The relationship between culture shock and social support on international students.

摘要

In a preliminary qualitative study conducted by this researcher, social support emerged as an important positive variable in the international students' transition into the United States. In light of the limited empirical research on culture shock and the findings of the preliminary qualitative study, the following research questions were examined in this study: (1) Is there a correlation between culture shock and: (a) socio-emotional support or (b) instrumental support? (2) Is there a difference in culture shock level for males and females? (3) What are the values of culture shock by ethnicity? (4) What are the values of culture shock by English proficiency? (5) What are the values of social support by English proficiency?;International students who volunteered to participate in the study completed the following instruments: the Culture Shock Questionnaire (Mumford, 1998), the Index of Sojourner Social Support (ISSS---Ong & Ward, 2005), and a demographic form. Descriptive statistics, t tests, correlation analyses, and a Main Effects ANOVA model were calculated for the data of 224 participants. All variables of social support and of culture shock were found to be negatively correlated, suggesting that international students who experience higher levels of culture shock are likely not to have a good social support system in place. There was no significant gender difference found within culture shock values, which may be explained by the directions of the differences between male and female scores for the two culture shock subscales (e.g., core culture shock and interpersonal stress). Black/Caribbean/African international students were the ethnic group with the highest mean for culture shock scores, but the sample of students of this ethnicity was too small to ensure sound generalizability. International students who identified their English levels as advanced presented both the lowest mean for culture shock and the highest level of social support in the study sample. Finally, gender and English proficiency appeared as variables that significantly impacted interpersonal stress, while English proficiency was found to significantly influence culture shock.