| Despite a growing literature regarding both the social self-efficacy and the cross-cultural adjustment of international students, an integration of research in these two areas is still not yet well developed. Given concern over this lack of integration and interest in understanding the nature of the adjustment process of international students, this present study endeavored to explore the role of social self-efficacy in the process of cross-cultural adjustment for Chinese international students. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to seek to examine whether there is a discrepancy in the levels of social self-efficacy in different language settings for Chinese international students. Also, the relationships between social self-efficacy in different language settings and other constructs, such as acculturation stress, global self-esteem, and English proficiency, would be examined. Other hypotheses examining the predicting relationships between these variables would be discussed in this study as well for applications in intervening.; The sample of participants consisted of 203 Chinese international students who were mainly recruited from the Ohio State University. There were four measures administered in this study: the scale of Perceived Social Self-Efficacy, the Unconditional Self-Regard Scale, the Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students, and a Demographic Questionnaire, which contained three questions regarding English proficiency. A t-test was utilized to examine the differences between the two different social self-efficacies when participants speak in Chinese versus English. Next, correlational analyses were employed to examine hypotheses regarding the relationships among all the variables, including social self-efficacy in different language settings, global self-esteem, acculturation stress, and English proficiency. Finally, hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the predicting relationships among these above variables.; Several important findings have been evident in this study. First, Chinese international students reported different levels of social self-efficacy in different language settings. That is, they perceived a significantly higher social self-efficacy in Chinese interactional setting than in English setting. Secondly, English social self-efficacy is the major resource in influencing international students' adjustment outcomes. That is, a higher level of social self-efficacy will predict a lower level of acculturation stress. Third, both the cognitive (social self-esteem) and affective (global self-esteem) parts of an individual contribute to the psychological adjustment outcomes, such as acculturation stress, in an essential fashion. Finally, variables like English proficiency and the length of residency in the USA have indirect influence on acculturation stress through social self-efficacy. That is, social self-efficacy is the mediator for the predicted relationships. |
