Psychological and socio-cultural adaptation and experience of international students in Hong Kong universities

To be successful, international students must adapt psychologically and socio-culturally to their host context. This research, funded by Hong Kong research grant committee, is grounded in cross-cultural psychology (Shiraev & Levy, 2010), and present insights into the psychological and behavioral variations of individual international students as they adapt to study in an Asian context — Hong Kong universities. The purposes are to find out those factors that affect the psychological and sociocultural adaptation of those international students. In addition it explores the level and effect of contact between non-local students and local students and international students’ views of social and institutional support with regard to their adaptation. In this presentation, preliminary findings based on both quantitative and qualitative data collected from six UGC-funded local universities in Hong Kong will be reported, with a special focus on international students’ psychological and sociocultural adaptation and their interactions with local students. Copyright © 2016 IACCP.