This study was conducted from March 5 to April 5, 2026, to empirically analyze the structural relationships among learning motivation, academic attitude, and academic achievement among 165 international students majoring in cosmetology. The results showed that the sub-factors of learning motivation—continuation motivation, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and academic motivation—all had a significant positive effect on academic achievement. Since the influence of continuing motivation was the greatest, it was found that the academic performance of international students largely depends on their willingness to continue learning. Furthermore, learning motivation was confirmed to have a significant effect on academic attitude. It was found that continuing motivation, academic motivation, and intrinsic motivation acted as important factors for academic adaptation, while academic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and continuing motivation acted as important factors for adaptation to academic activities. Moreover, academic attitude was confirmed to have a significant effect on academic achievement. In particular, adaptation to academic activities was found to be the factor with the greatest influence on academic achievement, confirming that academic performance is formed during the actual process of learning participation and performance. Meanwhile, significant differences were observed in learning motivation, academic attitude, and academic achievement according to nationality, grade level, and Korean language proficiency level. In particular, positive results were observed across all variables as Korean language proficiency increased, confirming that language ability plays a key role in the overall academic performance of international students. Since this study was conducted as a cross-sectional study, future longitudinal studies should be conducted to analyze the changes in learning motivation and academic performance. Furthermore, it is necessary to more precisely verify the causal relationships between variables through structural equation modeling analysis that includes the mediating or moderating effects of academic attitude.
Kim et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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