Birds of a Feather Fare Less Well Together: Modeling Predictors of International Student Adaptation

Download

index.pdf

Date

2020-03-01

Author

Gibbs, Renee
Güneri, Oya
Pankau, Thomas
Bikos, Lynette

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

30
views

0
downloads

Sociocultural adaptation to the host country is an important corollary to the psychological well-being of international students. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test a model of sociocultural adaptation and psychological wellbeing. International students in Ankara, Turkey (N = 161, mean age = 22.35) completed online surveys. Consistent with our hypotheses, interpersonal connections with host nationals predicted greater sociocultural adaptation (beta = 0.250, p = 0.001) and interpersonal connections with co-nationals resulted in poorer psychological adjustment (beta = -0.171, p = 0.025). Host-country language proficiency led to better sociocultural adaptation (beta = 0.262, p < 0.001), and perceptions of greater cultural distance had a negative impact on both psychological (beta = 0.314, p < 0.001) and sociocultural adaptation (beta = 0.328, p < 0.001). Thus, students who were able to engage in relations with host-country nationals fared better. Our results provide insight for sending and receiving institutions regarding the preparation (e.g., exploring cognitive frames for immersion, language skills, reviewing coping strategies) and supportive services (e.g., connection with host country nationals) that will facilitate the adjustment of international students.

Subject Keywords

Sociocultural adaptation, International students, Need for cognitive closure, Cultural distance

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/31204

Journal

SUSTAINABILITY

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12062317

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Intercultural engagement and relatedness: Examining mediation effects Kagitcibasi, Cigdem; Kisbu-Sakarya, Yasemin; Aydoğdu, Ezgi (2017-11-01) Most research on student sojourners has studied students coming from the Majority World to Western countries, especially the United States, for undergraduate and graduate education. Though increasing greatly in numbers, shorter sojourn has not been the focus of attention. With regard to the adjustment of sojourners, research has tended to stress situational factors rather than personality. This study is different in terms of focusing on short term educational sojourn of Western students in a Majority World ...
Acculturative stress of international students BUGAY TUNA, ASLI; BÜYÜKGÖZE KAVAS, AYŞENUR; Demir, Ayhan Gürbüz (2007-01-01) Acculturative stress prevents international students from adapting to the host culture, increasing their risk for depression. International students in China are a growing and at-risk population for acculturative stress and depression. With data from the International Student Health and Behaviour Survey (Yu et al., 2014a) in China, seven acculturative stress components were detected in a previous study (Yu et al., 2014a), including a central component (self-confidence), three distal components (value confli...
Governmental Supports for Students in Turkey: Beneficiary Perspective on the Use of Financial and Social Support in Higher Education Kondakçı, Yaşar; Oldaç, Yusuf İkbal; Şenay, Hanife Hilal (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018-01-01) Providing financial and social supports to students is a common policy practice in many countries. Scholarships and basic services (food, accommodation, transportation, free health services etc.) are the most common supports provided to students. Particularly developing countries which follow quantitative growth policies in higher education need more comprehensive student support systems. In developing countries both access to higher education and maintenance of the higher education degrees is a challenging...
Preparation for an international exchange program: a phenomenological analysis of prospective english language teachers’ lived and imagined experiences Çiftçi, Emrullah Yasin; Karaman, Abdullah Cendel; Department of English Language Teaching (2016) Since the Erasmus exchange program promises sociocultural experiences in different cross-cultural and educational contexts, it can contribute to the development of prospective English language teachers. However, participants’ preparation experiences and thought patterns prior to the program may influence the quality and outcomes of the sociocultural experiences abroad. This study, therefore, aimed to explore preparation experiences of three Turkish prospective English language teachers who chose to study in...
The Influences of ERASMUS and FULBRIGHT exchange programs from perspectives of their participants Kohn, Meryem Pelin; Engin Demir, Cennet; Department of Educational Sciences (2015) The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of the Fulbright and Erasmus international student exchange programs through the participants’ perspectives. Phenomenological design was adopted in order to investigate the meaning of individuals’ lived experiences, and the cultural, social, personal, and academic influences of the student exchange programs. Data were collected from 41 students (24 Erasmus and 17 Fulbright students) through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed tha...

Citation Formats

R. Gibbs, O. Güneri, T. Pankau, and L. Bikos, “Birds of a Feather Fare Less Well Together: Modeling Predictors of International Student Adaptation,” SUSTAINABILITY, pp. 0–0, 2020, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/31204.