An Empirical Study On Cross-cultural Adaptation In Short-term Overseas Study Programs

Since the beginning of 20^th century,studies on cross-cultural adaptation have sustained more than a hundred years,but short-term cross-cultural adaptation studies are ignored.Domestic researches on the cross-cultural adaptation only shed light on foreign students'adaptation in China,few consider Chinese students'adaptation abroad.The investigation on students'cross-cultural adaptation in short-term overseas study programs is almost blank.Therefore,evaluate Chinese students'cross-cultural adaptation and put forward specific suggestions are needed.The research objectives of this study are to investigate cross-cultural adaptation status of DUT?Dalian University of Technology?students in short-term overseas study programs,and the inter-relationship between psychological adaptation and sociocultural adaptation.The present study is based on Ward's A,B,Cs model of acculturation,uses AMOS 21.0 the factor analysis,SPSS 22.0 the descriptive analysis,correlation,linear regression,and GLM-Univariate ANOVA investigate 160 participants from DUT short-term overseas study programs.The results suggest that cross-cultural adaptation status of the 160 participants are at medium and high levels.Among the subscales of cross-cultural adaptation,participants'psychological adaptation differs from behavioral adaptation significantly.Students'behavioral adaptation is better than their psychological adaptation significantly and it acts as the best predictor of cross-cultural adaptation.The results also show that behavioral adaptation has positive high correlation with cognitive adaptation,and positive moderate correlation with psychological adaptation,furthermore,behavioral adaptation is proven has the intermediary effect on psychological adaptation and cognitive adaptation.The last,the results of ANOVA show that both students'foreign language proficiency and educational background have significant impact on their cross-cultural adaptation.Students with advanced level language proficiency adapt significantly better than primary level.Moreover,at the psychological adaptation scale,undergraduate students report better adaptation than postgraduate students.The present study not only brings to light the cross-cultural adaptation status of DUT students in the short-terms overseas study programs through this empirical research but also testifies the moderate correlation between psychological and sociocultural adaptation.Furthermore,this study reveals the intermediary effect of behavioral adaptation on psychological and cognitive adaptation,and also the salient impact of foreign language proficiency and educational background on participants'cross-cultural adaptation.Therefore,the present study testifies and extends Ward's A,B,Cs model of acculturation.Combining with the previous literature,new findings of the present study are discussed theoretically and practically.And specific suggestions for students'intercultural training before departure are presented in this dissertation.