Transcript Document

Sojourner Adjustment, Adaptation and
Performance and the Study of Inter/CrossCultural Communication.
TONY YOUNG & ALINA SCHARTNER
NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY, UK
FOR
BAALICSIG SEMINAR,
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY,
MAY 2014
CONTACT:
[email protected]
[email protected]
Background: General
2
 Increase in provision of intercultural (IC) /cross-
cultural (CC) education/training for sojourners
 Lack of research into its effects on participants (Littrell
et al., 2006)
 Evaluation largely confined to business sojourners
(Berry et al., 2002)
 Limited scope and weak design of evaluation work:

Pre-sojourn participant reaction measures do not assess effect on
adjustment to new setting

Surveys do not indicate ‘bottom-line’ outcomes in improved
performance or more successful adaptation (Morris and Robie,
2001)
Background: Specific
3
 Sociocultural, psychological and academic
adjustment and adaptation of ‘International’
students – towards an integrated theoretical model
 New temporal perspectives – pre-, in- and postsojourn – work related to the trans-European
CALPIU project http://calpiu.dk/ruc/Home.html
 Focus on the effects of cross/intercultural
communication and effectiveness on adaptation and
the lived experiences of adjustment
Rationale for the study
4
 Most training of short duration, limited scope, and
delivered pre-sojourn (Littrell, et al., 2006)
 Little research on impact of CC education on
international Higher Education (HE) students’
adjustment and adaptation

BUT: student sojourners very worthy of focus - tested
performance outcomes (i.e. assessment grades) distinguish
them from other sojourner groups (Ward et al., 2001)

Academic adaptation as an important outcome (Spencer-Oatey
and Xiong, 2006)
Student sojourners
5
Individuals undertaking a full programme of study outside
of the country where they have received their prior
education (UNESCO, 2010)
 Rapidly growing sub-segment of cross-cultural
sojourners - around 4 million worldwide (OECD, 2012)
 Lot of interest in the nature of the international student
experience - ‘Living abroad’ seen as transformative
(Brown, 2009)
 BUT: little research on inter-relationship between CC
education and sojourn outcomes (Young et al., 2013)
Students of CCC/ICC
6
 Unique sub-group of student sojourners, exposed to:

The experience of ‘living abroad’

Long-term CC education as part of their sojourn
 Study of CCC in HE is growing, especially in North
America and Europe (Young and Sercombe, 2010)

Intercultural competence as an aim for staff and students
(Sanderson, 2008)

Degree or part of a degree
 However, whether/how the study of CCC makes a
difference to adjustment and adaptation remains
undetermined
Adjustment & adaptation
7
Adjustment
Adaptation
Dynamic processes involved in
functioning in the new academic
environment (Anderson, 1994)
Outcomes of adjustive
processes (Pitts, 2005)
Academic
Academic
Adjustment to the demands of
academic life including styles of
teaching and learning at the host
university (Ballard, 1987)
Academic achievement
on the degree
Research Questions
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1. Does the study of CCC (/ICC...) make a
difference to academic adaptation?
2. What are the adjustment processes over
time as experienced by students of CCC?
Mixed methods design (1)
9
Stage 1: quantitative analysis of academic performance
of ‘international’ MA students (N = 680) over a five
year period (2007-8 to 2011-12, inclusive)
 Academic adaptation of CCC students (N = 352)
relative to a closely comparable group undertaking
another degree (ALT, N = 328)
 Both degrees closely matched, apart from CC
education focus
 Mean GPA for taught & research element, and degree
 Independent-samples t-tests
Mixed methods design (2)
10
Stage 2: qualitative data to obtain a fine-grained view
of ‘lived’ experience of academic adjustment of a group
of CCC students
 Tracked a group longitudinally throughout their
programme of study
 Semi-structured individual interviews with a sample
of 18 volunteers at three time stages:

Two weeks after arrival in the UK (T1, October)

Five months into the sojourn (T2, February)

Nine months into the sojourn (T3, June)
Data analysis
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 Thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998)
 Comments sorted into four broad analytical
categories
Analytical Category
Example Comments
Positive
‘I love being involved with international students.’
Negative
‘Communication was a big problem because they
didn’t speak.’
‘It is a little bit more challenging to work in a group
with more Chinese students.’
Problematizing
Neutral
‘The classroom environment here is very different
from Malaysia.’
Quantitative findings
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 CCC students performed significantly better than
ALT students on:

The taught element of the programmes t(8) = 3.16, p = .013

Their overall GPA for the programmes, t(8) = 2.04, p = .076
Research
Taught
Overall GPA
M
SD
CCC
61.84
1.02
ALT
60.38
2.38
CCC
63.23*
.91
ALT
61.41
.91
CCC
62.26^
1.28
ALT
60.66
1.19
* significant at the 95% level;
^ significant at the 90% level
Qualitative findings – T1 (1)
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 Comments largely anticipatory
 Comparisons between home and host country
 Comments positive, neutral or problematizing in
orientation fairly evenly spread
 ‘International’ make-up of course a focus for the positive

‘I love being involved with international students.’ (German, female,
26)

‘[…] I really like that it’s an international environment but also I
would like that more British people would be in the programme.
(Romanian, female, 22)
Qualitative findings – T1 (2)
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 Problematizing comments about English language
ability and ‘new’ academic practices
o
‘[...] I have to listen to them and then have to
translate it in my brain to my language and kind of
just twice as hard as studying in my country.’
(Indonesian, female, 28)
o
‘[...] almost like I have to make class for myself in the
library or in my room with reading.’ (USA, male, 23)
Qualitative findings – T2 (1)
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 More detailed comment
 Overwhelming amount of comments positive
 Feeling more familiar with host university and
greater satisfaction with academic adjustment
o
‘This semester I know how to deal with it, I’m familiar with it
now.’ (Chinese, male, 23)
 Comments on assessed work

‘The assignments were not bad. It took much time but it was
ok.’ (Lithuanian, male, 23)
Qualitative findings – T2 (2)
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 Multicultural group work – positive to highly
negative

‘[…] it was nice working with other people as opposed to
just yourself going to the library, so I enjoyed it.’ (USA,
female, 26)

‘That was such an amazing opportunity to work with the
Chinese students.’ (USA, male, 23)

‘[…] communication was a big problem because they
didn’t speak […] maybe this is a system in China.’
(Turkish, female, 22)
Qualitative findings – T3 (1)
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 Comments on academic performance
overwhelmingly positive
 Improvement from the beginning of semester one to
the end of semester two
 Feeling “confident” and “settled”
o
‘I’d say I felt a lot more confident because I kind of
already knew how the things work here […] ’ (Latvian,
female, 23)
o
‘The first semester I was still like in shock […] it was too
much going on for me for the first semester but this time
it’s better […]’ (Indonesian, female, 28)
Qualitative findings – T3 (2)
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 Outcomes of studying CCC abroad
 Transformative nature of the sojourn & programme:





‘I think I’m more interculturally sensitive […]’ (USA, female,
26)
‘After all this I try not to put people in a box.’ (Slovakian,
female, 24)
‘I have learned how similar people are […]’ (Romanian, female,
24)
‘[…] learning different theories and different models, I think
you can really take them and apply them.’ (USA, male, 23)
‘[…] people here are from all over the world, so even when we
don’t literally study [..] you still practice your skills.’ (Latvian,
female, 23)
Discussion (1)
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 Focus on CCC education seems related to more
successful academic adaptation

CCC students performed significantly better in terms of
academic achievement than a comparable peer group
 CCC students were exposed to a critical perspective
on concepts such as culture, communication and
identity (Holliday et al., 2004)
 Exposure to such approaches may be associated with
successful academic adaptation
Discussion (2)
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 Positive interaction between experiential learning
and a critically-focussed academic model (Stavenga
de Jong et al.,2006)?
 But much CCC education still dependents on a-
priori cultural categorisation tending to equate
nationality and culture (Hofstede and Hofstede,
2001) – so positive effects not necessarily derived
from all CCC education?
Discussion (3)
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 Most academic adjustment difficulties early in the
sojourn
 The more exposure, the more able to acquire and
develop skills necessary to meet demands of degree
 CCC students seemed to acquire and deploy these
skills slightly more successfully than a comparitor
group
Implications
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 Build CCC into higher education programmes in general

‘internationalisation at home – getting Anglophone ‘home’
students to engage with the ‘intercultural’ (if not, sadly, foreign
languages)
 Have it as a useful graduate attribute that all students in HE
can aim to acquire (Stier, 2006)
 Future research:
o Is CCC education as effective as part of pre-sojourn training, or
in a form shorter and more intensively-delivered than a MA
programme?
o Does CCC students’ performance relate to other predispositional factors? Was it something about the learning, or
something about the students, or both?
Some limitations
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 Only looked at the adjustment experiences of CCC
students – no direct comparison with others
 Only compared the academic adaptation of the two
groups
 Difficult to generalise beyond:
 PGT?
 UK
context?
 Other
aspects of adaptation/adjustment?
References (1)
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Anderson, L. E. 1994. A New Look at an Old Construct: Cross-Cultural Adaptation. International Journal of
Intercultural Relations, 18 (3): 293-328.
Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. P., Segall, M. H., and Dasen, P. 2002. Cross Cultural Psychology: Research and
Application. Cambridge: CUP.
Boyatzis, R. E. 1998. Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development. 2nd
ed. London: Sage.
Brown, L. 2009. The Transformative Power of the International Sojourn: An Ethnographic Study of the
International Student Experience. Annals of Tourism Research, 36 (3): 502-21.
Hofstede, G. 1993. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. Administrative Science Quarterly ,
38(1), 132–134.
Holliday, A. 2010. Cultural Descriptions as Political Cultural Acts: An Exploration. Language and
Intercultural Communication, 10 (3): 259-72
Littrell, L. N., Salas, E., Hess, K. P., Paley, M., and Riedel, S. 2006. Expatriate Preparation: A Critical Analysis
of 25 Years of Cross-Cultural Training Research. Human Resource Development Review, 5 (3): 355-88.
Morris, M. A., and Robie, C. 2001. A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Cross-Cultural Training on Expatriate
Performance and Adjustment. International Journal of Training and Development, 5 (2): 112-24.
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (2012). Education at a glance 2012: OECD
indicators. OECD Publishing. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2012-en
Pitts, M. J. 2005. The Role of Communication in Cross-National Adjustment and Identity Transitions among
Student Sojourners. PhD Diss., Pennsylvania State University.
References (2)
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Sanderson, G. 2008. A Foundation for the Internationalization of the Academic Self in Higher Education.
Journal of Studies in International Education, 12 (3): 276-307.

Spencer-Oatey, H., and Xiong, Z. 2006. “Chinese students’ psychological and sociocultural adjustments to
Britain: an empirical study.” Language, Culture and Curriculum, 19 (1): 37-53.

UNESCO-UIS 2010. Global Education Digest 2009: Comparing Education Statistics across the World.
Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001832/183249e.pdf
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Stavenga de Jong, J. A., Wierstra, R. F. A., and Hermanussen, J. 2006. An Exploration of the Relationship
Between Academic and Experiential Learning Approaches in Vocational Education. British Journal of
Educational Psychology, 76: 155-69.
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Ward, C., Bochner, S., and Furnham, A. 2001. The Psychology of Culture Shock. 2nd ed. Hove: Routledge.

Young T.J., & Schartner A. 2014. The effects of cross-cultural communication education on international
students' adjustment and adaptation. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. doi:
10.1080/01434632.2014.884099
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Young, T. J. and Sercombe, P. G. 2010. Communication, Discourses and Interculturality. Language and
Intercultural Communication, 10 (3): 181-88.
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Young, T. J., Sercombe, P. G., Sachdev, I., Naeb, R., and Schartner A. 2013. Success Factors for International
Postgraduate Students’ Adjustment: Exploring the Roles of Intercultural Competence, Language Proficiency,
Social Contact and Social Support. European Journal of Higher Education, 3(2), 151-171.
Thank you!
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… any questions, comments…?