The effects of cross-cultural communication education on international students' adjustment and adaptation

Abstract

The recent increase in the provision of cross-and intercultural education for sojourners has not been matched by commensurate research into its effects on participants. Evaluation, where undertaken at all, has been largely confined to expatriate business contexts and has tended to be undertaken pre-sojourn. Crucially, evaluation has not engaged with the adaptation, adjustment and performance of sojourners related to their actual lived experience of adjustment, or with any key outcomes of sojourns. In response, this mixed-method, two-stage study explored both the adjustment and adaptation of student sojourners, with a particular focus on those studying crosscultural communication (CCC). In stage one, analysis of results of 'international' postgraduate students (N = 680) at a UK university over a five-year period indicated that those doing a degree in CCC tended to perform significantly better over different measures of academic achievement than a closely comparable peer group following a similar programme which lacked a specific focus on CCC. Stage two tracked longitudinally the academic adjustment experiences of 18 students of CCC over the course of their programmes. Findings provided a fine-grained view of the experience of academic adaptation and adjustment, and hitherto rare indications of how and why CCC education might 'work'.

The effect of study abroad on intercultural competence: a longitudinal case study of international postgraduate students at a British university

“…In addition to the ambiguity of findings from the short-term undergraduate study abroad context, little is known about the development of IC among postgraduate students studying abroad for a full degree (Young and Schartner 2014). This is despite an acknowledgement in the literature that the experiences of these 'vertically mobile' (OECD 2009) students can be vastly different, for a variety of reasons, from those of their peers on short-term study abroad schemes (e.g.…”

“…Recent research has shown that intercultural education plus the experience of 'living abroad' can create optimal conditions for IC development in international students (e.g. Behrnd and Porzelt 2012;Young and Schartner 2014). Courses in inter-and CCC, 5 where 'active processing' (Peckenpaugh 2012, 145) of intercultural encounters can take place, should therefore be increasingly offered to students undergoing a sojourn experience.…”

“…In a climate where HE institutions are under increasing pressure to document and demonstrate educational value (Salisbury, An, and Pascarella 2013; Quinlan 2014), investigating the impact and outcomes of academic study sojourns abroad will become increasingly important (Lederman 2007). Whether or not international students experience a 'successful' sojourn is typically measured in the academic literature in terms of academic achievement or degree of adaptation to the host environment (Ward, Bochner, and Furnham 2001;Young and Schartner 2014). IC, on the other hand, is less frequently used as an indicator for 'success' and most evidence of the positive impact of study abroad on IC remains anecdotal (Paige, Cohen, and Shively 2004;Salisbury, An, and Pascarella 2013).…”

“…The vast majority of respondents were female, mirroring the gender bias in this group and previous cohorts (cf. Wright and Schartner 2013;Young and Schartner 2014). Most respondents came from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the main sending country of international students to the UK (UKCISA 2015).…”

“…Nonetheless, IC is increasingly conceived as a student outcome of the 'internationalisation' of HE as universities strive to prepare their students for work and life in a globalised world (Knight 2004). In light of an increasingly diversified student population, and the growing popularity of study sojourns abroad, learning objectives for students now often go beyond academic content (Pedersen 2010), and both universities and employers are increasingly recognising the importance of IC as a graduate attribute (Young and Schartner 2014). Thus, HE institutions are gradually seeking ways to enable all students, whether internationally mobile or not, to achieve a global perspective and intercultural awareness, reflected for example in the 'internationalisation at home' 2 efforts of many universities in the UK.…”