisited: International Students in Clinical Environment

Table 1

Characteristics of international and finnish students participating in english language taught degree program at 10 polytechnic faculties of health care in Finland.

Variable	International students 𝑛=148	Finnish students 𝑛=95	𝑃^1
Age, years
Mean (range)	27.6 (20–48)	25.2 (19–53)	<0.001
Gender, male % (𝑛)	33.8 (49)	11.7 (11)	<0.001
Resided in Finland, years
Mean (range)	3.5 (0–16)	22.0 (1–42)	<0.001
Education, % (𝑛)			<0.001
Upper secondary	47.7 (61)	81.1 (73)
Vocational	16.4 (21)	11.1 (10)
Academic degree	35.9 (46)	7.8 (7)
Weekly working hours
Mean (range)	17.7 (0–40)	11.3 (0–55)	<0.001
English skills, %, (𝑛)			0.27
Basic or intermediate	18.0 (25)	23.9 (22)
Advanced	82.0 (114)	76.1 (70)
Finnish or Swedish skills, % (𝑛)			<0.001
Basic	52.2 (70)	3.2 (3)
Intermediate	35.1 (47)	3.2 (3)
Advanced	12.7 (17)	93.6 (87)
Feeling satisfied with life during the past year, % (𝑛)			<0.001
Very often or often	57.0 (77)	84.0 (79)
Occasionally or never	43.0 (58)	16.0 (15)

¹Differences between the groups were compared with 𝜒² test or Fischer exact test in categorical variables and Mann-Whitney 𝑈-test for nonnormally distributed continuous variables.