A study of the influence of communication apprehension and communication competence on Chinese students' adjustment in two universities of Ohi

Higher education researchers have studied foreign students' adjustment problems for a long time and interpersonal communication researchers have realized the importance of communication apprehension and communication competence. Unfortunately, previous research on communication apprehension and communication competence did not place much emphasis on foreign student adjustment problems.;In this study, communication apprehension and communication competence were used as independent variables to predict foreign students' major adjustment problems: academic adjustment, social adjustment, and English language proficiency. Additionally, in the control analysis four items of personal data were used to examine the confounding relationship with foreign students' adjustment problems: length of time studying in the United States, sex, marital status and TOEFL score.;Four instruments were used to operationalize the two communication constructs: communication apprehension and communication competence. Two adjustment constructs were used: perceived academic adjustment and perceived social adjustment. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and an univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test hypotheses. The Pearson correlation was used to examine the relationship of demographic data, major adjustment constructs and communication constructs.;Results from 160 subjects sampled from Chinese students at two universities in Ohio indicate that both perceived academic and social adjustment problems are significantly greater for high communication apprehensives than for low communication apprehensives. Perceived social adjustment problems are significantly lower for high communication competent students than for low communication competent students. Additionally, in the control analysis, only length of time studying in the United States and martial status were related to major adjustment problems and communication competence. Longer stays were associated with fewer adjustment problems and higher communication competence. Married students reported fewer problems and higher communication competence than did single students. It would be instructive to compare results of future studies using student population from different groups or different countries with the findings of this study.