Research experiences in Japanese higher education: a study of Japanese and international students

Assessing postgraduate students’ research experiences is essential for integrating student perspectives into quality assurance in higher education. Yet, little research has examined how these experiences shape outcomes in non-Western contexts. This study explores the relationships between five key aspects of research experience – supervision, infrastructure, intellectual climate, peer support, and program design – and two outcomes: skill development and overall research satisfaction among Japanese local and non-local postgraduate students. Participants were 314 research students (161 local, 153 non-local) from three leading national universities in Japan who completed a survey capturing their research experiences. Structural Equation Modeling revealed that supervision, infrastructure, peer support, and program design positively influenced skill development for both groups, while supervision, infrastructure, and peer support were also positively associated with overall satisfaction. Intellectual climate was significantly related to skill development and satisfaction only among local students. Furthermore, skill development mediated the relationships between supervision and peer support with satisfaction across both groups, and between intellectual climate and satisfaction among local students only. These findings underscore the need to strengthen supervision quality, peer collaboration, and culturally responsive support to enhance postgraduate research experiences within Japan’s increasingly internationalized higher education landscape.