A Research On Intercultural Adaptation Of The Visiting Scholars In Hebei Province

The visiting scholars in Hebei province are leading figures in their academia, beingfunded by the government to conduct academic exchange in prestigious universities,scientific research institutions and multinational companies in western countries. Withgreat innovation ability and development potential in various fields, they have becomethe backbone of the economic construction and social development of Hebei province.Therefore, an understanding on their situation of the intercultural adaptation during theiracademic exchange period is becoming ever more important. The study is to examinewhether they could adapt to the host cultural environment and integrate into the hostcountry to conduct academic exchange and scientific research. The research outcome hasboth theoretical value and social significance. Theoretically, the study will broaden theresearch fields of the intercultural adaptation theory. It will promote the original theory’sapplication in culture and the localization of the intercultural adaptation theory will beaccelerated. Practically, the research could be applied to intercultural adaptation training.Some suggestions to minimize the visiting scholars’ discomfort and shorten theiradaptation period will be concluded and will be a reference for the visiting scholars toprepare for their promising exchange period. The study of adaptation theory has alwaysbeen to serve the needs of society and politics.By reviewing intercultural adaptation theories of different researchers in academia,the paper finally grounds the research on Colleen Ward’s acculturation theory andBerry’s Model. Quantitative method, in forms of questionnaire, is mainly adopted for thestudy, with in-depth interview as the supplemental method. This research is conducted on128participants from Hebei province. SPSS is used in the statistical analysis procedures,which includes descriptive statistic, correlation and ANOVA. Attempts are made toprovide answers to the research questions with high reliability. With all the itemsevaluated in the questionnaire and the answers in the interview, major findings could beconcluded. Based on the project, the visiting scholars of Hebei province manifest goodintercultural adaptation performance. As a special group with high-educated background,the visiting scholars have their unique characteristics in the intercultural adaptation. Theirpsychological adaptation is better than that of social adaptation. Moreover, they presentspecial characteristics of intercultural adaptation on gender, educational background andintercultural adaptation stages, which are opposite to the hypothesis. The reasons thatcause their inadaptation are complicated. Above all, the insufficiency of interculturaladaptation knowledge and competence is the most important one. Besides, the influentialfactors cover the age, culture distance, personality and mores. Based on the outcome ofstatistical analysis, the intercultural adaptation training measures, including the contents,training methods, and some notes, are explored to help the visiting scholars to face theirchallenges and to achieve a better-off intercultural adaptation performance.