The Influence Of Goal-Orientation And Self-Efficacy On International Students Cultural Adjustment In China

In this study,the goal orientation theory was discussed to the study of cross-cultural adjustment for the international students who come to study in China.The fact that some expatriates adjust more quickly and easily than others is self-evident,but the reasons for differences in cross-cultural adaptation are not.With the expansion of globalization and the rapid development of China's economy,the number of international students that come to China to study is increasing.Therefore,the question of their cultural adaptation remains very important.This research answers the following research question: What factors or characteristic influences the level of international students' sociocultural and psychological adjustment in a new cultural environment? In order to answer this question in our research work,we investigated the relationship between learning goal orientation,self-efficacy,to their sociocultural and psychological adjustment.We proposed a positive effect of learning goal orientation with sociocultural adjustment and a mediation role of self-efficacy between these two research variables.Also,the learning goal orientation had a slightly positive impact towards psychological adjustment.At the same time,this research suggests moderation role of perceived culture distance that foreign students' have in their minds when they enter the new host country between self-efficacy and sociocultural adjustment relationship.To empirically test our hypotheses,we created and distributed two rounds of the questionnaire survey and collected survey data from 125 international students from 36 different countries studying in China.Factor analysis result demonstrated a two-factor structure of the goal orientation scale developed by Button,Mathieu,and Zajac(Organ.Behavior Human Decision Process.67(1996)26).Data was collected from different universities and business schools.All participants were full-time Bachelor's,Master's or Doctor's degree students or were enrolled for language courses at their universities.Participants were majoring in architecture,finance,management,international business,economics,biomedical engineering and Chinese language studies.Regression analysis result indicated that hypothesis on positive relation between learning goal orientation,self-efficacy,and sociocultural adjustment.It also indicated a negative moderation effect of perceived culture distance that proved to have a weakening impact on the relation between self-efficacy and sociocultural adjustment.We also found a slightly positive relation between learning goal orientation and psychological adjustment.We discussed the results as well as study limitations and direction for future research in the last chapters.