A Cross-cultural Adaptation Study Of Indonesian International Students In SISU, Shanghai

With the irresistible momentum of globalization, cross-cultural research has beenregarded as a field of prominent significance. As an important topic for the field,cross-cultural adaptation attracts more and more attention from researchers recently.The impetus of globalization unfolds itself not only in economic, political, and otheraspects but also in education, which is the main focus of the present study.This paper addresses the topic of cross-cultural adaptation of international studentswho are seen as an indispensable component concerning people relocating in terms oftheir large number and increasing trend. To minimize variables and ensure theresearch’s reliability and validity of the project, the author focused this research on aspecific context--Indonesian international students learning in Shanghai InternationalStudies University (short for SISU), Shanghai, China.By reviewing cross-cultural adaptation theories of different renownedresearchers in this field, the author finally grounds her research on Colleen Ward’sacculturation theory. Quantitative methods are adopted for this study.This research is conducted on60participants from Indonesia. Several specificanalysis procedures used in SPSS include descriptive statistic, correlation andANOVA. Attempts are made to provide answers with high reliability and validity tothe research questions. With all the items evaluated in the questionnaire, findings canbe stated as the following:(1) Both sociocultural and psychological variables basedon Colleen Ward’s theories exert influence on respondents’ cross-cultural adaptationduring their study and stay in SISU, Shanghai, China.(2) Factors of importancecorrelate with each other in complicated ways mainly including positive and negativeones. Based on the project, the respondents in SISU manifest good cross-culturaladaptation.(3) Suggestions are offered to SISU international program to help thestudents to achieve a better-off adaptation performance in the future, for instancemore opportunities to expose to social interaction, more concerns on psychologicalproblems, course design on Chinese culture, and stay time prolonged in SISU. Inanalyzing the current cross-cultural adaptation situation of the respondents, Suggestions are also provided to improve international student adaptation outcomeson Chinese university content.The soul of this project was to obtain a panoramic perspective on cross-culturaladaptation about Indonesian international students in SISU, hoping to improve theircross-cultural adaption and help them face all the challenges caused by culturaldisparities.