Title Page

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 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................4

BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................5

METHODS......................................................................................................................................................5

AMY ERNSTES: ARE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT MOTIVATED TO STUDY ABROAD FOR PERSONAL FULFILLMENT?...............19
Motivational influences for study abroad ............................................................................................20
Research Questions..............................................................................................................................23
Choice of Major....................................................................................................................................26
Idea of Success......................................................................................................................................26
Deviations.............................................................................................................................................27
Correlations .........................................................................................................................................31
Qualitative Findings.............................................................................................................................32
Limitations of Findings.........................................................................................................................35
NAILAH MCDOWELL: A LOOK AT TIME PERSPECTIVES AS IT RELATES TO PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS IN THE LIVES OF
BOTH IMMIGRANT AND SOJOURNER COLLEGE STUDENTS .....................................................................................43
Stress.....................................................................................................................................................45
ANDERSON BEAN FEAR: A STUDY OF CITIZEN AND NON-CITIZEN STUDENTS AT UNCG.......................................50
Fear of crime among international students .......................................................................................50
BRIAN BOYLSTON: CHOICE OF MAJOR AS INDIVIDUAL VS. SOCIAL PROGRESS.........................................................57
Literature Review..................................................................................................................................57
Statistics................................................................................................................................................59
MANDY IRELAND BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION ON THE SOCIAL NETWORKS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS..................79
LINDSAY LEVIS ALCOHOL USAGE IN COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTS...............................................................................89
MATT HODLER INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ EXTRA-CURRICULAR INVOLVEMENT AT UNCG CAN LEAD TO EXTENDED
SOCIAL NETWORKS.........................................................................................................................................99
Findings.............................................................................................................................................104
EMILY MUNSON CULTURAL ADJUSTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AND EATING HABITS.................................113
Does marital status, age, and academic status have an effect on the acculturation level of the student
as evidenced by a proficiency in English?..........................................................................................115
SARETHA LAVARNWAY A STUDY OF COLLECTIVIST BEHAVIORS AND THE DESIRE TO PARTICIPATE IN EXTREME SPORTS. .120
ELIZA BLAKEHOW DO RACE AND CITIZENSHIP STATUS RELATE TO INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCE OF
DISCRIMINATION
IN THE UNITED STATES?................................................................................................................................132

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MATT HODLER INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ EXTRA-CURRICULAR INVOLVEMENT AT UNCG CAN LEAD TO EXTENDED
SOCIAL NETWORKS.......................................................................................................................................160
JOYCE CLAPP HOW DOES RELIGION AFFECT ACCULTURATION FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS?..................................173

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Introduction
The intent of the School and Social Relationships Study is to gather general information on
UNCG students as well as to test hypotheses regarding the following topics: (1) differential
response rates based on individualism vs. collectivism scores (and thus the implementation of
two types of appeal letter: one appealing to personal preferences and the other to social
obligation); (2) the role of social support networks in determining university selection and
future plans, and (3) factors influencing choice of major/ changes in major. The project will
also provide the students of Sociology 616 Advanced Research Methods an opportunity to
learn the methods of survey research while assisting in an actual research project.

Data will be collected via an online survey. The survey will take approximately 15 to 20
minutes to complete. E-mail solicitation will be sent to students inviting participation in an
online survey. Students will be randomly assigned one of two types of e-mail solicitations
(appeals). One solicitation is designed to appeal to personal preferences (PP) and the other
to social obligation (SO). Individuals in the PP group will receive a personalized report of their
Individualism vs. Collectivism scores via e-mail at the conclusion of the study. This report will
contain an interpretation on how these characteristics may affect social relationships. Those
students randomly selected for the SO group will only receive aggregated statistics about the
UNCG student population via e-mail at the conclusion of the study. There are no other
benefits to individuals from the study. Information obtained from the study will allow
researchers to (1) better tailor appeals or solicitations to populations based on their cultural
characteristics of individualism/collectivism, (2) better understand how social support
networks influence university selection for domestic and internal students; (3) better
understand how social support networks influence future plans, and (4) identify which factors
influence choice of major/ changes in major. The attached survey instrument (used in a
previous version of the project at Arizona State University, 2001) is in the process of being
modified for the UNCG population. The final version of the survey will be submitted in a
modification form to this IRB by 26 Feb 2007. The survey will be fielded between March 12
and 26, 2007. Data, including e-mail addresses, country of origin, immigration status, year of
study, major, date of birth, sex, and nationality, will be provided by the Office of Institutional
Research. All students under the age of 18 years will be removed from the dataset.
Approximately 1443 students will be included in the mailing sample. This sample will be

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comprised of 287 international students (F1/F2, J1/J2 visas), 434 foreign born students
(resident aliens), and 722 native-born or naturalized students (US Citizens) as selected using
a proportional random sample of all students not included in the foreign population. Before
completing the online survey, respondents will be directed to read the online consent form
(attached: versions PP – personal preference and SO-social obligation). They will then click
on “I AGREE” before continuing to the login page and survey questions. On the consent
page, participants are directed to print a copy of the consent form for their records. At the end
of the survey they will also be offered a downloadable (PDF) copy of the consent and contact
information. There are no foreseeable physical or psychological risks from completion of the
online survey. All respondents will be assigned random numerical identifiers. Only the PI will
have access to the key code file kept in a password protected computer in a locked campus
office. Online data is encrypted on a secure server. Research assistants will sign
confidentiality agreements, have attend the UNCG IRB training, and will only be allowed
access to the anonymized dataset for analysis. All data is kept on a secure computer with
password protection in a locked campus office. Data will be kept indefinitely for comparison to
previous and future studies.

Background

Methods
The quantitative portion of this analysis involved surveying the population of students at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). Much of the survey tool had been
developed as part of an on-going study being conducted on international students by faculty
members of UNCG and other institutions. To provide the opportunity of application, the study
was integrated into a graduate sociology methods course.

Students in the course contributed to the make-up of the survey tool with the addition of
questions related to their own individual hypotheses. E-mail was utilized to solicit information
from the population. Several rounds of an e-mail including a link to the survey tool were sent
to the population of 15,950 students.

As an additional component to the study, the students in the methods course conducted a
total of twelve interviews with international students. A sample of potential interviewees was
drawn from the population of UNCG students. They were identified on the basis of their status

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as international students and their willingness to offer more time to the study, as indicated by
responses to the quantitative survey questions.

The interview tool was developed by students in the methods course who developed
questions to explore their hypotheses. The following three questions (and additional probes
which could be used) were utilized to explore the motivations which led these students to the
decision to study abroad:

Limitations

A limitation to the design of any study is the lack of foresight, inevitably creating retrospective
possibilities for improvement. Compounding this limitation to the quantitative and qualitative
components of the study was the relative inexperience of the students involved in the
development of the survey and interview tools. As a result, the aim to solicit certain
information was not always fulfilled. In some cases, the information sought was not truly
useful to testing the hypothesis investigated. For the qualitative portion, interview questions
did not always yield the type of responses they were intended to solicit. The interviewers’ lack
of familiarity with the intent of other students’ questions doubly impacted this impediment. The
effect of these limitations will be discussed in the following section.

Methodology

The data used in this project were collected through both survey methods and through semi-
structured interviews. The interviews were not used directly in the hypothesis testing, but
were used to enrich and inform the quantitative results found in the survey data.

The third International Student Survey was conducted during March and April 2007. A
randomly selected sample of citizens, and all non-citizen students, attending UNC-G were
invited to participate in a survey which involved a variety of topics, including questions on
social relations from primary investigators at other universities and research topics of interest
to the sociology graduate-level research methods class. The class not only contributed topics
but wrote their own questions and pre-tested the survey. The survey was presented to the
sample as a web-based survey. The resulting data were analyzed with and the hypothesis
tested with SPSS.

From the respondents to the survey, persons were culled who had stated that they would be
interested in participating in follow-up activities of twenty minutes or longer. From there,
persons were randomly chosen and assigned, one per student in the class, for a follow-up

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interview. If the chosen participant did not respond to interview requests, a substitute was
randomly chosen. Interviews were conducted according to an interview schedule constructed
by the class, but interviewers had the flexibility to probe as needed and to conduct the
interview in a conversational tone, rather than as a structured interview. Interviews were
transcribed by each interviewer and submitted to the class for analysis. This researcher used
Atlas TI to analyze the results.

The quantitative data gained through the initial survey was limited by the small sample size; of
the 2040 students sampled, only 339 responded, giving a response rate of about 16.6%.
Furthermore, the present research in particular examined only international students, of which
there were 100. This is a rather small sample size, so the results, while interesting, should
also be approached with caution. Also, the survey submitted to the sample was not as
detailed as it could have been. A group effort, it queried students on a wide variety of
subjects; the questioning on each particular subject was not as detailed as it could have been
due to length issues. Compromises had to be made over question wording, and some
questions combined that would have been better off being left separate. Again, while the
survey yielded interesting results, they should be viewed as preliminary and the basis for
further research, not an end in themselves.

The qualitative data gained through the interviews was limited in that the sample size was
even smaller (12 interviews total). Furthermore, all of the students involved in the
interviewing were graduate students, and self-selected in that, as already stated, not all of the
students ultimately interviewed were the first selected; some were replacements when
subjects initially selected did not respond to requests for an interview. Thus, these were the
students most interested in expressing their views to an interviewer, and most willing to do so.
While this does not diminish what they had to say, it does bring into question what sorts of
data would be collected from the students who refused to be interviewed.

Findings

Quantitative Findings

Table 1: General Descriptive Statistics

UNCG Non-
Population Respondents Respondents
N 15953 339 1757

Sex
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Male 31.7% 25.4% 37.1%
Female 68.3% 74.6% 62.9%

Average Age 26.1* 28.5* 26.2*

Citizenry
US Citizen 95.8% 70.5% 66.2%
Resident Alien 2.5% 14.5% 20.6%
Non-Resident
Alien 1.7% 15.0% 13.1%

Level in School
Graduate 23.4% 39.8% 26.2%
Undergraduate 76.6% 60.2% 73.8%

Ethnicity
Asian 4.0% 13.9% 16.1%
Black 18.8% 8.8% 17.6%
Hispanic 2.2% 6.5% 5.0%
Native American 0.5% 2.1% 0.5%
Other 4.7% 7.1% 7.1%
White 69.1% 59.6% 53.2%
No answer 0.8% 0.3% 0.7%
Arab/Near
Not included 1.8% Not included
Eastern

* Approximate average age, based on year of birth, not month and day.
In this research project, the researchers were fortunate. For most studies, one has to
estimate population characteristics, but in this case, the population was the student body of
UNC-G. Thus, some information was available about the population was available from the
University.

The population consisted of 15953 students, of which 95.8% were U.S. citizens, 2.5% were
resident aliens, and 1.7% were non-resident aliens. The population was 68.3% female, and
31.7% male. Graduate students formed 23.4% of the population, while 76.6% were
undergraduates. Asian students amounted to 4.0% of the UNC-G population, while 18.8%
students reported being black, 2.2% reported being Hispanic, 0.5% reported being Native
American, 69.1% reported being white, and 4.7% students reported their ethnicity as “other.”

There were 1757 non-respondents, of which 66.2% were U.S. citizens, 20.6% were resident
aliens, and 13.1% were non-resident aliens. The population was 62.9% female, and 37.1%
male, with 26.2% graduate students and 73.8% undergraduates. Asians made up 16.1% of
the population, while 17.6% reported being black, 5.0% reported being Hispanic, 0.5%

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reported being Native American, 53.2% reported being white, and 7.1% reported being
“other”.

Finally, there were 339 respondents. Of those, 70.5% were citizens of the United States,
14.5% were resident aliens, and 15.0% were non-resident aliens. Graduate students made
up 39.8% of the respondents, and undergraduates, 60.2%. The respondents were 25.4%
male and 74.6% female. Finally, 8.8% were African-American, 59.6% were White (Non-
Hispanic), 1.8% were Arabic, 13.9% were Asian, 6.5% were Hispanic/Latino, 2.1% were
Native American/American Indian, and 7.1% reported as their ethnicity “other”; one person did
not answer the question.

How representative are these respondents of the population? They are more female than the
population; they are slightly older, and graduate students are vastly overrepresented when
compared to the population. They are also more international than the population, but this
was intentional in the sample design; this also means that nonwhite ethnic groups have a
higher representation in the group of respondents than in the population.

The 15,950 students at a university in a medium-sized Southeastern city make up the

population for our study. A former women’s college, the school retains a predominantly-
female (68.3%) student body. The race breakdown is 69.1% white, 18.8% black, 4.0% Asian,
5.4% other, and 2.2% Hispanic, .5% Native American. The age range is approximately 18 to
77 years, the mean age is 26, and half the students are younger than 23 years old. About
three-quarters (76.6%) of the students are enrolled as undergraduates, and the vast majority
(95.8%) are US citizens. Of the 4.2% of the population that are not US citizens, non-resident
aliens constitute 1.7% of the population, and resident aliens, 2.5%.
Our 2041-person sample largely reflects the population in terms of sex, age, and
university undergraduate-graduate status: the sample students are 64.6% women (see
appendix page 25), they have a mean age of 26 and half of them are under 23 (appendix
page 28), and 72% are enrolled as under-graduates (appendix page 29). To compare ages
of the graduates and under-graduates in the sample, we use the independent samples t-test
for equality of means to show a mean age of 23 years for the undergraduates and 33 for the
graduates. With a two-tailed significance level of .000 (t = -22.826), we would expect little or
no possibility that the difference between our sample groups would not be reflected in the
larger population. We have evidence that we could expect an age difference between
undergraduates and graduates in the population (see appendix page 30).

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The major ways that the sample differs from the population derive from deliberate
manipulations. Because our population of interest is international students, we weighted the
sample to include a sizable minority of non-US-citizens, and this over-representation affected
the sample’s composition in terms of both race and citizenship status. The sample contains
13.1% non-resident aliens and 19.5% resident aliens (appendix pages 31-32), and, regarding
race, it is 54.6% white, 16.6% black, 15.5% Asian, 7.9% other, 4.9% Hispanic, and .5% Native
American (appendix pages 26-27).
Students’ e-mail addresses were obtained from data provided by the university’s
Information Technology (IT) department. The IT data included contact information as well as
some basic demographic information on all students enrolled at the university. We were thus
able to be sure that all of the students we sampled had the Internet and email access required
to receive our requests and participate in the first phase of the study, the online survey. Via
email, we asked for students to participate in an online survey that we called “School and
Social Relationships.” The email included a link to the survey website and explained that the
survey was voluntary, entailed little or no risk of harm to participants, and might yield benefits
(either individually via a report about participants’ scores on some items, or collectively, via
research positively impacting student groups to which they belong).
The survey addressed a variety of domains, including educational and career planning;
social and family ties; race/ethnicity as well as national identity; stress, fear, and
discrimination experiences; and demographic information. Survey items were compiled by a
team of researchers, each individually investigating a particular angle of international student
life and submitting items corresponding to that research angle. The survey also included a
mechanism for participants to indicate willingness to participate in the second phase of the
project, involving an interview. Following survey data collection, research team members
contacted interview candidates from the list of survey respondents who had indicated their
willingness to participate in the interview phase of the project. Team members met with
interviewees for in-person, one-on-one interviews to explore survey topics in greater detail
and depth.
The survey items that I contributed were questions 21-23, for international students
only, about identifiability as a non-American, and question 119, for all students, about
discrimination experiences. Questions 21-23 involve identifiability by language and
appearance, as follows: (Q21) “Americans can usually identify me as non-American by my
appearance,” (Q22) “Americans can usually identify me as a non-American by my accent or
speech patterns,” and (Q23) “Americans do not always understand my spoken English.”
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Answer choices were arranged on a 1-5 Likert-type scale, with (1) corresponding to “strongly
disagree” and (5) to “strongly agree.” These items are intended to measure participants’
subjective assessment of whether the Americans that they meet typically appear to perceive
them, by appearance or speech, as being non-citizens in the U.S. Combining these three
items, I constructed a 13-point index scale that I will call “identifiability as non-American,”
which I recomputed from its original 3-15 scale to a more intuitive 0-12 scoring scale. As
such, the lowest possible score of zero would indicate low or no identifiability, and the highest
possible score of 12 would indicate the highest identifiability.
The reliability of the index can be assessed as very good, with a Cronbach’s alpha
score of .9, which, being so close to 1.0, tells us that the three original survey items hang
together as an index in a conceptually-related manner. The inter-item correlations are also
high, but not so high as to indicate that the different items were actually measuring the same
things. Questions 22 and 23, which both relate to spoken English, with a correlation
coefficient of .839, relate to one another most strongly. Questions 21 (about appearance) and
22 (about accent) correlate at .805, and questions 21 and 23 (about English proficiency)
correlate at .732. All of this tell us that these three items are strongly-enough related to justify
combining them into an index, but nuanced enough to justify their separation into more than
one item.
Question 119 involves students’ perception of discrimination, and reads as follows:
(Q119) “Since coming to [this university], I have been treated unfairly because of my skin
color, race, ethnicity, or nationality.” Answer choices were arranged on the same Likert scale,
with (1) corresponding to “strongly disagree” and (5) to “strongly agree.” These items are
intended to measure the participants’ subjective assessment of experiences of discrimination
on the basis of race, ethnicity, and/or national origin.
As with the survey construction, the interview questionnaire was compiled of items that
individual team members contributed according to their particular research questions.
Following the interviews, researchers transcribed their audio-recordings and distributed text
copies to the rest of the research team, allowing each individual researcher to excerpt, code,
and analyze the segments that pertained to his or her particular investigation. My interview
question set (section XII, “Discrimination,” full wording available in appendix on page 33), like
my survey question 119, aims to investigate experiences of discrimination, but in more depth
than is possible with a survey. The placement of section XII in the questionnaire immediately
prior to a section addressing fear, crime, and safety (appendix page 33) did much to enhance
thematic flow by linking seemingly-disparate topics with their common dimensions of
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unwanted, anxiety-provoking experiences and the potential accompanying sense of
vulnerability, alienation, and injustice.1
One design goal in the construction of this question set was to avoid alerting
interviewees to the concept under investigation (discrimination). This attempt at neutrality
was intended to optimize interviewee accuracy in selecting and evaluating for themselves
their own accounts of the experience of being non-American in the US. By avoiding explicitly
loaded terminology (such as “discrimination,” “racism,” or “prejudice”), and instead providing
operational indicators (such as asking about settings in which discrimination is likely but by no
means inevitable), I had hoped to elicit spontaneous discussion of how their status as non-
American – and often non-white – impacts their experience of student life in mainstream
America.2 However, in the final stage of questionnaire revision, it escaped my notice that the
inclusion of the section heading title, “Discrimination,” would prompt interviewers (myself
included) to boldly announce the topic to the interviewee as a transition before asking the
carefully-constructed questions. Such is life: we live, we learn.
The 338 students who responded to the online survey differed from the sample and the
population in some ways. At 74.6% of the respondents, women are overrepresented
(appendix page 25); the non-respondent group (62.6% female) basically reflects the sex
make-up of the sample (64.6% female). Relative to the sample as a whole, Asians and
blacks are underrepresented (to differing degrees) among our respondents, whereas whites,
Hispanics, and others are somewhat overrepresented (to about the same degree) (Appendix
pages 26-27). In age, the nonrespondents share general similarities with the population and
the sample: they have a mean age of 26, and half of them are under 23. The respondents,
however, are on the whole a good two years older, with a mean age of 28 and half of them
aged 25 or older (appendix page 28).
In terms of university status (undergraduate versus graduate), the respondent group
percentage split is 60-40 undergraduates-to-graduates, whereas the nonrespondent group is
split 74-26 (similar to the sample split of 72-28); graduate students, then, are over-
represented among our respondents (see appendix, page 6). US citizens are a bit
overrepresented in the respondent group, and resident aliens are somewhat

1
The pairing of the “Discrimination” and “Fear” sections in the questionnaire order may have been partially
responsible for prompting some interviewees to link up ideas, relating their socially-marginal status (non-
American and non-white) to a sense of being objectified and thus potentially vulnerable to criminal harassment,
solicitation and assault.
2
Although question wording such as “How do Americans normally treat you?” does contain subtle implications of
cross-national relations and differential treatment, it lacks an expectation that such treatment would be negative
or unwarranted.
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underrepresented among the respondents, relative to the non-respondent group, which
resembled the sample3 (see appendix pages 31-32). Some slight overrepresentation in the
respondent group notwithstanding, non-resident aliens are fairly evenly represented across
the groups: they make up 14.8% of the respondent group, 12.7% of the nonrespondent
group, and 13.1% of the sample.
Taken together, these differences suggest that sample members’ self-selection for
inclusion in the study may have been influenced positively by factors associated with being
female, older, or American, or by race self-identification as white, Hispanic, or “other.” It is
noteworthy that the participants differ from the sample’s non-respondents in non-random
ways, and we will keep this in mind as we consider our findings.

Following are a the findings made by students of Advanced Research Methods from their
analysis of the survey and follow-up interviews with select students.

The population consists of the 15,950 University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG)
students. The mean age for these students was 26.18 years. The most frequent response
was 20 years, with half of the population falling under 23 years of age.

As per the charted information on the previous page, 68.3% were female (N=10897), 69.1%
were white (N=11,020), and 76.6% were undergraduate students (N=12,216). The top ten
most frequently reported majors are detailed in the chart; 5.3% (N=841) were undecided.
Although it was a variable of interest, origin country was not included in this discussion due to
the overriding majority of missing responses (accounting for over 98% of the population).

There were 2,041 respondents, leaving 13,909 non-respondents. The information in the left
column represents non-respondents and that in the right column represents respondents.

Slight differences existed between the two groups. The average age of respondents was 26.6
years, approximately half of a year older than non-respondents.

Although there were more females than males in both groups [64.6% (N=1319) of
respondents were female; 68.9% (N=9578) of non-respondents were female], there was a
greater percentage of females in the group of non-respondents.

3
US citizens make up 71% of the respondent group but only 67% of the sample and of the non-respondent
group, and resident aliens make up 14% versus approximately 20% of the sample and of the nonrespondent
group (see appendix pages 7-8 for tables).
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There were more white students, than any other ethnic group, in both groups. The percentage
of Asian, Hispanic, Native American and “other” students was higher in the group of
respondents, as compared to the group of non-respondents.

The list of top ten majors for respondents and non-respondents was the same, with the
exception of “human and family development” which tied as the tenth most frequent major for
respondents. Of respondents, 5.6% (N=114) had a major in business administration as
compared with only 3% of non-respondents with a major in business administration.

This paper attempts to analyze data from an online survey of international and domestic
students at UNCG close to mid-way through the Spring semester of 2007. It is based on an
original International Student Surveys (ISS#1 conducted in 1999/200 and ISS #2 in 200/2001)
used to gather info and test hypotheses based on their social characteristics. As outlined in
the syllabus for this project the online questionnaire covered five areas: (1) basic
demographic information, (2) students major concerns in their choice of major, (3) future
plans for academic study in the U.S., (4) career aspirations in the U.S. and (5) information on
the social support networks that lead students to choose a particular university and may
facilitate the transition to permanent settlement in the U.S. The total population characteristic
included a universe of 15950 of which 2041 were solicited by e-mail to participate, of that
16.6% (N=339) responded.

The survey consisted of 198 questions generally consisting of demographic, Likert scale,
yes/no, and acknowledgement of participation in clubs/sports as well as questions concerning
participation in the survey. The semi-structured interview included a self-selected sample of
survey respondents and asked a host of questions on background info, selection of UNCG
and reason to study abroad, what the respondent hoped to gain in the short term and long
term, did respondent apply to any other study program, why they chose to come to UNCG in
particular, what clubs/sports activities they participated in, culture, stress, ideas of beauty,
religion, individual versus social progress, discrimination, fears, drinking habits, decision
making processes and any concluding remarks.

The survey was limited in that females were overrepresented (74.6%), most respondents
were U.S. citizens (70.5%) largely from central NC and just over half (51.6%) of respondents,
although not surprising, were between 19-25. The skewed representation of female to male I
believe may be the most problematic limitation. Although for historical reasons individual
progress for women could be seen as gender- social progress, I believe it may still be, if

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proportional numbers of males were include in the data, largely couched in those sentiments
where males orientation toward individual progress maybe, although not necessarily, one
where they retain a somewhat atavistic sense of primary economic bread winner as being
progress both individually and socially.

A couple notable limitations of the interview were that is was given once therefore no test-
retest evaluation of discrepancies could be ascertained. Also this was my first interview and I
jumped ahead a few questions thinking I was keeping with the flow of the interview I actually
ended up forgetting to ask some questions most notably ones actually related to my
hypothesis. As noted in class there was a range of interview documentation that suggests
some kind of inter-rater measure may be useful for future data use.

Findings for Survey: Respondents were primarily undergraduate students (60.2%, N=204)
with most of these being first year undergraduates (19.8%, N=67) although second and third
year undergrads were closely and roughly equal with 15.3% (N=52) and 15.9 % (N=54)
respectively. There were considerably more female respondents than male (74.6%, N=253
compared to 25.4%, N=86). The online survey assessed respondents race/ethnicity through
five main categories of Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, White as well as the more
open/combinational generic category of Other. Respondents were primarily White (61.9%,
N=210). Minority students were primarily Asian and Black (12.7%, N=43 and 10.6%, N=36
respectively) with the categories of Other and Hispanic filling out most of the rest at 8.0%
(N=27) and 5.6% (N=19) respectively. Native American survey participants were negligible
at .9% (N=3). Most of the respondents were U.S. citizens (70.5%, N=239) and the rest were
nearly equally divided among resident and non-resident alien citizenship classification (14.5%
and 15.0% respectively). Age of respondents ranged from 19-69 with just over half (51.6%)
being 25 and less with 87.3% being 40 and less.

Non-Respondents were on average younger than respondents (26.2yrs, N=1694 compared to

28.6 yrs., N=347). This can in part be accounted that 39.2% of respondents were graduate
students compared to 25.3% being non-respondents. Non-Respondents were also more likely
to be male (37.5% compared to 25.1% of respondents). Among minority students blacks were
most likely to be non-respondents (17.7%) just over Asian non-respondents (16.1%).
Resident Aliens were more likely to be non-respondents at 20.7% with 14.1% responding.
With U.S. citizen and Non-Resident Aliens respondents made up a greater percentage
(70.6% and 15.3% respectively) compared to non- respondents at 66.6% and 12.7%
respectively.
15
 Title
The population of interest to the International Student Survey consisted of 15950
undergraduate and graduate students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The
mean age of a student in the population was 26 years old with 20 years old being the most
frequent age reported. Graduate students made up 23.4% of the student population while
undergraduate students accounted for the remaining 76.6%. Females made up the
overwhelming majority of the students in the total population, accounting for 68.3% with males
making up the remainder (31.7%). Of the three residency status’ (U.S. citizen, resident alien
and non-resident alien) U.S. citizens were the majority group (95.8%) with resident aliens
following with 2.5% and non-resident aliens being the least popular group making up only
1.7% of the students surveyed. Of the 15950 students in our sample, the two most frequent
majors were Undecided (5.3%) and Biology (4.4%). Some of the least frequent majors
represented were Education Supervision, Health Management, and Joint Human
Development Family Studies. There were six ethnicity categories, of those White was the
most frequent (69.1%) and Native American was the rarest (0.5%). Overall, 39 countries
were represented in our total population.

Of the 2041 students who received our survey 347 students responded, giving us a
17% response rate. Of the 347 respondents the mean age was 28.6 years old with 20 years
old being the most frequent age reported. The majority of respondents reported studying at
the undergraduate level (60.8%) while the remaining 39.2% are studying at the graduate
level. Females made up 74.9% of the respondents while males accounted for 25.1%. Of the
three levels of residency status, the majority of respondents reported being U.S citizens
(70.6%) while non-resident aliens were the least frequent (14.1%). White was the most
frequently reported ethnicity (61.4%) while Native American was the least reported at 0.4%.
Undecided (5.3%) was the most popular major reported by our respondents while such
majors as Conflict Resolution, Women’s and Gender studies, and Pre-marketing were a few
of the least represented (0.3%). Of the 347 respondents, the top five countries represented
were Unknown Nation (n=21), Taiwan (n=4), Japan (n=4), India (n=2), and China (n=3). It
should be noted that the Unknown Nation choice was located directly above the USA choice
in a drop down box. I would venture to guess that our respondents accidentally hit the
incorrect choice while meaning to mark USA. Overall, by comparing the characteristics of the
respondents to those of the total population it can be shown that our respondents provide a
representative sample for us to analyze.

16
 Title
The remaining 1694 students were classified as non-respondents. The average age of
the non-respondent group was 26.2 years old with 20 years of age being the most frequent
age reported. 25.3% of non respondents were graduate students while undergraduates
accounted for the remaining 74.7%. Similar to our total population and respondent
characteristics, females (62.5%) made up the majority of our non-respondents while males
were the minority with 37.5%. Of the 1694 non-respondents, U.S citizen was the most
frequent residency status (66.6%), resident aliens made up 20.7% of this group, and the
remaining 12.7% are reported as non-resident aliens. Of the six ethnicity categories, the
majority of non-respondents were white (53.2%) while only 0.4% reported being of Native
American ethnicity. The most frequent major among the non-respondents was Undecided
(5.9%) while other majors such as Interior Design and Education Supervision were so
infrequent that they accounted for 0.0% of the non-respondents. The top five countries
represented in the non-respondent group were Unknown Nation (n=94), China (n=18),
Germany (n=9), India (n=17), and The Republic of Korea (n=20).

17
 UNCG Sample Respondents Non-
Populatio Respondents
n
N 15950 2041 347 1694

Age (Mean) 26.2 yrs 26.6 yrs 28.6 yrs 26.2 yrs
Male 31.7% 35.4% 25.1% 37.5%
Female 68.3% 64.6% 74.9% 62.5%

White 69.1% 54.6% 61.4% 53.2%

Black 18.8% 16.6% 11.2% 17.7%
Other 4.7% 7.2% 8.4% 7.0%
Asian 4.0% 15.5% 12.4% 16.1%
Hispanic 2.2% 4.9% 5.5% 4.8%
Native American 0.5% 50.0% 0.9% 0.4%

First Year Undergraduate 27.8% 26.0% 19.6% 27.3%

Fourth Year Undergraduate 10.9% 11.0% 8.6% 11.5%
Second Year Undergraduate 18.9% 17.1% 15.3% 17.4%
Third Year Undergraduate 17.8% 16.8% 15.9% 17.0%
Unclassified Undergraduate 1.5% 1.6% 1.4% 1.6%
Graduate 23.1% 27.6% 39.2% 25.3%

US Citizen 98.0% 67.3% 70.6% 66.6%

Resident Alien 2.5% 19.5% 14.1% 20.7%
Non-Resident Alien 1.7% 13.1% 15.3% 12.7%
Table 1 - Demographic Characteristics Summary (Population, Sample, Respondents,
and Non-Respondents)

18
Amy Ernstes: Are international student motivated to study abroad for personal
fulfillment?
As a matter of determining a suitable consequence, a verdict will often be rendered in
accordance with intent. In a postmodern world, where rules are subjective, at best, this
calculation yields the basis for understanding the outcome of action. Although the media’s
role as a true reflector of culture can be debated, one need only to glance through the popular
headlines to affirm the usage of and intrigue surrounding intent.

The recent school shooting at Virginia Tech. sparked controversy over the motivation of the
killer. From dissection of his mind set, environment and family life, to the ever-popularly given
influences of violent video games, music and movies, a spotlight was cast on motive. Yet,
emphasis on motive is not only present in tragedies. Its mystery also surrounds the beneficent
acts of such people as Mother Theresa, Malcolm X and Bill Gates, and is a popular theme of
tabloid gossip.

As a mirror reflecting the deepest corners of the mind, motivation is the root to any discussion
about human behavior. Motivation is a gauge at the individual level and the societal level. It is
used on a daily basis to measure the actions of co-workers, family and friends, but can also
function philosophically or sociologically to deconstruct the operations of collective realms
such as politics or religion.

This same post-modern existence which has erased the straightforward rules for
understanding time and space (and thus, intensified the intrigue of motivation) has also paved
way for unique expressions of their interplay. One phenomenon created is the ability to study
abroad. It is one providing layers of analysis full of psychological, sociological and
anthropological potential. It extends the possibility of cultural immersion to group beyond
researchers and scientists. It creates the possibility for a somewhat symbolic, but also very
real, conversation held across countries between cultures. Through their decision to study
abroad, international students come to represent their countries in this dialogue. Their
experience will inevitably transform this representation, and their identities, bringing to light
fascinating facets of discussion on such topics as assimilation and adaptation. Bringing
motivation to the focus of this concept provides the framework for such subsequent
discussion. Begun as an exploration into the motivation behind the decision to study abroad,
and without previous knowledge to inform its development, this study tests the hypothesis that
international students are motivated to study abroad by personal fulfillment.
19
Motivational influences for study abroad
The following articles informed exploration into the hypothesis that international students are
motivated to study abroad by reasons related to personal happiness/interest.

To explore the motivational influences for study abroad, Habu (2000) conducted a qualitative
study based on interviews with 25 Japanese women studying abroad in Britain. The women
reported coming to Britain for many reasons, including "the pursuit of greater freedom and
self-development, dissatisfaction with domestic education options, escaping from social
pressures, and achieving cosmopolitan status" (p. 52). Economic reasons, however, were not
commonly cited as a motivator. The author links this finding to the typically short work lives of
Japanese women, to the career paths of women in Japan not necessarily being dependent on
qualifications, and a common theme for these women being motivated by cultural freedom as
opposed to economic advancement. It is also suggested that the higher citation of personal
fulfillment instead of economic reasons as a motivator may be linked with the higher socio-
economic status of respondents’ country of origin.

However, most interviewees initially reported motivation for studying abroad as stemming
from the pursuit of academic and professional goals or as a way to escape perceived
restraints of the Japanese culture (with younger women tending to cite the former reason and
older women tending to cite the latter). Author suggests that the greater social desirability of
the former reason (goals) accounts for its greater initial citation, as compared with the latter
reason (escape), which tended to be a more latent, unraveling and/or implied theme. The
possibility is posed that underlying motivations may have to do with specific constraints based
on gender (such as arranged marriages). Author concludes that the educational goals of
these women studying abroad had less to do with economic reasons and more to do with a
sense of personal self-fulfillment.

Kemp & Madden (1998) conducted surveys with 746 students enrolled in secondary and
higher education institutions in Indonesia and Taiwan. The authors sought information
regarding the students’ desire/intent to study abroad. Most of the sample indicated that they
plan their study abroad to be personally financed or financially supported by family (76%). A
smaller number reported the expectation to receive scholarships or government aid (although
this was truer for the Indonesian than Taiwanese students).

Receiving advanced qualifications and having an interest in Western culture were indicated
as top motivators for interest in study abroad. A binary logit model was used to assess the
20
probability of study abroad for this sample; results suggested that study overseas is more
likely for male students and for those to whom family funding is available. Perception of better
educational opportunities abroad, and a necessity to understand Western culture both
increase the likelihood of over-seas study.

Educational quality was found to influence the students' choice of destination; results indicate
this factor influencing students to choose the U.S. as a destination over Australia. Easy
access to information regarding U.S. educational programs, and the presence of
friends/family in the U.S. also increased the likelihood of U.S. as a destination. On the other
hand, government administration of education in Australia influenced this country as a
destination over the U.S. For those students planning on studying outside of the U.S. or
Australia, proximity to the home country and perceived level of safety influenced these
decisions. Absence of racial discrimination was also a factor for those students intending to
travel outside of these two destinations.

Snippe & Jochems (1995) surveyed sixty-three (44% of) foreign students studying at the Delft
University of Technology, located in the Netherlands, during the 2003-2004 school year.
Interested in exploring the motivations of study abroad, the authors expected results to
include the perceived benefit of a foreign-based education (as opposed to that offered in the
home country), the restriction of admission to home-based institutions and possible refugee
status.

Fifty-nine percent of the students reported choosing to study abroad based on personal
motivators (including the presence of family and friends at destination and the intention to
escape a negative economic/political environment). In comparison, only 8% reported the
"internationalization of education" as a factor (including the perception of a more worthy
degree and to "broaden personal cultural horizons"). Sixteen percent indicated immigration as
a motivator, indicating plans to remain in the Netherlands upon the completion of the study
abroad program. The motivational factors for 33% of the sample remained unknown.

Authors Sutama & Lu (2003) utilize themselves as research subjects and take an
autobiographical, qualitative approach to analyzing the motivations and consequences of
studying abroad. As two women migrants from India and China, respectively, they utilize their
own experiences to explore these factors, as well these factors' link to sense of personal
identity and the concept of transnationalism. The autobiographies were restricted to the time
period upon arrival to Toronto, Canada, to the first trip home and ensuing return to Toronto.

21
Both women felt that the decision to migrate was one whose roots pre-dated determination to
study abroad; cultural factors were highlighted as important to creation of the path leading to
their ultimate travels. The women experienced an ambivalent package of emotions about
migration. One theme was the fear for a potential loss or change of identity, but also the worry
of being seen as an outsider in the new setting.

Electronic media played a large role for both women in maintaining contact with the culture
and people of their native countries. Differing levels of contact affected the "balancing acts"
utilized by each woman in response to the shared experience of developing multiple
identities. They ultimately suggest that the relationship between identity and transnational
acts is of an evolving nature, with each playing upon the other and context/place being an
influential component of this relationship.

Thus, in regards to motivation for study abroad, this article highlights the influence of personal
attributes (developed before the actual decision) and cultural factors. It also implies the
advancement of technology as a possible influential role as it allows for maintaining
connection to home country.

Fontaine (2005) researched motivation for international travel based on the assumption that
this factor determines following satisfaction with and adjustment to life in a new country. A
total of 255 individuals were surveyed, including: 107 Asian and American undergraduate
students who had at some point participated in a study abroad program; 90 Asian and 26
American students representing two graduate cross-cultural management programs; and 32
managers for multinational institutions located in Asia.

Results indicated that the following motivations ranked highest for effecting the variance of
this sample (beginning with the most influential): presence-seeking (being aware of context/
having a heightened sense of reality), exploring, recreation, job/career, collector/consumer
and family stability. A MANOVA test indicated that the strongest motivator was exploring,
followed by recreation, presence-seeking, collector/consumer and family stability.

For the motivator of presence-seeking, graduate management students ranked highest, with
the other group ranking lowest. For the motivator of recreation, undergraduate students
ranked highest, graduate students next highest and managers lowest. For the motivator of
job/career, managers ranked highest, undergraduate students lowest and graduate students
in between the two. For the collector/consumer motivator, Asian graduate students ranked
highest with the managers, American graduate and all undergraduate students ranking
22
lowest. For the explorer motivator, no differences existed between the groups, as this was the
highest ranking motivator for each.

Thus, the results of this study suggest that personal reasons (to explore a new place or for
recreation) as opposed to professional reasons (educational/career advancement) were more
likely to have influenced these students to study abroad in the Netherlands. Furthermore,
students were much more likely to express these personal motivators in comparison with
managerial respondents. Results additionally suggest that ethnicity and level of education
may influence type of motivation.

Article 1 found that a sample of Japanese women studying in Britain reported cultural and
personal motivators more frequently than economic motivators. It concludes that the socio-
economic status of origin country, age and gender may have played a role in the responses
given. Article 2 reported the prime motivators for Taiwanese and Indonesian students
planning on future study abroad as the desire for advanced qualifications and an interest in
U.S. culture. The authors suggest gender and the socio-economic status of the student and
his/her family as influencing the pattern of these findings.

Article 3 reported the prime motivators of the engineering students surveyed to be more
personal in nature as opposed to related to economic reasons or professional advancement.
It also highlighted an ultimate plan to continue residence in the United States as a factor. In
article 4, the experiences of two women, one from India and one from China, reveal the
influence of personal characteristics, in turn developed as the result of their home cultures.
Article 5 found that the sample of students studying abroad in the Netherlands were more
likely to cite personal reasons (to explore a new place or for recreation) as opposed to
professional reasons (educational/career advancement) as motivators. Ethnicity and level of
education when undertaking study abroad may play a role in type of motivation.

Research Questions
To explore the motivation behind the decision of international students to study abroad, a set
of six questions was included. Respondents were asked to express their level of agreement
with the following statements. They had the option to: strongly disagree, disagree, neither
agree or disagree, agree, or strongly agree.

• I am pursuing my major because it has high future potential earnings.

• I am pursuing my major because I want to improve society for the benefit of all.
• I am pursuing my major because I am interested in the topic.
23
 • My idea of success is to have high earnings.
• My idea of success is positively contributing to society for the benefit of all.
• My idea of success is to be happy.

The questions comprise two sets: those concerning major pursuit and those concerning idea
of success. Each set contains a response based on one of three themes: high earnings,
societal improvement/benefit and personal interest/happiness.

As demonstrated in the literature review, many studies on the motivation of study abroad pit
the themes of personal and economic reasons against one another. Three of the five reported
were focused on this comparison. In the present study’s questionnaire, the themes of high
earnings and personal interest/happiness were intended to provide the ability to make a
similar analysis. The theme of societal improvement/benefit was also included so as to
provide another facet for comparison.

Questions on pursuit of major choice were intended to reveal a parallel to the respondents’
ultimate motivation for studying abroad. As education is central to the experience of study
abroad, exploring respondents’ decision to pursue a particular major provides insight into the
motivations which fuel respondents’ choices. Questions on idea of success were similarly
intended to reveal where respondents’ priorities lay, and thus what is likely to influence their
decisions.

Interviews were also conducted with select international students as a way to add depth to the

survey data. The interviews included the following questions:

• What was the reason you chose to study abroad?

o what first interested you in studying abroad? did you become interested on
your own or through family/friends/others?
o what did/do you hope to gain (in both the short & long term)?
o did/do you hope to gain: educationally, professionally (as related to future
career goals), personally, etc.?

24
 Female Male Female Male Fem ale Male
High N % N % Improve N % N % Interest N % N %
Earnings society
Agree 10 50 8 50 Agree 5 25 6 37.5 Agree 6 30 6 37.5
Strongly 0 0 2 13 Strongly 6 30 6 37.5 Strongly 12 60 8 50
Agree Agree Agree
Total 10 50 10 63 Total 11 55 12 75 Total 18 90 14 87.5

High Earnings N % Improve N % Interest N %

Society
Agree 18 50 Agree 11 30.6 Agree 12 33.3
Strongly Agree 2 5.6 Strongly Agree 12 33.3 Strongly Agree 20 55.6
Total 20 55.6 Total 23 63.9 Total 32 88.9

o do you hope to achieve any particular goals while studying abroad?

• Why did you choose to study abroad in the United States?
o did you have an interest in studying anywhere else?
o did you apply to any other study abroad programs? if so, what interested you
in those countries?
o what are common attitudes about the United States in your native country?
did these attitudes influence your decision? if so, how?
• What do you feel you have gained from your study abroad experience so far?
o have you gained: educationally, professionally, personally, socially
(expansion of social network)?
o has your experience met your expectations? have you been able to meet
any goals you had set? has your experience been different than what you
expected?
o what do you feel will be most valuable about your experience so far?

The first question asks about motivation in a straightforward manner. The second is based on
the suggestion from the literature review that destination country may relate to the motivation
for studying abroad. Question three was intended to indirectly present the opportunity to
reveal or elaborate on motivators. The interviews were recorded and for subsequent
transcription. These transcriptions provided the content for the qualitative portion of this
analysis.

Female Male Female Male Female Male

High N % N % Contribute N % N % Happiness N % N %
Earnings to Society
Agree 4 21.1 7 47 Agree 10 53 7 46.7 Agree 9 47.4 5 33.3
Strongly 0 0 2 13 Strongly 4 21 5 33.3 Strongly 9 47.4 9 60
Agree Agree Agree
Total 4 21.1 9 60 Total 14 74 12 80 Total 18 94.8 14 93.3

25
Choice of Major
Respondents were asked a series of three questions regarding their reasons for pursuing
their majors. While 88.9% (N=32) agreed or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major
because of interest in the topic, only 55.6% (N=20) agreed or strongly agreed that they had
chosen their major for the potential of high future earnings. Similarly, only 63.9% (N=23)
agreed or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major because they wanted to improve
society for the benefit of all.

Ninety percent (N=18) of female respondents and 87.5% (N=18) of males agreed or strongly
agreed that they had chosen their major because of interest in the topic. While 63% (N=10) of
males agreed or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major for the potential of high
future earnings, only 50% (N=10) of females did. Similarly, while 75% (N=12) of males agreed
or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major because they wanted to improve society
for the benefit of all, only 55% (N=11) of females did.

Thus, more females (than males) agreed or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major
because they wanted to improve society for the benefit of all or because of interest in the
topic. More males (than females) agreed or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major
for the potential high earnings.

Idea of Success
Respondents were also asked a series of three questions regarding their idea of success.
While 94.1% (N=32) agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is to be happy, only
38.3% (N=13) agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is having high earnings.

High Earnings N % Contribute to N % Happiness N %

Society
Agree 11 32.4 Agree 17 50 Agree 14 41.2
Strongly Agree 2 5.9 Strongly Agree 9 26.5 Strongly Agree 18 52.9
Total 13 38.3 Total 26 76.5 Total 32 94.1

Similarly, only 76.5% (N=26) agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is positively
contributing to society for the benefit of all.

Approximately 95% (N=18) of females and 93% (N=18) of males agreed or strongly agreed
that their idea of success is happiness. While 60% (N=9) of males agreed or strongly agreed
that their idea of success is to have high earnings, only 21.1% (N=4) of females did. Whereas

26
80% (N=12) of males agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is to positively
contribute to society for the benefit of all, only 74% (N=14) of females did.

Thus, more males (than females) agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is to
have high earnings or to positively contribute to society for the benefit of all. Less than one
percent more females (than males) agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is to
be happy. The basis of these findings can be found in the crosstabulations in Appendix A1.

Deviations
This section reports on the results of a crosstabulation of the responses. Of the 337
responses to the statement “I am pursuing my major because I am interested in the topic,”
319 (94.7%) expressed agreement or strong agreement. Eleven respondents expressed
neutrality (neither agreement of disagreement), three expressed disagreement and four
expressed strong disagreement in response to this statement.

Of the 336 responses to the statement “My idea of success is to be happy,” 336 (94%)
expressed agreement or strong agreement. Fifteen respondents expressed neutrality, four
expressed disagreement and one expressed strong disagreement. The following analyses
explore those responses which deviate from the general pattern of agreement and instead
expressed neutrality or disagreement. Major, ethnicity and age of deviating respondents are
discussed.

Major choice motivated by personal interest

The 11 respondents who expressed neutrality for this statement represent: 16.7% of
accounting majors, 7.7% of business administration majors, 50% of chemistry majors, 50% of
education res. methodology majors, 100% of marketing majors, 66.7% of pre-admit special
programs majors, 50% of pre-international business majors and 25% of recreation and parks
management majors in the sample.

The three respondents who expressed disagreement for the statement represent 16.7% of
accounting majors, 7.1% of English majors and 5% of respondents undecided on a major in
the sample. The four respondents who expressed strong disagreement for the statement
represent 50% of pre-finance majors, 20% of special programs majors, 9.1% of human
development and family studies majors and 7.1% of English majors in the sample.

Idea of success is happiness

27
The 15 respondents who expressed neutrality for this statement represent the following
majors: 100% of economics majors, 100% of religious studies majors, 50% of finance majors,
50% of liberal studies majors, 27.3% of human development and family studies majors, 25%
of pre-information systems majors, 20% of education of deaf children majors, 16.7% of
accounting majors, 16.7% of business administration majors, 12.5% of sociology majors,
11.1% of elementary education majors and 5% of respondents undecided on a major in the
sample.

The four respondents who expressed disagreement for the statement represent 20% of
recreation and parks management majors, 16.7% of music majors, 9.1% of human
development and family studies majors and 5% of respondents undecided on a major in the
sample. The sole respondent who expressed strong disagreement for the statement
represented 7.1% of English majors in the sample.

Ethnicity
The ethnic categories utilized for this analysis include Asian, black, Hispanic, Native
American, other and white. The 11 respondents who expressed neutrality for this statement
represent the following ethnic categories: 18.2% of Asian respondents, 11.5% of “other”
respondents, 2.8% of black respondents and 2.4% of white respondents. The three
respondents who expressed disagreement for the statement represent 5.6% of Hispanic
respondents, 2.3% of Asian respondents and .5% of white respondents. The four respondents
who expressed strong disagreement for the statement represent 5.6% of black respondents,
5.6% of Hispanic respondents .5% of white respondents.

Thus, 11.5% of “other” respondents, 11.2% of Hispanic respondents, 8.4% of black

respondents, 7% of Asian respondents and 3.4% of white respondents in the international
student sample did not express agreement with this statement. It may be that minority
students lack the “luxury” of pursuing a major based on personal interest and may, due to
institutional disadvantage, be more likely to be motivated by issues of practicality or finances.
Yet, this does not hold true for Native Americans who only expressed agreement, or strong
agreement, for this statement.

The 15 respondents who expressed neutrality for this statement represent the following ethnic
categories: 8.3% of black respondents, 7% of Asian respondents, 5.3% of Hispanic
respondents, 4% of “other” respondents and 3.3% of white respondents. The four
respondents who expressed disagreement and the one who expressed strong disagreement

28
with this statement were all white and respectively represented 1.9% and .5% of this ethnic
category.

Thus, 8.3% of black respondents, 7% of Asian respondents, 5.7% of white respondents, 5.3%
of Hispanic respondents 4% of “other” respondents in the international student sample did not
express agreement with this statements.

Age Group
While the ages of 11 respondents who expressed neutrality for this statement spanned over
most of the age groups, those who disagreed were all 35 years old or younger and those who
strongly disagreed were all 40 years old or younger. This suggests the possibility that the
younger respondents are, the more likely they are to disagree with this statement. Further, all
respondents in the greatest age category, 56 – 60. expressed strong agreement for this
statement. However, approximately 65% of the respondents in each category from 18 to 30
expressed strong agreement for this statement.

As with the previous statement, the ages of the respondents who expressed neutrality for this
statement spanned over most of the age groups. Those who disagreed were all 45 years old
or younger and the one respondent who strongly disagreed fell into the age group of 18 – 20.
Generally, it appears that the older a respondent is, the more likely he/she is to agree with
this statement.

Gender

Independent t tests were used to test the significance of gender on responses to the
questions pertaining to motivation for major choice and idea of success. Results show that
there is insufficient evidence to reject the null hypotheses that males and females express the
same degree of agreement for pursuit of major due to high future earnings (p=.28), to improve
society for the benefit of all (p=.48), or interest in the topic (p=.48). Thus, females and males
do not differ in their motivation for major choice due to these reasons.

There is insufficient evidence to reject the null hypotheses that males and females express
the same degree of agreement for the idea of success as positively contributing to the benefit
of all (p=.34) or as being happy (p=.61). Thus, females and males do not differ in their ideas
of success as defined in these ways.

There is sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis that males and females express the
same degree of agreement for the idea of success as having high earnings (p=.047). Thus,

29
the only statement towards which males and females do not respond in the same way is in
regards to success being defined by high earnings. To recap, 60% of males agreed or
strongly agreed to this statement, whereas only 21.1% of females did.

Citizenship Status

To test the hypothesis that international students are motivated to study abroad based on
reasons of personal happiness/fulfillment, the responses between the categories of citizen,
resident alien and non-resident alien have been compared.

The results of the one-way ANOVA are detailed in Appendix B. They showed little variation
among the three groups: citizen, resident alien and non-resident alien, in the degree of
agreement for the statement that pursuit of major is motivated by social improvement. On
average, resident aliens expressed the greatest degree of agreement and non-resident aliens
expressed the least degree of agreement. The degree of citizens’ agreement falls in the
middle of these two groups.

Little variation in the degree of agreement among the three groups also existed for the
statement that pursuit of major is motivated by personal interest. Citizens expressed the
greatest degree of agreement and resident aliens expressed the least degree of agreement.

Of the statements regarding motivation for major choice, the most variation amongst the
groups existed in the responses to the statement that pursuit of major is motivated by high
future potential earnings. This is the only statement among those related to major choice in
which the difference between groups was significant [F=4.71, p<.05). Resident aliens
expressed the greatest degree of agreement for this statement, non-resident aliens
expressed slightly less agreement and citizens expressed the least degree of agreement.

Thus, for the statements regarding choice of major, non-resident alien respondents expressed
the least degree of agreement for social benefit as a motivator; they expressed more
agreement than resident aliens, but less agreement than citizens for personal interest as a
motivator; and they expressed more agreement than citizens, but less agreement than
resident aliens for high earnings as a motivator. However, the only significant difference found
between the groups was in response to the statement of major choice due to high future
potential earnings.

The results of the one-way ANOVA are detailed in Appendix C. They showed little variation
among the three groups: citizen, resident alien and non-resident alien, in the degree of

30
agreement for the statement that personal success equals societal benefit. Citizens
expressed the greatest degree of agreement and resident aliens expressed the least degree
of agreement.

Little variation in the degree of agreement among the three groups also existed for the
statement that personal success equals personal happiness. Non-resident aliens expressed
the greatest degree of agreement, while citizens expressed the least degree of agreement.

Of the statements regarding motivation for major choice, the most variation amongst the
groups existed in the responses to the statement that personal success equals high earnings.
This is the only statement among those related to ideas of success in which the difference
between groups was significant (F=9.157, p<.05). Resident aliens expressed the greatest
degree of agreement for this statement and citizens expressed the least degree of
agreement.

Thus, for the statements regarding personal success, non-resident aliens expressed more
agreement than resident aliens, but less agreement than citizens for success as societal
benefit; they expressed the greatest degree of agreement for success as personal happiness;
and expressed more agreement than citizens, but less agreement than resident aliens for
success as high earnings. However, the only significant difference found between the groups
was in response to the statement that idea of success is to have high earnings.

Correlations

Major Choice

The following variables positively correlate with the pursuit of major based on high potential
earnings at the .01 significance level: agreement with the idea of success as based on
personal happiness, being male and belonging to an ethnic category other than white.

The following variables positively correlate with the pursuit of major based on societal benefit
at the .01 significance level: agreement with the idea of success as based on societal benefit
and agreement with the idea of success as based on personal happiness.

The following variables positively correlate with the pursuit of major based on personal
interest at the .01 significance level: agreement with the pursuit of major based on societal
benefit and agreement with the idea of success as based on personal happiness.

Idea of Success
31
The following variables positively correlate with the idea of success as equal to high earnings
at the .01 significance level: agreement with the idea of success as based on personal
happiness and belonging to an ethnic category other than white. Being male was also
positively correlated with this statement at the .05 significance level.

The following variables positively correlate with the idea of success as based on societal
benefit at the .01 significance level: agreement with the pursuit of major based on societal
benefit, agreement with the pursuit of major based on personal interest, agreement with the
idea of success as based on personal happiness and being male.

The idea of success as based on personal happiness shares a positive correlation (at the .01
significance level) with every statement regarding pursuit of major (as based on high
earnings, societal benefit and personal interest) as well the remaining two statements
regarding ideas of success (as based on high earnings and societal benefit).The idea of
success as based on personal happiness also shares a positive correlation (at the .05
significance level) with age group.

Qualitative Findings
Three main themes emerged in the responses to questions concerning motivation for
studying abroad. Themes consist of reasons related to (1) the pursuit of personal
happiness/interest, (2) perceived superiority of the U.S. educational system or opportunities
and (3) the influence of family moving to the United States. Although overlap existed and
several respondents cited more than one of these reasons, the predominant themes of
respondents’ answers are as follow:

Motivation N
Personal happiness/interest 6
Educational program 3
Family 3
Based on the literature review’s suggestion that gender is an influential factor in motivation,

the gender of respondents is included.

Family

Three respondents, two females and one male, expressed family as a prime motivator. One
female moved here at the same time her husband relocated to this country (Lavarn, 2007);

32
the other female stated that her parents suggested and encouraged studying abroad (Bean,
2007). The male respondent moved here as the result of his parents’ relocation to the United
States (Blake, 2007). Though these respondents ultimately made their own choice to relocate
and it could possibly be argued that their decisions were thus based on personal interest, the
pressure exerted through the circumstances of their choice suggest that this would be an
erroneous assumption to make.

Superior Educational Program/Professional Opportunities

Three respondents, two males and one female, expressed that the reputation of an
educational program acted as a prime motivator. Each expressed the perception that the
United States educational system held superiority over those in their native countries. One
male respondent discussed the prestige attached to a U.S. degree in his home country, Saudi
Arabia (Hodler, 2007).

The other initially responded that he came to the United States to work and that “the location
of the University was convenient because I happened to be working here” (Munson, 2007, p.
2). He elaborated on the low socio-economic status of his home province in Canada and said
that “generally people that have any kind of an education just leave because there aren’t
many decent jobs there” (Munson, 2007, p. 2). When asked about goals he intended to
achieve in the U.S., he did report the desire to attend school.

In addition to the reputation of the U.S. educational system, the female interviewee expressed
interest in a specific program (she was pursuing a special education major) with the goal of
being able to contribute to society (Boylston, 2007). Bean’s (2007) interviewee, who gave his
parents’ influence as his predominant motivator, also voiced preference for the United States
as a location based on educational reputation.

Personal Happiness/Interest

Six respondents expressed personal happiness/interest as a prime motivator. Five of the six
were female and all were interviewed by females. One respondent stated that she did not feel
as though she actually chose to study abroad, but rather, that the opportunity just presented
itself while visiting the U.S. as a tourist (Levis, 2007). Though the specific words were not
used, this response was categorized as a motivation of personal happiness/interest based on
the decision being made independently, without any stated outside influences or underlying
motives or goals.

33
Another respondent gave self-improvement as a motivation for studying abroad (Mcdowell,
2007). However, although he specified self-improvement as his primary motivator, it was
brought up after he had voiced the reputation of U.S. programs in his intended field.

One respondent explained that the chance to study deaf education in the U.S. gave her, as a
deaf person, the opportunity to study herself: to study and have the ability to “understand my
history, or my struggles, my life struggles, at the same time” (Clapp, 2007, p. 3).

Two of these respondents, both females from Japan, voiced the desire to leave a home
culture they did not feel they fit into. Referring to her home country, one interviewee
responded “I feel like I didn’t fit in that culture” (Ernstes, 2007). She expressed the
materialism in Japan and the “party mentality” prevalent in college students there as
incongruent with her desire to learn and better herself. The other respondent explained:
“School in Japan is like school in the military. I couldn’t handle it, no individuality. I couldn’t
express my opinions . . . When I was three . . . I even knew then that I didn’t belong in the
culture” (Turner, 2007, p. 3).

Four of the six respondents, all female, emphasized the desire to leave restrictive conditions
in their home countries and/or the attraction to the United States based on the perception of it
having a freer, more open culture. One respondent felt that the United States (except for,
possibly, parts of Florida and California) has a much more relaxed and less stressful cultural
environment (than Japan) (Ernstes, 2007). The others expressed this desire through the
following quotes:

“I thought the United States, uh, was freedom . . . in terms of gender” (Clapp, 2007, p.
5)

“US is a lot more open. I mean it gives you a lot more freedom to do things your own
way. In India, it’s a little bit harder, we are a democracy too, but it’s a little bit harder for
you to be an individual” (Ireland, 2007, p. 2)

“American people are more open-minded, casual, fun. Japanese people are uptight,
even in the classrooms” (Turner, 2007, p. 3)

Three of these respondents specified the perception of U.S. culture as allowing greater
equality between the sexes and greater opportunity for females. In a previous quote, one
respondent equated the U.S. to freedom from the restrictions of gender (Clapp, 2007).
Another expressed wanting to leave her home country (Japan) in order to avoid the
expectancy for young women to become a wives and mothers (Ernstes, 2007).
34
Although the third interviewee did not explicitly give this as a motivator for studying abroad,
her responses implicate this desire. She expresses gender inequality by stating that “the
whole family uses the same bath water” and that “the mother always goes last and the father
goes first. Then the first boy goes after the father” (Turner, 2007, p. 5-6). She goes on to
highlight the pressure, even at the governmental level, towards marriage: “A lot of young
women are choosing not to get married because it is more advantageous to not get married.
And the government is trying to change that. Single men are forming a club that teaches men
how to be more desirable” (Turner, 2007, p. 6). Elsewhere in the interview she emphasized
her disinterest in men and lack of feelings of attraction towards anyone.

Limitations of Findings
Several limitations threaten the representativeness of the samples. A limitation to the findings
of the quantitative study is the response rate. Although average, the response rate of 18.66%
threatens the sample’s representation of international students at UNCG. The small sample
size of 12 respondents was similarly a limitation of the qualitative analysis. Further
compacting the impediment of small sample size was the self-selection of participants. It is
likely that those who volunteered their time for both the survey and the interview comprised
homogenous subsets when compared with all international students at UNCG. The
interviewees, who were willing to denote greater time and energy to the study probably
shared even greater similarity.

Many of the study’s limitations involve the questions (or statements) utilized to explore the
hypothesis. One issue is whether the questions actually measured what was intended. A
possibly incorrect assumption was made in using the quantitative portion’s questions as a
gauge of motivation for study abroad. The findings regarding major choice and ideas of
success may not truly provide insight into the hypothesis. The survey instrument did not
include a question directly asking about motivation, which would have greatly expanded the
potential of subsequent findings.

The accuracy of findings is also a matter of the truthfulness of respondents. In regards to the
survey questions concerning picking major due to interest and seeing success as personal
happiness, the social acceptance (and even desirability) of these statements may have
influenced respondents to express agreement for them. This may explain why only a minority
of participants did not express agreement. This issue is also a matter of the wording of
questions.
35
Although the questions asked appear to abstain from leading respondents into a certain
answer, respondents may have felt pressured to give certain answers as a matter of social
desirability. This may be particularly true for the majority of interviewees who reported
motivation as based on personal happiness/interest. This possibility seems heightened in the
case of the male respondent (Mcdowell, 2007), who, although emphasized self-improvement
as his prime motivator, actually did so directly after his initial response of being attracted to
the reputation of a U.S. education. Thus, it is a limitation that without being privy to further
information, responses were categorized by the face value of the respondents’ statements. It
is also worth repeating that all responses given concerning personal happiness/interest were
given to female interviewers, a factor which may have further influenced the answers given.
Also, prior to this analysis, no clear-cut, operational definitions had been developed as a
means to categorize the qualitative information.

Conclusions

The quantitative analysis provides spotty support for the hypothesis that international students
are motivated to study abroad to fulfill personal happiness/interest. It found that international
students were no more or less likely than citizens or resident aliens to express personal
happiness/interest as a motivator. The comparison between these groups did not find a
significant difference in their response to the pair of questions designed to test this motivator.

In fact, citizens more frequently expressed agreement for personal interest as a motivator of
major choice. The groups only differed significantly in their agreement for the idea of success
as having high earnings; non-residential aliens more frequently expressed agreement for this
statement than citizens.

However, the qualitative analysis of the response of international students alone did appear to
support the hypothesis. In this analysis, half of the interviewees expressed personal
happiness/interest as a prime motivator for study abroad. This response held predominance
over the other two emerged themes: the attraction of a superior education and the influence
of family residing in, or moving to the United States.

The analyses further investigated the influence of level of school (undergraduate or graduate),
major, age, ethnicity and gender on motivation. Among these, gender appears to be the
variable with the greatest influence. This study yielded the least conclusive results on the
effect of school level, major and age. These effects were not always considered in the
interviews which did not all report respondents’ school level, major and age. Without this
36
information for all interviewees, exploration of these factors was limited to the quantitative
analysis.

Findings from this analysis did not produce any clear themes on the influence of school level,
major or age on motivation. Results yielded that more than 15% of respondents in the
following majors disagreed with major choice being motivated by interest: accounting and
special programs majors. More than 15% of respondents in the following majors disagreed
with idea of success as happiness: recreation and parks management. The crosstabulation
(Appendix) showed no significant relationship between school level or age and responses to
statements on major choice or idea of success.

In the analysis of the influence of ethnicity, it was found that those who did not express
agreement with interest as a motivator of major choice represent 11.5% of “other”
respondents, 11.2% of Hispanic respondents, 8.4% of black respondents, 7% of Asian
respondents and 3.4% of white respondents. It may be that minority students lack the “luxury”
of pursuing a major based on personal interest and may, due to institutional disadvantage, be
more likely to be motivated by issues of practicality or finances. Yet, this does not hold true for
Native Americans who only expressed agreement, or strong agreement, for this statement.
Those who did not express agreement with happiness as idea of success represent 8.3% of
black respondents, 7% of Asian respondents, 5.7% of white respondents, 5.3% of Hispanic
respondents, and 4% of “other” respondents. The crosstabulation matrix (Appendix) reveals
significance at the .01 level for a correlation between belonging to an ethnic category other
than white and agreement for the pursuit of major based on high potential earnings and
agreement for the idea of success as having high earnings.

The qualitative and quantitative analyses differ in their conclusions on the effect of
gender on motivation. Based on the qualitative sample, it appears that the hypothesis that
study abroad is motivated by personal happiness/interest holds truer for females than males.
Five (62.5%) of the eight female interviewees reported personal happiness/interest as a prime
motivation. Of those who answered with this response, five (83%) of the six were female.
Four of these five females specifically reported wanting to leave restrictive conditions in their
home countries.

Following this pattern, more female (than male) survey respondents agreed or strongly
agreed that they had chosen their major because of interest in the topic. Similarly, slightly

37
(less than one percent) more females agreed or strongly agreed that their idea of success is
to be happy. A summary of the responses broken down by gender follows:

More females agreed/strongly agreed to:

• pursuit of major due to interest
• pursuit of major due to societal benefit
• idea of success as happiness

More males agreed/strongly agreed to:

• pursuit of major due to high earnings
• idea of success as high earnings
• idea of success is contributing to society

However, results of the independent samples test found that females and males do not differ
in their motivation for major choice due to high future earnings, to improve society or to
interest. Further, the sexes did not differ in their idea of success as positively contributing to
the benefit of all or as being happy.

The only statement towards which males and females do not respond in the same way is in
regards to success being defined by high earnings. This influence of gender is confirmed in
the crosstabulation matrix (Appendix A) which revealed significance at the .05 level for a
correlation between being male and agreement for the idea of success as having high
earning. The matrix also showed significance at the .01 level for a correlation between being
male and pursuit of major based on high potential earnings and agreement for the idea of
success as based on societal benefit.

The hypothesis that international students are motivated to study abroad to fulfill personal
happiness/interest appears to find greater support in the qualitative portion of this study.
However, the more amorphous form of qualitative analysis creates a greater margin of error.
The greater liberty allowed with interpretation may account for the greater support found from
these results. Entering the analysis without previously established guidelines for the
categorization of responses exacerbated this potential. Categorizing the interviews based on
just one main theme, instead of respecting the overlapping complexity of the answers given
could have also skewed the findings. Thus, as a result of researcher bias and limitation, the
incongruent findings may be the result of over-estimating the support generated through the
interviews.

38
However, the discrepancy between the two sets of results may be a result of the survey and
the interviews measuring different information. While the interview solicited information
specific to the hypothesis, this was not true of the survey.

The failure of the survey findings to provide further support for the hypothesis could be due to
the omission of questions directly requesting a response on motivation for study abroad.
Because no such question was included, the coherency of the analysis rested on the
contingent assumption that major choice and ideas of success are logical indicators of
motivation, which may not be the case. Thus, further support in the quantitative portion may
have been found had more attention been given to the survey questions used. Though this
glaring limitation casts an unavoidable shadow upon the interpretation of the survey results,
the study was not a loss.

Although when compared against resident aliens and citizens, non-resident aliens were not
found to respond differently towards the questions intended to measure motivation, this does
not necessarily negate the viability of the hypothesis. Under the assumption that the
questions utilized actually measured what was intended, support for the hypothesis would be
found in non-resident aliens’ high rate of agreement with questions regarding personal
interest and happiness as motivators or ideals. Yet, in response to the two questions geared
towards the theme of happiness/interest, citizens actually expressed the greatest degree of
agreement for interest as a motivator of major choice. This does not necessarily reject the
hypothesis, it may just fail to lend it support.

Without assuming this findings’ ability to further comment on motivation in other contexts,
taken at face value it simply signify that citizens are more likely (than the other two groups) to
be motivated to choose a major based on interest. This does not mean, though, that
international students are not motivated to study abroad due to personal interest. At most, it
may only suggest the possibility that citizens are more motivated in their actions by interest.
Though this possibility may not support the hypothesis of this paper, it highlights other factors
of interest for study on its subject matter. It could be explained by the “luxury” afforded to
citizens who may be without the possible pressures on non-citizens whose educational plans
may be more focused or goal-oriented (which may account for the fact that citizens expressed
the least degree of agreement for high earnings as a motivator of major choice).

In this comparison non-resident aliens did, however, express the greatest degree of
agreement for success as related to personal happiness. Assuming that a person’s idea of

39
success parallels what operates to motivate them, this could offer support to the hypothesis.
Yet, the differences between the responses to this question and the others dealing with
personal happiness/interest were not significant.

The only difference found to be significant was response to idea of success as having high
earnings, to which non-resident aliens expressed more agreement for than citizens. This
suggests, in opposition to the hypothesis, that international students may actually be more
likely to be motivated by earnings than interest or happiness. This could inform the
development of potential future hypotheses, especially in light of the finding (although not
significant) that citizens more frequently expressed interest as a determinant of major choice,
it highlights But again, this measure based on success does not necessarily indicate
motivation for study abroad. The word “success” may have connoted particular
interpretations, and an assumption is required to hold definition of success as linked to
personal motivators.

When it came to the interviews, which did directly question motivation for study abroad, half of
the interviewees cited reasons of personal fulfillment as the main motivator for their study
abroad. In addition to the possibility that survey questions were not a valid measure of what
was intended, the strength of the qualitative findings may be heightened due to methodology.
As suggested in the literature review and discussed in the limitations of the findings, social
desirability may have influenced the initial responses of respondents and interviewees. The
interview as a tool of inquisition has greater ability to buffer this impediment as it allows
greater flexibility in response, including the opportunity for “hidden” answers to be revealed or
implied. Thus, the case could be made that the qualitative study would produce stronger
results. Of course, findings from the interviewees must be interpreted with the cautions
necessary to such a small sample size.

The qualitative component also appeared to lend more evidence to the analysis of influencing
factors on motivations. Although analysis of the survey responses did not find a significant
difference between female and male respondents to the questions, the qualitative findings
emphasized the frequent suggestion in the literature review that gender strongly influences
type of motivation. More of the females (62.5%) reported personal happiness/interest as
motivation for studying abroad than any other response. Females made up the majority (83%)
of respondents who reported this as prime motivator. Also a theme in the literature review,
this analysis found that most of the females who responded in this way (80%) further

40
elaborated wanting to study abroad in order to escape restrictive home cultures. Similarly,
(though not found to be significant) female survey respondents were more likely to report
pursuit of major due to interest and to perceive success as happiness.

On the other hand, of the interviewees who expressed educational or professional

opportunities as a main motivator, more were male (66.7%) than female. Perhaps a
compatible pattern, survey responses indicated that males were more likely to pursue major
due to potential high earnings and to view success as having high earnings. Thus, the
hypothesis may be more accurate for female international students than male. This possibility
also highlights other influential factors, such as home origin/country.

Unfortunately this analysis left much to be desired in terms of exploring such other factors.
Home country was one factor which appears to be important to the discussion of motivation
for study abroad. As suggested by the literature review and evidenced in the interviews,
culture appeared to play a large part in the decision to study abroad (especially for female
interviewees who expressed the desire to escape cultural restrictions). However, neither the
qualitative or quantitative studies broached this factor. Information on the home country of
respondents was lacking for both groups; it was missing for the majority (over 95%) of survey
respondents and was not a subject included in the interview tool.

Other factors such as age, major, ethnicity, and level in school were not fully assessed, as
this content was not present in every interview. With greater detail in the interviews and
greater time to spend on analysis, this component could have shed even further light onto the
hypothesis. Although these factors were analyzed in the quantitative component, no
predominant themes or significant findings emerged. They were not found to have significant
influence over the questions regarding pursuit of major and idea of success.

Significance was, however, found between belonging to an ethnic category other white and
pursuit of major based on high potential earnings and idea of success as having high
earnings, highlighting, again, the potential for exploration into this motive. Just as with the
possibility that citizens may be afforded the luxury of pursuing personal interest/happiness,
white students who may not face the same pressures and constraints as non-white students
may similarly experience the privilege of not feeling as much pressure towards the pursuit of
high earnings. Findings on ethnicity could have been greatly complemented by information on
home country.

41
The hypothesis received neither overwhelming support, nor evidence to reject it. The mixed
methodology provided an abundance of material to draw from, but perhaps at the risking the
possibility of a more thorough analysis. Although the qualitative component appeared to
generate support for the pursuit of studying abroad being motivated by personal fulfillment,
interpretation of its findings are limited by the small sample size.

While the quantitative portion provided insight, even if for the lack of significant findings, the
results of this analysis are faulted with imprecise measurements. The abstractness inherent to
such concepts as motivation/intent necessarily creates potential problems with definition.
Thus, future studies regarding motivation could benefit from the development of operational
definitions.

Under these caveats, both portions of the study did highlight the potential influence of gender
over motivation. The interviews particularly emphasized the possibility that the hypothesis
may hold more truth for female international students. Their decision to study abroad based
on escaping cultural constraints is an area worthy of further exploration. Of the survey
questions used, more significance was found in terms of those questions related to the
motivation of high earnings, another topic which seems significant to the motivation behind
study abroad and worthy of future investigation.

Future analysis would also be benefited by greater attention to additional factors. Origin
country, unfortunately unable to be included in this study, is a definite factor of interest. It is
likely that the international students’ home culture plays a role in determining his/her choice to
study abroad. Emphasized in the literature review, this influence was also a theme for
interviewees, particularly those who expressed personal fulfillment as a motive for study
abroad. It would also be of interest for other motivators of study abroad, such as those
seeking better educational opportunities than offered in their home countries. In this study,
age, school level, ethnicity, and major were explored without any conclusive results and could
also be useful for future analysis.

42
Nailah McDowell: A Look at Time Perspectives as it Relates to Psychological Stress in
the Lives of Both Immigrant and Sojourner College Students

Countless studies suggest that international college students often undergo high levels of
stress. The challenge of adjusting to a new cultural has been assessed in great lengths.
(Aubrey 1991; Chen 1999; Berry 2001; Dillard & Chisolm 1983; Eshel & Rosenthal-Sokolov
2001; Olivas & Li FIND DATE; Roccas, Horenczk, & Schwartz 2000; Smart & Smart, 2001;
Zahi 2002). From common sources of stress (Chen 1999) to issues of acculturation (Berry
2001), literature has explored numerous diverse indicators possessing the potential to impact
the psychological health of international students. This research however is devoted to one
possible factor in particular, intended length of residency within the host culture. As Eshel &
Rosenthal-Sokolov (2001:678) point out, the notable difference between sojourner and
immigrant students is their "time perspectives." This exploratory research will examine the
impact time perspectives has on the level of stress experienced among sojourner and
immigrant college students. The aim is to measure the variance of reported stress levels
between the two distinctive groups. Based on clear distinctions in the adjustment process of
immigrant students verses sojourner, it was hypothesized that levels of stress would be
greater in international/foreign born college students who intend on permanent residence in
the host culture when compared with that of international/foreign born college students with
temporary plans of residing in the host culture. The fundamental premise of this report is to
raise awareness regarding the differences in stress between immigrant and sojourner college
students in efforts to promote further research and increase social relations.

Understanding Stress in the Lives of Immigrant and Sojourner Students

The psychological adjustment many international/foreign born students undergo can best be
explained in a framework of stress and stress management (Ward & Chang 1997). According
to Smart & Smart (2001: 3) "Monat and Lazarus (1991) define stress as 'any event in which
environmental demands, internal demands, or both tax or exceed the adaptive resources of
an individual'." Empirical data also suggests that there are three components of stress,
"harm, threat, and challenge," (Chen 1999) all of which are contingent upon individual
assessment. Harm describes mental damage that has already taken place. This damage
has permeating effects on the self-concept, having the potential to be a long term affliction.

43
Threat involves the preconceived notion of harm that has yet to occur. Anticipation of threat
commonly produces feelings of anxiety. Challenge refers to the capability of utilizing effective
coping skills as they relate to taxing demands. (Chen 1999; Lazarus 1993). As a
conglomeration of outside forces (i.e. stressors), subjective perception, and intervening
coping methods, stress is considered a dynamic process. (Chen 1999; Lazarus 1993;
Lazarus and Folkman 1984).

The necessity to differentiate between psychological adjustment and sociocultural adaptation

is underscored by the above mentioned notion that stress is indicative of perception.
According to Ward & Chang (1997), the psychological health has to do with emotional well-
being. Hence life changes are recognized as affecting psychological adjustment. However,
sociocultural adaptation refers to the "ability to negotiate the host culture," involving attitudes
and behaviors of acculturation (Ward & Chang 1997: 526). Eshel & Rosenthal-Sokolov 2001)
contend that sociocultural adaptation is often influenced by the length of intended residency.
Whereas the immigrant student is attempting to build a life in a new culture, the sojourner's
residency is temporary. Therefore the sojourner may not fell as readily compelled to adjust as
the immigrant student (Berrry 2001).

The inter-relatedness between the two, psychological and sociocultural adjustment, is that
one is capable of affecting the other. In other words, mental health may be affected by
sociocultural adjustment. Therefore it is possible that the immigrant college student has a
different outlook on what may or may not be considered a potential harm, threat, or challenge
based on the desire of permanent residency. While this research does not imply uniformity of
personality or disregard for such impacting factors as origin and /or host culture, it does
suggest that the assessment of harm, threat, or challenge may be associated with intended
length of residency within the host culture (Ward & Chang 1997).

According to various studies there are at least three common potential stressors most
international students encounter: academic expectations (Aubrey 1991; Dillard & Chisolm
1983; Olivas & Li FIND DATE; Zahi 2002) language barriers (Chen 1999; Olivas & Li FIND
DATE; Zahi 2002) and sociocultural transitioning (Chen 1999; Olivas & Li DATE; Roccas,
Horenczyk, & Schwartz 2000; Zahi 2002; Berry 2001). Research shows that international
students in the United States have often ranked adjusting to the educational culture a main
transitional concern (Chen 1999; Dillard & Chisolm 1983). For example, international
students may be unfamiliar with classroom edict and find some behaviors distracting (Chen

44
1999). Many may expect to excel academically, however such things as anxiety from taking
test can inhibit success. Those that do not meet their expectations are likely to perceive
things in their lives as being "out of control" (Chen 1999, p. 52). (Aubrey 1991; Chen 1999).

Academic success is also interrelated with language proficiency. For those students with
language barriers simple interaction with members of the host culture may be considered a
threat. The inability to effectively communicate can engender mental harm, feeling
embarrassed and inadequate (Chen 1999; Olivas & Li DATE). Consequently, students may
seek to avoid such threat by decreasing social interactions with the host culture.

However, as a college student, avoidance of the host culture is usually minimal. Therefore
sociocultural stressors are shown to include alienation, as the international student may feel
socially isolated. Such psychological damage often permeates the self-concept and can have
lasting affects. Studies indicate that international students experience feelings of isolation
and alienation more often that host nationals. Other sociocultural considerations discussed
are finances and racial discrimination (Chen 1999).

While both groups, the immigrant and sojourner student, may encounter common potential
stressors (i.e. academic adjustment, language barriers, and sociocultural transitioning), their
perception on what is harmful, threatening, and/or challenging may be shaped by their
intended length of residency. In an attempt to test the impact time perspectives has on stress,
empirical data was collect from a sample of international/ foreign born student at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Stress
Quantitative data on reported levels of stress in immigrant as well as sojourner students are
examined. Included in the School and Social Relationships Online Survey are three questions
in particular that attempt to measure the students' stress levels. These questions were
modeled after questions appearing on the Ohio State University Medical Center Stress
Survey.

• Question 116 - In the last month, how often have you been upset because of
something that happened unexpectedly?"
• Question 117 - In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to
control the important things in your life?”
• Question 118 - In the last month, how often have you felt nervous or stressed?”

45
Stress was graded on a 5 point continuous scale (likert), such that "0" is an indication of no
stress and "4" represents extreme levels .
Population Stress
Overall, levels of stress appeared to be fairly low among the 338 students who responded to
the survey. When asked question 116: 3.8 valid percent responded “never” while 7.7 valid
percent responded “very often,” (mean= 2.12, mode= 2 & std. deviation= 0.945) When asked
question 117: 6.5 valid percent replied “never” while 15.0 percent replied “very often”
(mean= 1.99, mode = 2.00 & std. deviation = 1.079). However, the average score, 2.60 for
question 118 is the highest. While only 0.6 percent responded “never,” 33.9 percent
responded “very often.”

Immigrant Students Stress Levels

In order to effectively analysis this data, it was necessary to create a couple of indexes. The
first index combined resident aliens with non-residents thereby distinguishing international
students from American students. The second index of was created in order to determine
which international students have intentions of remaining in the host culture. The research
showed that out of 339(N) survey respondents 86(N) appeared to be immigrant students. The
average for question 117 is the lowest, 1.99 among the three questions (mode & median 2 &
std. deviation= 1.079). The same valid percent, 9.3 marked “never” and “very often" in
response to question 117. When asked question 116, there is a slight increase in the
average, 2.06 (mode & median 2 & std. deviation =.938). Similar to the population's
response, the average for question 118 is the highest, 2.60. While only one student
responded “never”, 21(N) replied “fairly often,” and 22(N) answered “very often.”

Sojourner Students Stress Levels

Out of the 100 determined international/foreign born respondents, 6(N) appear to have plans
of leaving the United States. When asked the question 116: 5(N) answered “sometimes”
while 1(N) replied “almost never.” There is an even distribution of responses to question 117:
Almost never, sometimes, and fairly often,” had 2(N) responses each. When asked question
118: 4(N) responded “almost never” while 2(N) answered “sometimes.”

After conducting a reliability analysis, Cronbach Alpha score of 0.804 indicated a high
reliability, the three questions on stress were computed into one variable. Data showed that
international/foreign born students planning to stay in the U.S. had slightly greater mean
scores in their stress scales than those students (N=6) who indicated future plans to leave the

46
U.S. (Std. deviation of 2.59 and mean of 6.61 compared with Std. deviation of 1.17 and mean
of 6.17). While this difference is also not considered statistically significant (t=.418, df =92,
p=.677), insignificant findings may be a result of the low numbers of international/foreign born
students with plans to leave the U.S.

Other Findings

The stress scale was tested against the age of all respondents (N=338) in a correlations test.
There was a strong negative association with age (r = -0.186). Researched data also
indicated that stress has a significant correlation, at the 0.05 level (2-tailed), with the level in
school.

Data on all survey recipients showed that men who are not married/partnered (N=56) reported
significantly greater levels of stress (mean= 6.59) than those men (N=30) who are married
(mean = 5.23). Women who are not married/partnered (N=170) reported stress at an average
of 7.88, while women who are married (N=82) had a much lower mean score, 6.67.

Interviews

A random sample of survey respondents were solicited by phone and by email to participate
in one on one follow-up interviews. Twelve interviews were conducted using a questionnaire
guide which included probing questions. The interview included three questions regarding
stress: (1) Do you ever feel stressed out? a) What are some factors that contribute to your
feelings of stress? (2) Has attending UNCG influenced your level of stress? a) Please
discuss: academics, personal and family expectations, moving away from home, and other.
(3) How does stress influence your participation in social activities? a) Do you find yourself
more stressed out during certain social activities more so than others? b) What are some
social activities where stress is minimal? c) What are some social activities where stress is
great?

Eleven survey respondents readily admitted to feeling stress, however one student insisted
that she was not the type of person that gets "stressed out." An overwhelming majority cited
language barriers and academic concerns as primary stressors. Many indicated that
language barriers hinder social interactions and influenced increased levels of stress in the
classroom. Several students contended that their school work load was heightened due to

47
language proficiencies. Academic expectations also often demanded long hours with little
room for social acitivites. Others discussed such stressors as discrimination and sexism.

While most students did not directly say that stress influenced their participation in social
activities, several students claimed that they were introverts and like to be alone. Those
introverts were likely to discuss the above mentioned language barriers and academic
expectations as well as describe the host culture as being hostile, including discrimination and
sexism. One woman felt like a sexual target based on perceived stereotypes surrounding
Asian women. Japanese women showed struggles with acculturation issues such as loss of
personal identity and self worth. A few resented the fact that they did not have more
"American" physical features.

Most students had intentions of remaining in the United States and a few were undecided.
Due to the finite population of the sojourner student survey respondents, only one interviewee
expressed clear intentions of leaving the U.S. Therefore the hypothesis was unable to be
tested.

Discussion

While population discrepancies among the survey respondents inhibited testing the
hypothesis, the common stressors of language barriers, academic expectations, and
sociocultural transitioning (Chen 1999) were apparent. Most interviewees eventually
discussed all three concerns, thus underscoring the relevance of their impact. However, an
abundance of empirical data and knowledge already exists regarding such topics. Although,
understanding the fundamental difference in the perspective of the immigrant verse the
sojourner student as it relates to psychological stress is not frequently explored. Does time
perspectives effect perceived harm, threat, and challenge? While the common stressors a
prevalent in the lives of both parties, is the mental health of the sojourner student affected
differently based on the fact that he/she does not have long-term intentions of residency? As
such, several questions remain unanswered and further research on this topic is required.
The implications of understanding the different perspectives between the two groups may aid
in the improvement of counseling methods.

Summary

48
The conceptual framework of this research was based on Lazarus and Folkman's (1984)
definition of stress in conjunction with Ward & Chang's (1997) conception of the inter-
relatedness of psychological and sociocultural adjustment. This exploratory research aimed
to determine whether or not time perspectives influenced the level of psychology stress as it
relates to the immigrant and sojourner college student. It was hypothesized that levels of
stress would be greater in the immigrant student when compare to that of the sojourner. A
mix methodological approach of quantitative and qualitative data was collected on 100(N)
international/foreign born students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Further
assessment of the data showed that the 86(N) students had long-term residency plans while
only (6) students indicated clear intentions of temporary stay (the remaining 8(N) students
had unknown plans) Due to the finite population of sojourner students, findings were
inconclusive. However, that does not negate the relevance of this topic. As these college
students will help to shape tomorrow's future, comprehension on the complexity of their lives
is vital. Further exploration on this topic may inevitably lead to a more comprehensive level of
counseling as well as the improvement of social relations.

49
Anderson Bean Fear: A Study of Citizen and Non-Citizen Students at UNCG
Crime rates have been steadily dropping for the last fifteen years, but the fear of
crime is just as high if not higher (ESRC 2005). Fomenting fear in the masses
has been a tool of the ruling class to mobilize public opinion, in order to justify
otherwise aggressive foreign policy. In post 911 United States, foreigners
(especially Arabs) have experienced a higher rate of discrimination (Kumar). As
many international students come to the United States to attend a college or a
University, the question arises: Do non-citizen students fear being a victim of a
crime differently than citizen students. The topic of this study is the difference
between domestic and international students’ fear of being a victim of a crime.
My research question is: Do non-citizen and citizen students have comparable
fear of being a victim of a violent or property crime. My first hypothesis is that
non-citizen students and citizen students have a different level of fear of being a
victim of a crime. My second hypothesis is that non-citizen students will have a
greater fear of being a victim of a crime than citizen students.

Fear of crime among international students

Much of the literature concerning fear of crime among international students
discusses factors that may contribute to their fear. Characteristics of ascribed
statuses such as gender, race, and age, have been found to have a significant
impact on fear of crime (Sundeen 1984, Toseland 1982, Sundeen and Mathieu
1976, Garofalo 1979, Skogan and Maxfeild 1981). Characteristics such as being
black, female, elderly are more be associated with the fear of crime (Skogan and
Maxfeild 1981). According to Garafalo (1979) females are less likely to be
victimized than men but have a greater fear of victimization due to socialization.
Toseland (1982) found that the number of people living together mitigated
individuals’ fear of crime.

The neighborhood or area that someone lives in increases fear of victimization

(Lewis and Maxfield 1980, Yin 1980, Sundeen 1984). Also a negative sentiment
toward an individuals’ community has an impact on fear (Hartnagel 1979,

50
Sundeen and Mathieu, 1977). A perception of the security that formal and
informal social controls provide, such as police, also affects fear of crime
(Garofalo 1979, Sundeen 1984).

Garofalo (1981) found that there was more variation of fear among foreign
students than domestic students. Two factors that Garofalo (1981) suggested to
explain the variation are the cultural differences among different countries, and
the size of their hometown. Cultural differences can impact an attitude toward
crime. Do international students from large cities such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, or
Sao Paulo have an easier experience coping with large urban areas than
students from small rural towns? Sundeen (1984) suggests that the length of
time that the international student has spent in the U.S. may have an impact on
their fear; as well as their participation in cultural groups, activities, and events.

After the 911 attacks many institutions have implemented safety precautions to
minimize danger for their students. William Hoye (2003) discusses how some
colleges give each student in their program a packet containing emergency
information, including what to do in an emergency, where to go in case of an
emergency (including two locations in case the first is unavailable), and names
and telephone numbers, for emergencies, their embassy, 24 hour contact, the
local hospital, and embassies friendly with the U.S.. Some institutions give all
students in their study abroad program wallet size cards that contain such
information, while other institutions require students to carry a cellular phone at
all times in case of an emergency. Students are told not to attend anti-war
protests, or wear clothing that reference the war (Hoye 2003).

Deumert (2005) found that many parents are sending their children to Australia
instead of the U.S. because Australia is deemed safer. A 2002 Education Travel
reported that students are continuing to study abroad despite the 911 attacks but
are studying in different countries. Many students are choosing alternative
destinations to the U.S., like Australia. Australia has the highest ratio of
international students to domestic students among English speaking countries

51
(Barron 2006). Countries in the Middle East have seen the most significant drop
in study abroad students.

To put in perspective crime among students across the U.S. it is important to

compare crime rates of college students to non college students. College
students experienced lower overall crime rates than non students (Hart 2000).
When controlling for gender and race, crime rates among college students were
still lower than non students (Hart 2000).

Test of Hypothesis

My null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between citizenship and fear of

being a victim of a crime. My alternative hypothesis is that there is a relationship
between citizenship and fear. The survey included five Likert scale questions
concerning fear: I am afraid of having my money/possessions taken from me, I
am afraid of being shot, I am afraid of being beaten up, I am afraid of being
sexually assaulted, I am afraid to go out at night because I might become a
victim of a crime. The scale was from 1 to 5: 1 being strongly disagree, 2 being
disagree, 3 being neither agree or disagree, 4 being agree, and 5 being strongly
agree. In order to give each respondent a fear score I added all their questions
about fear together. The reliability of the scale according to Cronbach’s alpha is
0.8699. The lowest possible fear score is 5 and the highest is 25. I recoded
non-resident and resident aliens into one variable, non-citizen students, giving
me two variables, citizen and non-citizen students.

Table 5: Citizen and Non-citizen Fear Scores

U.S. Citizen Non-citizen Total

Mean 11.0979 13.7300 11.8836
Median 11.0000 13.0000 11.0000
Mode 5.00 5.00 5.00
Standard 4.72254 5.65124 5.15231

Deviation
N 235 100 335

52
After running a correlational analysis I can reject my null hypothesis and we can
be 99% confident that the relationship between citizenship and fear of being a
victim of a crime, are not independent of each other in the sample. Slightly more
than half of the respondents reported a fear score of 11 or less. Respondents
who reported that television was their primary news source had the highest fear
score (12.68), respondents who reported that they do not pay attention to news
had the second highest fear score (12.64), respondents who reported that the
internet was their primary source of news had the third highest fear score
(11.95), respondents who reported that print, newspaper, or magazines was their
primary source of news had the fourth highest fear score (10.11), and
respondents who reported radio as their primary source of news had the lowest
fear score (9.80).

80

60

40

20

Std. Dev = 5.1 5

Mean = 11.9
0 N = 335.00
6 .0 1 0.0 1 4.0 1 8.0 2 2.0 2 6.0
8 .0 1 2.0 1 6.0 2 0.0 2 4.0

FEAR

Figure 1 - Fear
The mean fear score for respondents was 11.9. The distribution of fear scores is
skewed positively (or to the right), meaning that the bulk of respondents claimed

53
to have a fear score between 6 and 16, while a few respondents claimed to score
a 26.

An independent samples means test was computed to see if equal variances can
be assumed between fear and citizenship. My null hypothesis is that the
population variances between the two variables are equal. My alternate
hypothesis is that the population variances between the two variables are not
equal. We fail to reject the null hypothesis and be at least 95% confident that the
variances between fear and citizenship are not equal.

The primary source of news for non-citizens and citizens are comparable.
Internet was the primary source of news for both non-citizens (51%) and citizens
(46%), followed by television, in which 31% of both citizens and non-citizens
responded. Citizens were least likely to get their news from radio as non-citizens
were least likely to get their news from print.

Discussion

In order to gauge the general feeling regarding fear perceptions of citizens and
non-citizens studying at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG),
a survey was distributed to UNCG students and some participated in a follow up
interview. While it can be seen that non-citizens had a greater fear of being a
victim of a crime, we must explore various interpretations and or competing
explanations of this finding. Other variables could have more impact on fear
than their citizenship. As stated in the literature review, gender, race and age
affect fear. One major contributor to fear is place of birth. Non-citizens had a
higher standard deviation for their fear score. This variation could be contributed
to the fact that they are all from different parts of the world. A student, who is
from Iraq for example, might have much less fear in the United States than in
his/her home town. Likewise, a student from Canada may come to the United
States and their fears increase. As stated in the literature review the size of the
city a student comes from affects their fear level. Some students who are from
large urban cities may have an easier time adjusting to a city in the United States
than a student from a small rural town. Because of the size of the sample in this

54
study, I was not able to compare fear scores across respondent’s country of
origin. Most of the countries in the sample were represented by one or two
people. One or two people are not a large enough number to truly understand
differences in country or origin, much less generalize.

What a respondent’s primary source of news was an important factor in fear

scores, as students who reported television as their primary source of news had
the greatest fear score and students who reported radio as their primary source
of news had the lowest fear score. This is an important factor in fear but does
not contribute to the disparity between citizens and non-citizens as I found that
the primary source of news for both is almost identical. Source of news might
affect fear in non-citizens but length of time in the U.S. might abate their fear.

Some strengths to this study include a large group of researchers that brought
ideas together to improve the survey instrument and the research questions,
creating a more robust instrument than if it had been the product of one person’s
perspective. Another strength of the study is the mixed methods used. Using
qualitative and quantitative methods leads to a more robust research project.
However, the qualitative benefited some researchers more than others, due to
the interview questions and number of interviews.

Some implications of this study are that non-citizens students do in fact have a
greater fear of being a victim of a crime than citizen students. What is the most
important factor remains unclear, primary source of news proved to have no
affect on the difference in fear scores. Assimilation, time spent in the U.S.,
country of origin and information received at the institutions in which a student is
enrolled could be factors that contribute to fear among non-citizen students and
the large variation of fear among non-citizen students.

Conclusion

This paper aimed to provide an overview of citizens and non citizens impression
of fear. The results of this study appear to reinforce previous research projects
and my hypothesis that non-citizens have a higher fear of being a victim of a
crime than citizens. Further research could study non-citizens and citizens fear

55
by country. A larger sample would be beneficial to further studies as they could
have a large enough representative from many countries that will enable them to
generalize to the population. Further studies could also research different
Universities in different regions of the United States. Urban and rural schools
could be studied and fear can be compared between the two. Further studies
could also research fear among non-citizen students in schools that give
excessive emergency precautions and those that do not. Students fear may be a
response to the information they receive from institutions.

Fear among non-citizen students could be abated if institutions informed students

of the real possibility of being a victim of a crime and are informed of their
relatively safe environment. Many institutions, as mentioned in the literature
review, warn their prospective students about wearing certain clothes, going to
peace rallies, and give them excessive emergency precautions and phone
numbers. These excessive instructions may increase fear among non-citizens
and hinder their study abroad experience.

56
Brian Boylston: Choice of Major as Individual vs. Social Progress
Social change has been a subject of sociological inquiry from the onset of
sociological investigation. This paper attempts in a very limited way to get at
whether international and domestic students at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro at the beginning of the 21st century exhibit any notable, significant
relationships when it comes to assessing whether respondents have chosen their
academic major or equate future success with individual progress (high future
earnings) rather than social progress (contributing to society for the benefit of all).
My hypothesis is that respondents’ when choosing a major or projecting their
idea of success will exhibit a greater concern for individual progress as compared
to social progress. Although this assessment is general in nature and focuses on
the variables of sex, ethnicity/race, citizenship status, age, and academic level
the more global attitudinal orientation it attempts to probe may offer limited
insights into social, cultural differences in an ever increasing heterogeneity of the
U.S.-global culture environment.

Literature Review
The literature review is necessarily limited to five articles dating from 1989-2005.
The essay format article by Altbach (1991) although dated had the most general
approach, an actual literature review itself, to the foreign study phenomenon.
Important findings of this literature review established the demand for foreign
study was mainly by “Third World” students. But ironically it was often “easier” to
study abroad because of the increasing high standards of local institutions. Cost,
however, remained an important factor because resources for studying abroad
still largely depends on individuals and families. These resources were slightly
more rounded out and qualified as influential when it came to choice of careers at
least for international students. Singaravelu, White & Bringaze (2005) revealed
Family, school counselors, and friends had significant influence in the degree of
career certainty. But recognized within this was the economic growth of the home

57
country and the law of supply and demand; society’s demand for certain jobs
increasing wages for those jobs, to varying extents, therefore increasing supply.

The findings of Spencer-Rodgers (1998), while pre 9/11, complicated potential

orientations of social progress when considered with aspects of Altbach’s (1991)
findings. Spencer-Rodgers found that International respondents’ placed greater
emphasis on obtaining work experience in the U.S. than on preparing for
employment in their home country. It is important to note that globally in 1998 the
U.S economy was booming, a source of a lot of important, job opportunity,
economic activity. Even though this was the case Altbach’s findings that
important networks and ties among professionals’ with residencies in varying
countries have become more important implies that social progress, by
entertaining inter-social/cultural orientations as well as intra-social/cultural ones,
now offers a more complex dynamic between the two. How local or how global,
and to what degree each, is further complicated by Fontaine’s (2005) findings
that on Reason’s for International Travel Questionnaire the categories Explorer
and Presence-Seeking ranked the highest and third highest respectively. I would
argue these two attributes are necessary but not sufficient for certain realizations
and/or embodiments of social change, while potentially they are more so for
individual progress.

So to briefly to recapitulate the project I am limited too in this paper with its
hypothesis that respondents when choosing a major or projecting their idea of
success will exhibit greater concern for individual progress compared to social
progress only begins to scratch the surfaces of the availability of and access to
institutions of higher educational standards in their home country. What
countries, although presumably more Asian, provide their population with
promising, quality higher education and why or the dynamics of such world
regions economic growth and activity is beyond this paper. The data Altbach
(1991) makes use of reveals the demand for such access encourages studying
abroad. Even though in 1998 many studying abroad in the U.S. planned to stay
here and, too complicate things, there has in general been a steady increase in
networks of professionals from varying countries that have begun to play a more

58
important role in vital economic activity, an assessment then of international and
domestic students at UNCG in the Spring of 2007 may be quite limited in its
ability to ascertain to any significant degree whether respondents are more
focused on individual progress rather than social progress.

The focus of my analysis will be on questions more directly focused on measures

concerned with social progress compared to individual progress (questions
55,56,57,59,60) and only briefly consider as a comparative measure the question
concerning “I am pursuing my major because I am interested in the topic” and
exclude the question “My idea of success is to be happy” because they are not
as directly related to my hypothesis as the former. By doing this I am excluding
the two variables with the highest means assessing the continuous Likert scales
of “strongly disagree” (0) and “strongly agree” (5), or 4.56 and 4.53 respectively.
Of the remaining, the two variables associated with “improving” or “contributing”
to society for the benefit of all had the highest means of 3.96 and 4.03 or 71.9%
and 80.4% agreeing or strongly agreeing.

Statistics
Respondents’ were asked a series of questions regarding their reasons for

pursuing their majors. While 94.7% (N=319) agreed or strongly agreed that they

had chosen their major because of interest in the topic, only 44.4% (N=153)

agreed or strongly agreed that they had chosen their major for the potential of

high future earnings. Similarly, only 22.9% (N=77) agreed or strongly agreed that

respondents idea of success is to have high earnings.

59
 I am pursuing I am pursuing I think My idea of My idea of
my major my major education success is success is
because it because I is about to have high positively
has high want to social earnings. contributing
future improve progress to society for
potential society for more than the benefit of
earnings. the benefit of individual all.
all. progress.
N Valid 337 338 334 336 336
Missing 15613 15612 15616 15614 15614
Mean 3.14 3.96 3.10 2.60 4.03
Minimum 1 1 1 1 1
Maximum 5 5 5 5 5
Table 2

I am pursuing my major because I am interested in the topic.

N Valid 337
Missin 15613
g
Mean 4.56
Table 3

I am pursuing my major because I am interested in the topic.

Frequenc Percent Valid Cumulative

y Percent Percent
Valid Strongly 4 .0 1.2 1.2
Disagree
Disagree 3 .0 .9 2.1
Neither Agree 11 .1 3.3 5.3
nor Disagree
Agree 102 .6 30.3 35.6
Strongly Agree 217 1.4 64.4 100.0
Total 337 2.1 100.0
Missing 999 2 .0
System 15611 97.9
Total 15613 97.9
Total 15950 100.0
Table 4

I am pursuing my major because it has high future potential earnings.

Frequen Percent Valid Cumulativ

60
 cy Percent e Percent
Valid Strongly
42 .3 12.5 12.5
Disagree
Disagree 71 .4 21.1 33.5
Neither Agree
71 .4 21.1 54.6
nor Disagree
Agree 104 .7 30.9 85.5
Strongly
49 .3 14.5 100.0
Agree
Total 337 2.1 100.0
Missin 999 2 .0
System 15611 97.9
g
Total 15613 97.9
Total 15950 100.0

Statistics

I am pursuing my major because it has high future potential earnings.

N Valid 337
Missin
15613
g

Statistics

My idea of success is to have high earnings.

N Valid 336
Missin
15614
g

My idea of success is to have high earnings.

Frequen Valid Cumulativ

cy Percent Percent e Percent
Valid Strongly 55 .3 16.4 16.4

61
 Disagree
Disagree 113 .7 33.6 50.0
Neither Agree
91 .6 27.1 77.1
nor Disagree
Agree 65 .4 19.3 96.4
Strongly
12 .1 3.6 100.0
Agree
Total 336 2.1 100.0
Missin 999 3 .0
System 15611 97.9
g
Total 15614 97.9
Total 15950 100.0

120

100

80
Frequency

60

40

20

Mean =2.6
Std. Dev. =1.083
N =336
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6

q59

This ambivalence also exhibits itself with most respondents (35.6%)

neither agree nor disagreeing that they think education is about social progress

62
more than individual progress with the rest rather equally distributed on the

spectrum of agreeing and disagreeing.

Statistics

I think education is about social progress more than individual progress.

N Valid 334
Missin
15616
g

I think education is about social progress more than individual progress.

Frequen Valid Cumulativ

cy Percent Percent e Percent
Valid Strongly
11 .1 3.3 3.3
Disagree
Disagree 90 .6 26.9 30.2
Neither Agree
119 .7 35.6 65.9
nor Disagree
Agree 83 .5 24.9 90.7
Strongly
31 .2 9.3 100.0
Agree
Total 334 2.1 100.0
Missin 999 5 .0
System 15611 97.9
g
Total 15616 97.9
Total 15950 100.0

63
 120

100

80
Frequency

60

40

20

Mean =2.6
Std. Dev. =1.083
N =336
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6

q59

The crosstabulation of the variables with that of respondents sex was

based on N’s ranging from 334-338. For both males and females an idea of

success as positively contributing to society for the benefit of all was respectively

recognized by 51.8% (N=44) and 52.8% (N=131)as agreeing. Likewise for both

males and females the most common response was disagreeing on the variable

my idea of success is to have high earnings with 27.0% (N=23) and 35.9% (N=

90) respectively but contradictorily the most common response was agreeing that

they are pursuing a certain major because of high future potential earnings with

36% (N=31) of males and 29.1% (N=73) of females acknowledging this. There

64
was only slight differences in response on the Likert scale and the greatest

percent of responses on the remaining variables of “I think education is about

social progress more than individual progress” with 39.8% (N=99) of females

responding they neither agreed or disagreed and 43.5% (N=37) of males

agreeing. This possibly suggests for me males believe not only in education but

view it as a sense of progress that, although social in nature, is about top-down

skills associated with higher paying jobs because they are more concerned than

females with future earnings as the impetus for, I would argue, both individual

and social progress; although it could be argued womens’ concerns for higher

potential earnings is a reflection of the equal pay for equal work gap that still

exists between men and women.

The crosstabulation of the variables with regards to ethnicity adds to the

complexity of the hypothesis. Although every ethnicity agreed they were pursuing

their major because of high future earnings Hispanics and Asians reported this

concern to the greatest extent at 42.0% (N=8) and 41.9% (N=18). Even though

every ethnicity except whites strongly agreed that they wanted to improve society

for the benefit of all, blacks were the most likely to exert this sensibility (44.4%,

N=16). Where this appears to demonstrates a collective desire for more

egalitarian attitudes by minorities and blacks in particular education as its vehicle

was more ambivalent because every ethnic group was mostly represented as

neither agreeing or disagreeing except Asians with 35.7% (N=15) agreeing.

Blacks however were equally distributed between disagree, neither agree or

disagree, or agreeing (25% each) suggesting the view of education as engine of

65
social progress is more complicated arguably in part due to historical sentiments

“as I do, I do for the race”, excelling historically not limited maybe even curtailed

by the education process. This may be reinforced by the fact that 50% (N=18) of

blacks reported strongly agreeing success was seen as a contribution to society

for the benefit of all, the strongest sentiment of any ethnic group although all

ethnic groups agreed with this orientation of success.

The means associated with citizenship status can only be somewhat

suggestive that non-resident aliens are more concerned with future potential

earnings and the idea of success is having high earnings, they having tied with

the highest mean with resident aliens at 3.47 for the former and having the

highest mean 3.06 for the latter. Although non-resident aliens tied with resident

aliens in the former however their standard deviation was the smallest (Std Dev =

1.120) of the three categories.

Descriptive

95%
Std. Confidence
Mea Deviatio Std. Interval for
N n n Error Mean
Upp
er
Lower Bou
Bound nd
I am pursuing my Citizen
major because it 24
3.01 1.244 .080 2.85 3.17
has high future 4
potential earnings.

66
 Non-
Resident 53 3.47 1.120 .154 3.16 3.78
Alien
Resident
49 3.47 1.324 .189 3.09 3.85
Alien
Total 34
3.14 1.252 .067 3.01 3.28
6
I am pursuing my Citizen
major because I
24
want to improve 3.98 1.058 .068 3.84 4.11
4
society for the
benefit of all.
Non-
Resident 53 3.91 1.005 .138 3.63 4.18
Alien
Resident
49 3.98 .968 .138 3.70 4.26
Alien
Total 34
3.97 1.035 .056 3.86 4.07
6
I think education is Citizen
about social 24
3.02 .981 .063 2.89 3.14
progress more than 4
individual progress.
Non-
Resident 50 3.36 .985 .139 3.08 3.64
Alien
Resident
49 3.24 1.071 .153 2.94 3.55
Alien
Total 34
3.10 1.001 .054 2.99 3.21
3
My idea of success Citizen
24
is to have high 2.43 1.064 .068 2.29 2.56
5
earnings.
Non-
51 3.06 .988 .138 2.78 3.34
Resident

67
 Alien
Resident
49 2.90 1.046 .149 2.60 3.20
Alien
Total 34
2.59 1.078 .058 2.47 2.70
5
My idea of success Citizen
is positively
24
contributing to 4.07 .799 .051 3.97 4.17
5
society for the
benefit of all.
Non-
Resident 51 3.90 .855 .120 3.66 4.14
Alien
Resident
49 4.04 .865 .124 3.79 4.29
Alien
Total 34
4.04 .817 .044 3.95 4.13
5

When considering one categorical independent variable and one

continuous variable a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is useful. The two

variables concerned with future potential earnings significantly indicate (.007

and .000) equal variance cannot be assumed.

ANOVA

Sum of Mean
Squares df Square F Sig.
I am pursuing my Between
15.379 2 7.690 5.020 .007
major because it Groups
Within
has high future 525.395 343 1.532
Groups
potential earnings.
Total 540.775 345
I am pursuing my Between .223 2 .112 .104 .901

68
major because I Groups
Within
want to improve 369.360 343 1.077
Groups
society for the
Total
369.584 345
benefit of all.
I think education is Between
6.114 2 3.057 3.089 .047
about social Groups
Within
progress more than 336.516 340 .990
Groups
individual progress.
Total 342.630 342
My idea of success Between
22.240 2 11.120 10.079 .000
is to have high Groups
Within
earnings. 377.313 342 1.103
Groups
Total 399.554 344
My idea of success Between
1.183 2 .592 .887 .413
is positively Groups
Within
contributing to 228.249 342 .667
Groups
society for the
Total
229.432 344
benefit of all.

It is therefore appropriate to run a Tukey’s post hoc tests to assess where

the significant differences lie. With the variable “I am pursuing my major because

it has high future potential earnings” nonresident aliens differed the most from

citizens (Mean Diff.= -.464) although resident aliens were close in such

differences (Mean Diff= -.461). With the variable “My idea of success is to have

high earnings” the differences are similar across categories but to a greater

extent (Mean Diff= -.630 and -.439 respectively). This possibly suggests the

orientation for payback/compensation for the expenditures to attend a university

outside ones home country, especially from a less wealthy country, may be a

greater concern for such foreign born students; the resources, the status, the

69
familial needs and benefits as well as societal benefits may be more of a driving

force for non-resident aliens in particular. Altbach (1991) notes costs for

attending university abroad are largely uninsulated, individuals and families

bearing the brunt. Singaravelu, White & Bringaze (2005) mention it has a lot to

do with the economic opportunities of the home country; a desire to fill a growing

supply, to varying degrees, of well compensating “socially benefiting” jobs.

Tukey HSD
(I) Mean 95%
Dependent Citizenshi (J) Differen Std. Sig Confidence
Variable p Citizenship ce (I-J) Error . Interval
Lower Upper
Bound Bound
I am pursuing Citizen Non-
my major Resident
.
because it has Alien
-.464(*) .188 03 -.91 -.02
high future
7
potential
earnings.
Resident .
Alien -.461(*) .194 04 -.92 -.01
7
Non- Citizen .
Resident .464(*) .188 03 .02 .91
Alien 7
Resident 1.0
.002 .245 -.58 .58
Alien 00
Resident Citizen .
Alien .461(*) .194 04 .01 .92
7
Non- -.002 .245 1.0 -.58 .58
Resident 00

70
 Alien
My idea of Citizen Non-
.
success is to Resident
-.630(*) .162 00 -1.01 -.25
have high Alien
0
earnings.
Resident .
Alien -.469(*) .164 01 -.86 -.08
3
Non- Citizen .
Resident .630(*) .162 00 .25 1.01
Alien 0
Resident .
Alien .161 .210 72 -.33 .66
4
Resident Citizen .
Alien .469(*) .164 01 .08 .86
3
Non- .
Resident -.161 .210 72 -.66 .33
Alien 4

When assessing correlations of the variables by age the only significant

correlation is with the idea of success being equated with high earnings (-.109*).

The data states * is a correlation that is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). The

correlation being negative suggests slightly younger people are more likely to

have this attitude; this may indicate that they are currently poorer than older

students and possess an over emphasizing economic desire for a sense of

empowerment in their future or a more emboldened belief in the possibility of

early retirement.

71
 Administering an independent sample means test supplies us with the

ability to assume equal variance because the Levene’s test for equality of

variance for each variable is not sufficiently small (>.005). This establishes that

males on both variables concerning success as or future interest in high earnings

had higher averages 2.80 (N=85) and 3.48 (N=86) respectively when compared

with females with 2.53 (N=251) and 3.02 (N=251). When asked questions

concerning improving or contributing to society for the benefit of all females had

higher means 4.00 (N= 252) and 4.11 (N=251) compared to their male

counterparts at 3.84 (N=86) and 3.81 (N=85) respectively. The variables that

were significant in their measure of Equality for Means, however, were more

likely to support the hypothesis or those whose major promised or the idea of

success being high future earnings (.004 and .050 respectively) although the

idea of success contributing to society for the benefit of all was also significant

(.004).

When administering a T-Test on the variables with that of students’

academic level or undergrad versus grad we again can assume equal variance

for both because the Levine’s Test for Equality of Variance on any variable was

small enough. The difference in mean scores between undergrads and grads

were largely small (.02-.23); the samples, in general, not demonstrating strong

differences between academic level and each variable although none of the

variables exhibited a significant relationship with academic level in the Equality

for Means test, therefore academic level, whether undergrad or grad, does not

offer any significant information to assess the validity of the hypothesis.

72
 Findings for Interview: The hypothesis that respondents are more

concerned with individual progress (high future earnings) rather than social

progress (contributing to society for the benefit of all) was not clarified in the

interviews by this, what I have come to consider poorly “operationally defined”,

distinction although like with most more open-ended questions the information

offers important contextualizations of how such sociological oriented probes are

limiting and yet solicitous, providing the unexpected, unpackaged and at times

unimagined. One interviewee unabashedly admitted they did not know what

social progress meant although they felt individual progress was important.

Another made clear the unclear nature of the question of “how do you view social

progress?” With social progress they felt it’s not so much about “making people

do things…[but] it’s more generating people wanting to do the right thing and

that’s harder, that’s why I guess it’s progress.” And with individual progress the

respondent stated “It depends on whose definition I might be failing or I might be

succeeding…” Two interviewees admitted bluntly social progress and individual

progress are mutually constitutive, as one said “I think they go together.” This

problem with understanding the meaning of the questions, with one interviewee

the question “how do you view your education as furthering social progress or

individual progress” lead the interviewee first to ask to have the question

rephrased and then to actually read the question themselves in which they only

clarified their interpretation of what the question asked, stating “it is education

that makes difference at the social level or individual level” rather than an

elaborative or organic orientation to how education might, if at all, do this. The

73
ambiguity continued with one respondents generational sense of progress in that

previous generations worked hard “and now, we are adjusting our lifestyles-I

guess technology has a lot to do with that” but this was again more ambiguous

because the respondent also rather flippantly remarked “work is life, life is work”

although she believed individual progress was being happy with what you’re

doing. Another interviewee echoed this but with the caveat that we are getting

better at things but more selfish also, but that’s o.k.

The semi-structured interview questions concerning individual compared

to social progress, as mentioned earlier exposed the weakness of the particular

measures I employed to ascertain such orientations. There was more than a

glimpse that social progress was seen as important as one respondent put it

concerning social progress “You must have it…To make it better for your

children, I mean not your children, but everybody’s children.” Although this was

certainly contextualized, articulated and subjected to just “react to one’s

environment”, “be happy with what you do”, and “If we get better but more selfish

that’s o.k.

Discussion: There is only very partial and limited support for the hypothesis that

participants are more concerned with future earnings rather than social progress.

It is limited because only the concerns with current major in the educational

process consistently supported evidence for the hypothesis and notable,

although not surprisingly for males; they historically possessing a bread winner

role that reinforced and protected mechanisms, rewards, acculturated comfort

and access to at least compensation levels that would slice total family income in

74
their favor. The semi-structured interview which may have reinforced the

hypothesis more than the survey still can only be considered weak in strength, if

not inconclusive, in part due to the poorly constructed measure of the

ambiguous/unclear operationally defined questions. Where being happy with

what one’s doing, being more individually focused, social progress being part of

individual progress, and the sentiment “things are getting better but we are more

selfish” suggest respondents view individual progress as if not more, at least an

essential part of social progress. The not understanding “social progress”, having

questions rephrased and read by the interviewee, interviewers feeling the need

to preface these questions as “broad questions” all detract from any strength that

might have been glimpsed.

The U.S. family has certainly changed since the women and gay

movements of the 60’s and 70’s. Arguably foreign-born and immigrant

participants may be acculturated still to the demands of a more patriarchic family

orientation with certain conspicuous “trophy” consumerist views of success; the

data revealing choice of a major focused on high future earnings was most

prevalent among Hispanics (42.0%, N=8) and Asians (41.9%, N=18), although

the N’s are low. As one interviewee from Japan stated “I think, to me Japanese

people more preoccupied with material possessions and status”; later suggesting

that American culture is on some important levels more “relaxed”. But it is

important to consider, as suggested earlier, foreign-born respondents concern

with future earnings possibly implicating the need to compensate for the large

sacrifices of familial, individual, and to a lesser extent societal resources that

75
enabled them to study abroad. Younger respondents also slightly equated

success with higher earnings. The data I examined does nothing to clarify if the

more individual, material status orientation of this cultures largely, although

certainly not unchallenged, global hegemonic emblematic orientation has a part

in this emphasis; the grass always being greener.

To a notable extent the hypothesis was challenged. If we consider all

respondents across all the variables mean, the two questions concerning

contributing to society for the benefit of all suggestively stood out at 3.96 and

4.03. A majority of both male and female respondents agreed contributing to

society for the benefit of all was their idea of success. Minority respondents were

the ones who most strongly agreed with this, blacks in particular. This idea of

success however was slightly more prevalent in Citizens (4.07, N=245) than Non-

Resident Aliens (3.90, N=51) with Resident Aliens equaling the total means at

4.04 (N=49). This again may be in part due to the abstract nature of the

operationally defined term “social progress”. The idea of success as future

earnings also leaned away from the hypothesis with Citizens leaning away the

most (2.45, N=238) while Non-Resident Aliens and even Resident Aliens

seeming to be more neutral or neither agreeing or disagreeing (3.06, N=49 and

2.90, N=49 respectively). This difference was significant however with mean

differences of -.616 and -.453 respectively. It appears respondents feel some

orientation to, focus on, emphasis toward social progress but this is mixed with

practical choices and motivations of educational major choice to provide high

future potential earnings. But as stated the strength of these orientations,

76
focuses, emphases are too weak to provide a meaningful discussion for the

impetus of respondents concern with education and future ideas of success. One

implication is that people motivations are too complex, nuanced, ambivalent,

present-oriented to substantiate such over-arching, macro-oriented, undefined,

abstract conceptions such as social change, thereby by default reinforcing the

more concrete, personally limited, aspirational/motivational concept of individual

progress.

Conclusion: The limited data used and poorly operationally defined measures to

test the hypotheses that respondents are more concerned with individual

progress (high future earnings) rather than social progress (contributing to

society for the benefit of all) makes any meaningful conclusion tenuous at best. It

may have been useful to have used a variable that gauged how far in debt a

respondent is going to attain an education to see if there is a relationship with

choice of major. Social progress may suffer from lack of specificity in operational

definition but it is also less politicized. It may have been useful to concretize it

with particulars such as affordable housing, affordable, quality health care and

education, an erosion of poverty and crime, a bridging of the gap between rich

and poor, and security in old age but I think a respondents political orientation,

which may be difficult to do with Non-Resident Aliens, would necessarily have to

be an additional variable. Attempting to gauge such cultural-political orientations

and motivations however may offer more meaningful data as to what are some

basic driving forces for international and domestic students as they make

77
decisions concerning their educational experience, rootings, substantiation and

how they view it impacting their lives down the road, if at all.

78
Mandy Ireland Benefits of Participation on the Social Networks of
International Students

The presence of International students in American colleges and universities

offers a rare opportunity for the international as well as the domestic student to

expand their horizons and engage in a multi-cultural exchange of such things as

beliefs, feelings, and customs. However, this exchange can only take place if the

international and domestic students interact. Participation in a social network of

some kind is necessary for a genuine cultural exchange to occur. Such social

networks are built in the academic setting as well as within the world of

extracurricular activities.

This study is more specifically interested in whether or not participation in such

extra-curricular activities in the form of clubs, sports, or organizations extends the

social networks of international students. I hypothesize that international

students who participate in clubs, sports, and/or organizations will have a more

extensive social network than those who do not participate. Such knowledge

would provide the academic community as well as the international student

population with valuable information regarding possible ways to encourage

involvement and the possible benefits of becoming involved.

Literature Review

The literature regarding international students’ participation in extra-curricular

activities and what that means for their social networks is limited while there is a

wide span of literature focusing on topics surrounding this relationship.

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Various studies have been done to examine how international students adjust to

American college life in terms of their engagement in social activities. Selby and

Woods (1966) studied international students at high pressure universities and

determined that the academic demands definitely limited “normal” social activities

such as participation in any extra-curricular organizations. Especially since

international students have usually traveled great distances and their families

have sacrificed much for them to be studying in the US, high pressure could be

at any school depending on the student and their program of study. However,

this phenomenon could be flipped and stated that in a less demanding academic

setting international students would have more of an opportunity to be socially

active.

Chun-Mei, et al. (2005) studied the differences between engagement in

social activities between American and international students. They found that

international students became more involved as they moved through their

undergraduate years and that international student engagement was higher

when a large international student population was present at the university.

UNCG has fairly large and active international student population which would

seemingly encourage new international students to become active.

We see what conditions may be conducive to social activity among

international students, now how does this extra curricular engagement create

better social networks? The U.S. state department studied the World Scholar

games in 2006 and found that the participation in sports created an environment

conducive to cross-cultural friendships, not only through teamwork but simply

80
through exposing the participants to various cultures and the consequent

interactions based on that exposure (US Fed News).

Now obviously, exposure and interactions is not all that is necessary for

friendships to form. Gareis (2000) exposed the American dichotomy of “friend”

felt by German graduate students in her research. It was felt by the five

international students that Americans have a “public” layer of friendship whereby

they act friendly in classes, club meetings, social interactions etc. but then they

do not follow through into the “private” realm of calling or hanging out beyond the

public situation. This presents international students with a challenge to move

beyond that public realm to form more meaningful friendships with Americans in

what was labeled the private sector.

Active participation in clubs, sports, and organizations could help the

international student move past that “public” acquaintance relationship and into

the “private” layer where not only a deeper friendship could form, but also where

introductions to other friends could occur. Overall, participation in social activities

can lead to new relationships that could then introduce someone to a new

network of people, providing a more robust cultural experience.

Results

Participation in sports, clubs, or organizations and its effect on the social

networks of international students was my area of interest in this study. My

hypothesis is that international students who participate in sports, club, or

organizations will have more extensive social networks than those who do not

81
take part in such organizations. Questions 120- 130 on the International Student

Survey, and more specifically question 124, were the measures used to test this

hypothesis.

Question 124 asks the participant to rank how their membership in a

club/sport/organization has extended their social network at UNCG using a Likert

scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Table 2 below illustrates

the responses of only the international student respondents.

Table 5 - Likert Scale Results of Question 124

(International student respondents)
Frequenc Valid Percent
y
Strongly Disagree 1 4.8
Disagree 1 4.8
Neither Agree Nor Disagree 2 9.5
Agree 9 42.9
Strongly Agree 2 9.5

Missing 21
Total 36 100.00

As Table 2 shows, the majority of international student respondents

(52.4%, n=11) agreed or strongly agreed with the idea that their social network

has been extended due to participation in a club, sport, or organization. Since

the results for this question provided promising evidence regarding my

hypothesis, it was necessary to venture further to explore what other variables

could affect the extending of social networks of the respondents in order to

ensure that participation was the main cause. A limitation of our survey

82
instrument should be noted here, being the fact that no questions were included

to asses the social networks of those who reported not participating in clubs,

sports, or organizations.

There were three Likert scale questions asked that were meant to

measure participation and social network: Q. 124-Membership in a

club/sport/organization has extended my social network at UNCG, Q. 125-

Participation in a club/sport/organization has enabled me to form friendships with

American students at UNCG., Q. 126-Participation in a club/sport/organization

has enabled me to form friendships with international students here at UNCG.

We used a reliability statistics in order to test whether the three questions

accurately measured participation and social networks. This reliability test

summed the students’ responses into one social network score. Based on the

significant Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.749, we know the three questions in our social

network scale consistently measure the same idea, being that of participation.

This finding allows us to meaningfully examine some group characteristics using

the social network scale score.

When sex was cross-referenced with our social network scale it was found

that the average male scored 10.24 on their social network and the average

female score was 10.14. Now knowing that there is an overwhelming majority of

females in the UNCG population and in our sample this finding is interesting.

While the difference is not significant it does tell us that males feel their

participation is slightly more beneficial to their social network than females do.

The level of study at UNCG was also cross-referenced with our social network

83
scale and undergraduates were found to have an average score of 10.50 while

the average graduate level student scored a 9.52.

It could be questioned whether the presence of social ties in Greensboro

or at UNCG previous to arriving could have affected the extension of the social

network of the international students. To test this theory the answers to earlier

questions in the survey inquiring about social ties in Greensboro and at UNCG

and their effect on decision to attend were cross-tabulated with the social

network score of the respondents. Table 3 below helps to illustrate the findings

of the cross tabulation.

Table 6 - Cross tabulation of SocNet and Ties/No Ties

(International Students)
Average SocNet Sig.
Score
International
Students)
Did you know anyone in Greensboro before 0.785
you came to UNCG?
Yes 9.98
No 10.36

Did you know anyone at UNCG who is from

your home town/country? 0.798
Yes 10.51
No 9.45

As Table 3 shows, international students who responded to the survey

and knew some in Greensboro prior to their arrival had a slightly lower social

network score than those who reported not knowing anyone before they came

84
which is different than what would be predicted. It would be assumed that having

ties in Greensboro prior to arriving would increase one’s social network and

motivate them to become more involved while it would seem harder for

international students coming to UNCG not knowing anyone to create and extend

their social network. However, the findings from the next question better support

this prediction.

Those international student respondents who reported knowing someone

at UNCG from their home town/country scored higher on the social network scale

than those who didn’t. This finding supports the prediction that one’s prior ties to

UNCG would create a larger social network for them and increase their

involvement in campus activities. While neither cross tabulation was found to be

statistically significant, both still offered interesting findings that could be further

studied at another time.

Another variable necessary to study in relation to our social network score

was that of residency status. A one way ANOVA allowed us the opportunity to

examine the similarities and differences of social network scores among U.S.

citizens, Resident aliens, and Non resident aliens.

The results of our one way ANOVA show us that non resident aliens are

more similar in their social network score to U.S citizens than they are to resident

aliens. This is an important finding because it shows that participation and

resulting social network of non resident aliens are mostly similar to that of

students who are U.S. citizens whereas it would be predicted that they would be

most similar to resident aliens.

85
Discussion

Overall we found that the majority of students, no matter residency status,

did not report participating in clubs, sports, or organizations. However, of the

international students who did report participating in a club/sport/organization,

they felt their participation did extend their social network at UNCG. It should be

noted, however, that no questions regarding social networks were asked to the

portion of the respondents who did not report participating in any clubs, sports, or

organizations. This missing data limits my ability to compare the two groups and

essentially prevents my hypothesis from being supported.

Outside of our general findings there were a couple of additional findings

that were not statistically significant but interesting nonetheless and that could be

used to direct future research. Social ties in Greensboro or at UNCG seemed to

have an effect on the social network scale score of the international respondents.

When we compared the social network scores to those who had previous ties to

Greensboro or UNCG we found that those who did had higher social network

scores than those who did not. However, the effect was not as great as would be

assumed considering having previous social ties would give the incoming

international student a ready made social network of some sort.

Just as social ties had an interesting relationship with the social network

scores of our international respondents, social network scores also differed by

level of study. Undergraduate respondents had an average social network score

of 10.50 while graduate respondents’ average social network score was 9.32.

86
While these findings were not found to be statistically significant they support the

conception that undergraduates students tend to be more actively involved in

clubs, sports, and organizations than those studying at the graduate level. Also,

this finding fits well into Selby and Woods’ (1966) findings where academic

pressure limited the social activities of foreign students. Knowing that graduate

programs are usually more intensive than those on the undergraduate level gives

this finding some logic and places it nicely within previous research.

Conclusion

Generally, due to limitations of our survey instrument, no generalizable

relationships were found and my hypothesis was not supported. Nevertheless,

not all is lost since our findings can be used to guide further research. Future

research questions could examine different ways to increase participation on the

part of international students since it does seem to extend their social network

and possibly make the shift into our culture easier.

Regarding the relationship found to exist between social ties in

Greensboro or at UNCG and the extension of social networks, some questions

that could be posed to extend research on this particular finding would be

whether the social ties are students or not, whether the social ties live on campus

or simply in Greensboro, and to examine the effect that social ties in Greensboro

or UNCG were shown to extend the social networks of those who don’t

participate in sports, clubs, or organizations.

Additionally, where we see the disparity in participation between

undergraduates and graduates, further research could assess various methods

87
of increasing the involvement among the graduate students. More involvement

by those in graduate level study could benefit the campus environment as a

whole by shrinking the existing gap and possibly encouraging more interaction

and assistance between the two levels of study.

On the whole much can be learned about methodology here as well and

the consequences of not forming questions carefully enough. If anything other

researchers can see how limited we were in our results and possibly learn from

our mistakes.

88
Lindsay Levis Alcohol usage in college environments

Students from all over the world participate in study abroad programs to expand

their knowledge of other cultures. Their level of education ranges from

undergraduate, to graduate, including some Ph. D students. The emergence into

the university years is marked as a period of transition for young adults, “such as

new living arrangements, increased academic pressure and changes in social

norms and expectations” (Fletcher, 2006). The motives, attitudes and knowledge

contribute to an individual’s decision regarding choice, in this instance partaking

in drinking activities. This study focuses on several factors that are attributed to

social life during the course of one’s time spent at a university. The purpose of

this paper was to see how university life influences drinking behaviors. A second

purpose of this descriptive study was to test the hypothesis that time spent at an

American university increases the alcohol consumption of individuals.

Literature review of alcohol usage in college environments

A large portion of the literature on the subject of alcohol usage devotes its

attention to environmental and sociocultural determinants. “Alcohol consumption

by adolescents and young adults varies greatly in different countries and

cultures, in different population groups within a country, and over time” (Ahlstrom,

2004/2005). Alcohol consumption is a social behavior, learned and practiced by

young people through other members of their culture and reflects the drinking

patterns of the entire population (Ahlstrom, 2004/4005). Every college and

university is a subculture of the society at large, each with its own set of

89
standards and values that differ from other institutions. Van Maanen (1987)

found that in order to determine why students at universities participate in the

usage of alcohol, their culture must be understood. The usage of alcohol by

students dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries as a rebellion against the strict

surroundings inflicted upon them (Horowitz, 1987). Within our current society, it

has been found that students on some college campuses use alcohol to signify

their emerging adulthood, to enhance social gatherings, and to cope with stress

(Bolton, 1987). Others have found that alcohol has symbolic meaning, in that it

signifies privilege in collegiate settings (Straus and Bacon, 1953). Still others

have found that alcohol usage is a common practice among students in

American universities, encompassing a variety of drinking games. A study at

Towson University found that students who engaged themselves in drinking

games deemed themselves as “normal” while only 3% discouraged the practice

(Douglas, 1987). While some students are able to resist peer pressure, others

engage in the usage of alcohol to accredit themselves with a group.

Lo and Globetti (1999) found that the drinking patterns of individuals vary

according to the cultural orientation toward alcohol within their society. Many

factors contribute to the usage of alcohol, particularly laws that are enacted to

restrict the practice to certain age groups. The legal drinking age around the

world ranges from no age limit, i.e. Cuba and Chile, to 21 years of age, i.e. the

United States and Tunisia. However, it is within the United States culture that

numerous drinking problems, such as binge drinking, are most apparent.

Although binge drinking is a common stereotype of American universities, some

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have found that heavy drinking among university students is prevalent in several

other countries as well, i.e. Poland, Slovakia, Columbia and Venezuela (Dantzer,

2006).

Jessica Shepherd (2006) found that international students prefer to study

and improve their education in opposition to partying and going to social clubs.

Many international students who are accustomed to social drinking find the

excessive abuse of alcohol within U.S. college environments to be absurd.

“Drinking can be enjoyable, but students in America go too far with it. I don’t think

that they know how to enjoy drinking. For them the only point is to get wasted

and have their friends throw them in the streets naked, it’s disgusting” states an

international student from Belgrade (2001). Many agree that the enforcement of

legal drinking age laws encourages this behavior, rather than having a deterrent

effect. Many European countries do not strictly enforce these laws resulting in a

common belief that ‘drinking is normal’. Still other cultures, primarily those within

the Middle Eastern region, outlaw drinking altogether. In these cultures drinking

is extremely taboo, resulting in the behavior being deemed as unacceptable.

Test of Hypothesis

My null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between time spent at an

American university and alcohol consumption. My alternative hypothesis is that

there is a relationship between time spent at an American university and alcohol

consumption. In order to test my hypothesis regarding the drinking behaviors of

individuals, I first looked at the correlation between number of semesters at

UNCG and amount of drinking. The relationship between time spent at UNCG

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and number of alcoholic drinks you consume a week is not significant. The same

holds true for time spent at UNCG and the average number of days in a week

that you have at least one drink.

I then analyzed the results from the survey regarding the following

questions. Before starting UNCG, what was the average number of alcoholic

drinks you consume in a week? Before starting UNCG, what was the average

number of days in a week that you have at least one drink? Before you came to

UNCG, on average how many alcoholic drinks would you consume when you

went out? How many alcoholic drinks did you consume the last time you went

out? Slightly more than half (60.7%, N=187) of the respondents reported

consuming one or more drinks on average, both before and after starting at

UNCG, table 2. describes these findings.

Table 2. Number of alcoholic drinks consumed the last time out

Frequency Percent
0 151 44.7%
1 54 16.0%
2 51 15.1%
3 25 7.4%
4 20 5.9%
5 8 2.4%
6 10 3.0%
7 4 1.20%
8 5 1.5%
9 1 .3%
10 6 1.8%
12 1 .3%
18 1 .3%
30 1 .3%
Total 338 100.0%

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 The mean, median and mode for these questions demonstrate this finding

and are represented in Table 3. The last set of questions regarding drinking

behaviors was;

If your alcohol use has changed, to what do you attribute the change? And if

your answer to the above was “other”, please specify. The top five reasons for a

change in drinking behavior are listed in descending order; 38% of respondents

had no attributable cause due to the fact that they do not drink at all, 23.8% of

respondents listed other reasons, which will be discussed momentarily, 11.1% of

respondents change in drinking behavior was due to stress, followed going to

university (9.5%) and turning 21 (8.7%). The respondents answers to others

were recoded into seven categories; Health, Family, Age, School, Friends,

Money and Time. These summaries are shown in Table 4.

Table 3. Mean, Median, Mode

Avg. number of Avg. number of How many

drinks you days in a week alcoholic drinks
consume in a you have at least you consume
week one drink when you go out
N 339 339 339
Mean 2.45 .92 1.52
Median .00 .00 .00
Mode 0 0 0
Std. Deviation 6.380 1.456 2.416

Table 4. Recoded Responses for “Other”

Reason % N

Health 5.8% 2
Family 14.7% 5
Age 14.7% 5

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School 17.6% 6
Friends 14.7% 5
Money 2.9% 1
Time 29.4% 10
Total 100.0% 34

After analyzing each question individually, a cross tabulation was

computed to see if there is any association between the two variables.

Undergraduate females (23%, N=58) and Graduate females (8.7%, N=22) were

more likely to be non-drinkers, light drinkers, occasional drinkers and heavy

drinkers as opposed to undergraduate and graduate males who were more likely

to be moderate drinkers. These findings are displayed in table 5.

Table 5. Cross-tabulation of Drinking Patterns and Academic Levels

Sex Drinking Academic

behavior Level
Graduate Undergraduate
Females Non-drinker 22 58 80
Light 35 40 75
Occasional 28 39 67
Moderate 9 19 28
Heavy 0 2 2

Males Non-drinker 11 16 27
Light 12 9 21
Occasional 13 11 24
Moderate 5 8 13
Heavy 0 1 1

Another cross-tabulation was produced to see the difference in alcohol

consumption before beginning UNCG to now. Actual consumption only

increased for about 16.3% of students and decreased for about 12.7 of students.

Resulting in no change in the alcohol consumption for about 70.0% of students.

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Table 6. presents these findings. These behaviors were then compared to the

question “since beginning UNCG, my alcohol consumption has…” It was found

that some people were inconsistent in their reporting which presents itself as

another limitation of this paper.

Table 6. Change in alcohol consumption

Alcohol Difference Frequency Percent

-27.00 to -.40 42 12.7%
.00 239 70.7%
.25 to 24.00 57 16.3%

Since starting at UNCG, females at both the undergraduate and graduate

levels drinking patterns changed (increased and decreased) more than males.

44.9% of undergraduate females and 17.1% of undergraduate males reported

drinking on average one or more drinks per week. More graduate females

students (31.0%) versus males (15.8%) reported drinking on average one or

more drinks per week.

In order to compare U.S. citizens versus Non-citizens, which includes

Resident and Non-Resident Aliens, with the average number of drinks consumed

in one week an ANOVA with post hoc analysis was performed. This was found

to be statistically insignificant (Sig.= .818).

In conclusion, we fail to reject the null hypothesis for there is insufficient

evidence to suggest that there is a relationship between time spent at a

university and alcohol consumption.

Discussion

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 Our sample size of 338 students, both international and domestic was

comprised of individuals from countries around the world. Many of the students

came from Asiatic countries. However the highest response to country of origin

was ‘unknown nation’. This is a central problem to our study since prior to

sending out our survey we were provided with some basic demographic

characteristics of the UNCG population, including country of origin. It is believed

that these students who choose “unknown nation” as their response mistakenly

did so, for the United States was an option directly proceeding unknown nation.

Women were more likely to respond to the survey and as a result were more

generalizable to the population, versus men. Undergraduates were more likely to

respond than Graduate students, causing the average age of respondents to be

22 years. Individuals of white ethnicity were also more likely to respond than

Black, Hispanic and Native American. Slightly more than 50% of respondents

considered themselves to at least light drinkers (consuming one or more

alcoholic beverages). The average number of alcoholic drinks consumed in a

week was 2.45. This finding is crucial to this study for it contradicts the findings

made in the larger body of literature. However, as previously noted, the sample

size used in this study was small and directed toward female behaviors, which

may play a key factor in the difference in findings.

Individuals who noted a change in alcohol consumption since starting at

UNCG attributed the change to several factors, particularly time and schooling

itself. It was found that the actual consumption of alcohol increased for merely

16% of students and decreased for about 13%. These low numbers may be the

96
result of again the small sample size of students, primarily because almost half of

the individuals reported consuming 0 drinks.

A major strength of this study is the mixed method approach that we used

to obtain our data. Although not pertinent to this specific area of interest, the

collaboration of the survey and interview will aid in the findings of other

individuals who partook in this research. Although sample size may be a critical

factor in this analysis, it however at the same time shows that the

aforementioned literature may not be generalizable to all academic institutions

and participants. This study found that time spent at UNCG and alcohol

consumption are not correlated, rather the majority of individuals sampled

deterred from such behavior.

Conclusion

Studies have found that within each culture, a small proportion of

individuals comprise the drinking population in their society (Ahlstrom,

2004/2005). Gender differences are not apparent in adolescent drinking in

comparison to older individuals (Alhstrom 2004/2005). As we have seen in this

study, these two statements hold true for our sample. There are numerous

stereotypes surrounding American culture, particularly drinking patterns.

American university students are regarded by many of those abroad as ‘binge

drinkers’ whose behaviors are inappropriate, even disgusting. Research has

attributed these attitudes to different cultural beliefs. Many countries other than

the United States, promote social drinking as a common behavior among

adolescents practiced by the older members of the community. The United

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States discourages this practice and instills drinking laws nationwide. Some feel

that such laws promote binge drinking and other hazardous behaviors rather than

deter them. As we have seen in this study however, time spent at UNCG and

alcohol consumption has no direct correlation. The majority of the sample

population was non-drinkers so no strong comparative analysis could be made.

In order to have a better understanding of individual drinking behaviors we

must expand our study to include a larger sample size. By doing so, we would

better be able to ensure generalizability to the student population as a whole and

contribute to the literature on drinking behaviors of university students. Another

study should be conducted to see why individuals, particularly those previously

sampled, do not participate in the consumption of alcohol, what deters them? It is

the laws enacted by the government? Or is it that they do not want to engage

themselves in stereotypical American behaviors?

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Matt Hodler International Students’ Extra-Curricular Involvement at UNCG
Can Lead to Extended Social Networks

Introduction

According to a United States’ Department of Education report from August of

2002, our total enrollment of the country’s higher education was 15.6 million

students and was expected to reach 16.3 million by 2006 (Gerald and Hussar).

The growing trend is projected to continue, reaching 17.7 million full-time

students by 2012. This is a substantial proportion of our total population. It also

indicates the growing importance of a college degree in our current economic

environment. All of these students are not United States citizens. The United

States educates many of the world’s students as well; as many as 565,000 of

these college students are international citizens (Kujawa 2005). Kujawa states

that this number is rising again after a period of decline. Using the projection of

16.3 million students in higher education, about 3.5% of our student population

across the nation is classified as “international.’ More importantly, the United

States Department of Commerce issued a report stating that these international

students contributed $13.5 billion to the United States economy annually (Ford

2007).

The impact of international students on our country can be felt on the

campuses as well as in the cash registers of this country, and the trend will

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continue. Because of their impact on daily student life in the United States, it is

important for us to get acquainted with these students. Why are they here?

What are they studying? Why are they choosing U.S. schools?

These questions are both broad and important. However, I am more

interested in the basic impact that these students have on our universities and

colleges. It has long been said that “college is the best four years of your life.” It

is where you meet your friends, your future spouse/significant other, challenge

your mind, experience new things, etc. College students spend a great deal of

time with their peers, which will lead to more intimate relationships, stronger

friendships (Bleiszner and Adams 1992). Their friends determine, both overtly

and implicitly, in which activities the student will participate, what kind of music or

art the student will expose him/herself to, what classes he/she will take, where

he/she will live, if he/she will travel abroad, where he/she will work, and so on. In

short, the student’s friendship network will not only shape and determine a

student’s collegiate experience; it will be his/her collegiate experience in many

ways.

If we agree that friendship network, or social network, is important to

college students, it is important for us to determine how these are developed. All

of us that have attended college remember some well-intentioned adult, whether

it be a parent, an aunt, or neighbor, telling us to get involved at college. “It is the

best and only way to meet people,” they said. Is this true? Is involvement the

way to an extended social network? I would like to whittle down this question a

bit more. Is this true for the international student? Does involvement in a formal

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club/sport/organization on campus extend the social network of international

students? I intend to explore the answer to this question and explore other

avenues for social network extension along the way.

Literature Review

Numerous studies have been conducted that examined international

students and their club/sport/organizational membership/participation, usually

called extra-curricular activities. I will focus on five such articles.

The first article was published in 1964 by Banerjee. He surveyed a

proportion of college males living in student housing in India. Banerjee found

that extra-curricular participation is a characteristic of international student life.

This means that it is normal for students to participate in clubs in their home

countries so participation is not a uniquely American aspect of collegiate life. It

was also found that this living situation (living with other students) helped to

facilitate participation. Overall, this study was limiting because of the small

sample set and the fact that it only considered male students of one nationality

(Indian) in their home country. However, it is of consequence because we can

assume that international students are aware of extra-curricular activities in the

collegiate setting upon enrolling at a United States college or university.

The second article, by Joetta Carr et al, was a study of institutional

support groups for Asian women at a major university in the United States

(2004). This study is applicable because it underscores a gap of usage of

institutional resources by Asian women students. Carr found that international

students did not always know where to go or what was available to them, in

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terms of support groups. Although these findings are also limited in scope

because of the specific group of study, it does lead to interesting questions about

whether or not international students know how to get involved or what is offered

to them in terms of extra-curricular groups. Are international students acquainted

with their available options? Are they actively recruited like the general

population? As limited as Carr’s study was, it raised some interesting questions

about general knowledge of services and accessibility to said services of

international students on United States’ campuses.

Hayes and Lin authored an interesting article based on literature review

and secondary data analysis that was aimed towards campus counselors dealing

with international students’ adjustments to the United States (1994). Hayes and

Lin found that friendship with host nationals (U.S. citizens) greatly helped their

overall adjustment, but they also found that host nationals were not very likely to

engage in unsolicited interaction with international students. They theorized that

campus organizations would be a good way for these students to “open the door”

to American campus life, especially relationships with host nationals (1994:15).

Higgins lii and Jackson explored the collegiate experience of Asian

international students at a larger university in the Midwestern United States. In

this study, they found that student involvement was “critical” to student

development and a successful transition to life in college (2003: 379). Like Carr,

Higgins lii and Jackson found that Asian students were generally not inclined to

use many university services, including student organizations.

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 Klomegah’s study of international students’ feelings of alienation at a

historically black University in North Carolina concurred with Higgins lii and

Jackson in finding that student participation was very important to the successful

transition of international students. Klomegah also found that there were more

feelings of alienation in international students who had infrequent social contact

with other students (2006). The most interesting part of this study was

Klomegah’s limitations. Because this study took place at a historically black

university and the international students, being from Africa and the West Indies

looked more like the overall student body, students were more likely to interact

with international students because of homogeneity of physical appearance.

This limitation was interesting because most international students may not have

this feeling of homogeneity when on other college campuses, he stated that this

homogeneity lead to increased social contact and, therefore, less alienation

overall among the international students.

Most of these studies were published in education or counseling journals,

so they looked at specific countries of origin and specific issues. However, we

can generally say that the literature stated that extra-curricular involvement for

international students is not an unknown aspect of college life (Banerjee) and

that it has been found helpful in transitioning to American life and in gaining more

social contact (Hayes and Lin, Higgins lii and Jackson, and Klomegah). We also

know, thanks to Carr and Higgins lii and Jackson, that international students may

not be inclined to use university services, or may not know about the services

offered.

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 This study extends a bit on these studies in that I wanted to see if

participation in extra-curricular activities (club/sport/organization) really did

extend international students’ social network. Like Hayes and Lin, I found that

many international students did feel that participation did extend their social

network. However, as I will explain further, there are limitations to my study that

do not allow me to confidently say that international students who participate in

clubs/sports/organizations at UNCG have larger social networks than those

international students who do not participate in extra-curricular activities. My

results, although limited as well, support some of the basic findings of the above

literature and could be used as a first step in further examining the importance of

extra-curricular participation of international students in the United States.

Findings
As stated earlier, my hypothesis is that club/organizational membership at

UNCG will extend an international students social network. Within the survey

there was a grouping of questions (numbers 125-127) asking international

students about their participation/membership in clubs/organizations at UNCG

and how this affected their social network. These questions could be answered

on a Likert scale (1-5). A response of one indicated that the student “Strongly

Disagreed” with the statement and a response of five indicated that the student

“Strongly Agreed” with the statement. An example of this type of question would

be “membership or participation in a club/sport/organization has extended my

social network at UNCG.” The table below shows a frequency table, with

percentages, that illustrates the international students’ responses to this

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question. Table 2 (see below) illustrates that almost three-fourths (73.3%) of the

international students who reported being in a club/sport/organization indicated

that this membership/participation extended their social network.

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent
Strongly 1 2.8% 6.7% 6.7%
Disagree
Disagree 1 2.8% 6.7% 13.4%
Neither agree 2 5.6% 13.3% 26.7%
nor disagree
Agree 9 25.0% 60.0% 86.7%
Strongly 2 5.6% 13.3% 100.0%
Agree
Total 15 41.7% 100.0%
Missing 21 58.3%
Total 36 100%
Table 2 - membership or participation in a club/sport/organization has
extended my social network at UNCG

The above mentioned question was part of a three question grouping that

we set as a scale for measurement. We combined the three questions and found

that summation scale, which ranged form 3-15, was a reliable scale based on a

good Cronbach’s Alpha score of 0.749. (See Table 3). Cronbach’s Alpha models

internal correlation among the items in a scale. With our score of 0.749, we can

see that the individual scale questions reliably measure the same characteristic,

being that club/sport/organization membership/participation helps to extend the

social network of our international respondents.

Cronbach’s Alpha Cronbach’s Alpha Based on

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 Standardized Items

0.749 0.751
Table 3 – Cronbach’s Alpha

The average score on the social network scale (the summation of the

three question grouping) was 10.17. It was found to differ a bit between

citizenship statuses. U.S. Citizens had an average score of 10.08 on the scale.

Both Resident and Non-Resident Aliens scored 10.35 of the scale. Although not

significant, we found that Non-Resident Aliens were more similar to U.S. Citizens

than to Resident Aliens when using one-way ANOVA.

Similarly interesting results were found when examining group

statistics within the social network scale, although similarly insignificant. Males

and females had very similar scores on the scale, 10.24 and 10.15, respectively.

When the respondent was asked about his/her ties to UNCG or Greensboro

before starting school here, we received interesting information. When the

students were asked if they had anyone form their hometown or home country

here at UNCG before coming, the students who responded with a “yes” scored a

10.51 on the scale while respondents with a “no” answer scored a 9.45. When a

student’s previous ties were extended a bit to the entire Greensboro city area,

the answers were even more interesting. Students who responded with a “yes”

actually had a lower score (9.98) than the respondents who reported that they did

not know anyone from their hometown or home country in Greensboro before

starting school at UNCG.

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 Another demographic difference that was found to be insignificant but

interesting was degree-seeking status. Undergraduates scored almost a

complete point higher on the scale than graduate students (10.51 for

undergraduates to 9.52). This is interesting mostly because it reinforces

conventional wisdom that undergraduate students are more socially active on

campus and are more likely to join clubs/organizations to meet more people.

This scale by no means answers this questions but it could be an interesting

starting point for further research.

Characteristic Social Network Scale Mean

Citizenship Status
U.S. Citizen 10.08
Resident Alien 10.35
Non-Resident Alien 10.35
Sex
Male 10.24
Female 10.15
Previous Social Tie at UNCG?
No 9.45
Yes 10.51
Previous Social Tie in Greensboro?
No 10.36
Yes 9.98
Level of Study
Undergraduate 10.51
Graduate 9.52
All Respondents 10.17
Table 4 – Social Network Scale by Demographics and Social Ties

We found that our respondents’ demographics did fit well with the overall

population that was being studied, but we cannot truthfully apply these answers

to the entire student population of international students. Respondents

numbered 347 out of a sample set of 2041 (17.0%). Of these 347 students, 100

107
of them were classified as international students. This makes up about 15% of

the total international students on campus. Because of the lack of statistical

significance, we cannot place these characteristics on the entire UNCG

population of international students. However, the response number was high

enough to see some likelihood of applicability.

Discussion

As show earlier, our scale questions that asked if respondents felt that

club membership/participation extended their social network. This means that

there was a degree of consistency in the answers, or that the scale was reliable

in this measurement. We can say that, of the respondents, international students

who participated, or were members, of formal clubs/sports/organizations on

campus felt that this membership/participation facilitated in the extension of their

social networks. We cannot say that their social networks are greater than those

who do not participate in clubs/sports/organizations because we failed to include

questions that we lead to this determination in our instrument. There are some

other factors that could lead to extended social networks besides the

membership/participation in formal clubs/sports/organizations.

108
 Social ties of individuals before enrolling at UNCG were one factor that

was included in our instrument that we could examine further for relationships.

We looked at our scale variable and compared total scores to those that had

previous ties in both Greensboro and UNCG. These scale differences, in terms

of previous ties, are somewhat counter-intuitive because it would be assumed

that the student’s social networks are already higher when the person set foot on

campus if they have previous ties. However, this is interesting because the

differences are not as would be assumed. Students who knew someone in

Greensboro who was form their home country or hometown had lower scores

than those who had no previous social ties to people in Greensboro. There are a

few questions to ask in response to these statistics, even if they are not

statistically significant. Are students with previous ties more or less likely to join

clubs or organizations on campus? Does having previous ties inhibit one’s ability

to be active and meet new people because you will spend more time with them?

If a person’s ties are not on campus, does this mean they spend more time off of

campus with the person they already knew? These are but a few questions that

can be further examined just when looking at these responses.

The limitations that we discussed earlier, i.e. the failure to determine total

social network of respondents, both participants and non-participants, limited

some of our comparison making abilities. Also, as mentioned earlier, the

interviewing process of twelve self-selected international students was

interesting, but not pertinent to my hypothesis because the questions were very

limiting and did not completely cover the hypothesis.

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 The most interesting part of this survey and interview project was the

process itself. We have read articles about the importance to write clear

questions that could be interpreted in one way. This has proven to be more

difficult than meets the eye. Somebody somewhere will interpret a question

differently than a researcher intended, and invariably, that person will be

surveyed.

The difficulties presented in a team research project also arose. Even

with a regularly scheduled meeting time (once a week), a forum to speak with

each other (e-mail and blackboard), a very active project leader, and numerous

discussions outside of formal discussion avenues, there was a disconnect among

the researchers in the class. If this survey has revealed anything, it is the

importance of the research team to do three things: (1) communicate often about

various hypotheses and research questions, (2) each researcher should

familiarize him- or herself and the team with all instruments to the point of

intimate knowledge of hypotheses being tested, questions being asked, order in

which they are asked, et cetera, and (3) testing of all instruments, by both

researchers and a test group. These three practices of good researchers are of

paramount importance. As in all research, we were limited in our resources-

specifically time. However, the three practices mentioned above can save a

great deal of time in the end by taking the extra time in the beginning to follow

them.

Conclusions

110
 Interesting conclusions can be drawn from this study. There was a low

number (15) of international students who claimed to be members of a

club/sport/organization on campus. We also found that a majority (74.7%) of

these international students agreed that this participation/membership extended

their social network. All of the clubs on campus should be encouraged to actively

recruit international students because, as the literature as shown us, social

contact is important to a successful transition process of the international

students in the United States and an overall positive experience at American

Universities. These extra-curricular activities, by definition, lend themselves to

increased social contact via participation. UNCG should make more of an effort

towards making these opportunities for involvement known to the international

student community on campus.

This study can also be replicated with fewer limitations. The next

researcher can make certain to ask questions of the general population in

regards to social network and compare non-participants to participants to

determine if extra-curricular participation really does extend international

students’ social networks. Another comparison that a researcher could make,

having a larger pool of respondents, is social network compared to country of

origin of the international student. He/she could then examine further the

collectivism/individualism of said country for participation/membership rates and

social network size and extension.

111
 The most substantial conclusions can be drawn from the process itself.

The three aforementioned practices for successful team research all revolved

around one idea: the importance of communication within a research team.

Constant communication and familiarization leading to correct adjustments of

instruments cannot be undervalued. Research teams must mandate

communication among all members and the instruments must be known

intimately by all members of the research team. This constant communication

and familiarization will lead to the most consistent and best possible results by

the research team.

112
Emily Munson Cultural Adjustment of International Students and eating
habits

Have you ever been to a place where you felt like you just didn’t fit in?
What do you do when you don’t have the same values or customs as those
around you? How do you get by in that unfamiliar space and what helps?
International students usually face these concerns. They all have two things in
common: they are studying away from their native country and they must all
adjust to the new culture. Cultural adjustment involves both acculturation and
assimilation. Cultural adjustment can be an arduous process for international
students. Cultural adjustment does not have to be arduous, though. There are
some characteristics of individual students that help the process be less stressful
and easier for them.
There are many facets of the international students’ lives that influence
their personal adjustment to America. These facets influence the students’
stress levels. The facets include employment level, language ability, having both
American and native friends, internal decision making, marital status, educational
status, age, and work value. This paper will look specifically at marital status,
educational status, age, and English language ability and their influence on the
assimilation and acculturation of international students.
I hypothesize that the acculturation process in the United States is less
stressful and possibly more efficient for a student who is in a graduate program,
is single, and is older (27+.) I hypothesize that international students who have a
proficiency in the English language will have an easier time adjusting and will be
more acculturated. A person who is single will have more time and motivation to
form social ties and will therefore have an easier time acculturating. An older
student is more likely to have a solid self-esteem and good internal decision
making and so is less stressed by cultural adjustment. I deduce that a student is
acculturated if they are somewhat or very proficient in their English speaking
ability.
My second set of hypotheses relates to the eating habits of students. I
want to look at females versus males first. I believe that females will have more
changes than males. Next, I want to compare resident versus non-resident
students. My guess is that a US citizen will have the fewest changes in their
eating habits since attending UNCG. The non-resident students who are
culturally assimilated evidenced by language ability will also have a low
percentage of changes in their eating habits. The non-residents who are not as
culturally adjusted will have the most changes in eating habits since coming to
UNCG. My reasoning is that the more acculturated a student is, the more likely
they are to have already gone through changes before taking our survey. This
means that they will not report having had changes since coming to UNCG.
LITERATURE REVIEW

113
 Cultural adjustment is defined as a disassociation from one’s own ethnic
community. There is much literature on the cultural adjustment of international
students. The articles that I researched discussed the obstacles that
international students encounter adjusting to America and the factors that help
speed up the acculturation and assimilation process or those that make the
process less stressful. The obstacles to cultural adjustment include loneliness,
unfamiliarity to local customs and values, and loss of social status of native
country, among many others.
Language can be a major obstacle to cultural adjustment. Often, students
can feel lonely or isolated or confused as a result of misunderstanding the local
language. Language ability can also have an impact on how a student is treated
by Americans. Many American can be impatient with slow or accented speakers.
Also, unfortunately, some Americans are xenophobic or afraid of difference and
therefore discriminate against anyone who is unlike them. Jan Guidry Lacina
writes about these obstacles in her chapter titled, “Preparing International
Students for a Successful Social Experience in Higher Education.” Guidry writes
that the stress caused by adjustment to a new place can cause many physical
and mental side effects. These can be headaches, insomnia, mental exhaustion,
anguish, and physical exhaustion. Wow! This is serious stuff. Guidry states that
the most important element of a student’s acculturation process is knowing the
language well. Not knowing the language creates much discomfort and
confusion. She also discusses the fact that counseling and advising is important
for international students.
Debra S. Lee brings up language ability and the importance of counseling
in her article titled, “What teachers can do to relieve problems identified by
international students.” Her first point made in the article is that there can be a
huge language barrier for international students and all teachers and professors
should be aware of their use of slang and idioms when speaking to those
students. One study done by Knight and Kagan in 1977 found that there was
more rapid adjustment for English speaking second and third generation
Mexican-American children than for their non-English speaking peers. (Kagan &
Cohen, 1990.)
Marital status is discussed in many of the articles that I looked at. Kagan
and Cohen bring it up in their 1990 article, “Cultural adjustment of international
students.” They did a study of 826 international students at a large southeastern
university, from which a stratified, random sample of 300 students was drawn. A
total of 159 students, 92 international and 67 U.S. students responded to one of
two requests for participation. Their findings suggest that a student will become
acculturated more quickly if he/she is single, English-speaking at home, and has
close American friends. They rated speaking English at home as the most
important determinate of an international student’s personal and social
adjustment.
One article in particular discussed alienation as a major issue that many
international students face. This article was written by Senel Poyrazli and Philip
Kavanaugh in 2006. It is titled, “Marital status, ethnicity, academic achievement,
and adjustment strains: the case of graduate international students.” Their

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findings suggested that married students actually experience less overall
adjustment strain. They also found that students with lower levels of academic
achievement reported lower levels of English proficiency and more overall
adjustment strain. This reinforces my thoughts that a proficiency in English
speaking ability would represent a more acculturated individual.
Western Societies have been criticized for their emphasis on a slim
physique and negative stereotyping of obese figures. It has been proposed that
this has resulted in mass dissatisfaction with body shape and weight concerns
among the female population. Amelia Lake and Petra K. Staiger discuss this in
their article titled, “Effect of western culture on women’s attitudes to eating and
perceptions of body shape.” The incidence of eating disorders has been shown
to increase in non-western women entering Western society.

Does marital status, age, and academic status have an effect on the
acculturation level of the student as evidenced by a proficiency
in English?
I deduced that there would be a correlation between a student’s years of
education and their English-speaking ability. There does not seem to be an
significant correlation between years of education and English speaking ability for
non-resident or resident aliens. My hypothesis that educational status influences
acculturation was not supported by this data.
Years of education (status) Citizenship
18+ Non-resident alien: 52% of 25 respondents are
very proficient in English.
17 and under Non-resident alien: 67% of 18 respondents are
very proficient in English.
18+ Resident alien: 75% of 20 respondents are
very proficient in English.
17 and under Resident alien: 69% of 29 respondents are
very proficient in English.

I hypothesized that the older an international student is the more acculturated

he/she will be evidenced by his/her English speaking ability. Age does not seem
to affect whether or not one has proficiency in the English language. Rather, my
hypothesis was not proved. In fact, it seems that the students who are younger
than 27 actually have a better proficiency in English. My hypothesis was that the
older a person is, the more acculturated they would be. The data does not
support this hypothesis.

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 Age Citizenship
27+ Non-resident alien: 42% of 31
respondents are very proficient in
English.
26 and under Non-resident alien: 60% of 20
respondents are very proficient in
English.
27+ Resident alien: 35% are proficient in
English.
26 and under Resident alien: 37% are proficient in
English.

My guess was that a student who is single would be more acculturated

and therefore be more proficient in English speaking than their cohort who are
married, widowed, or divorced. This does not seem to be the case. Only in one
instance was there a significant percentage of never married students who are
very proficient in English.

Marital Status Citizenship

Married, living in a marriage-like
relationship, widowed, separated,
divorced
Never Married
Married, living in a marriage-like
relationship, widowed, separated,
divorced
Never Married
Non-resident alien: 43% of 14
respondents are very proficient in
English.
Non-resident alien: 51% of 37
respondents are very proficient in
English.
Resident alien: 77% of 26 respondents
are very proficient in English.
Resident alien: 65% of 23 respondents
are very proficient in English.

My second set of hypotheses concerns eating habits of students, both

international and domestic. I first compared the eating habits of all respondents
by gender. I did not find any conclusive results from this data. It seems that in
almost all cases the largest percentage of males and females both saw no
change in their eating habits since coming to UNCG. Only three in all of the
cases saw some change. Those cases were females eating less since coming to
UNCG, females going out to eat more since coming to UNCG, and males going

116
 out to eat more since coming to UNCG. I will look at citizenship status next and
see if that has any effect on eating habits since coming to UNCG.

“Since “Since “Since “Since “Since

coming to coming to coming to coming to coming to
UNCG I UNCG I UNCG I go UNCG I UNCG I eat
Gende N eat…” snack…” out to eat…” eat “junk”
r “healthy” food…”
food….”
female 252 Less-24.6% Less-11.2% Less-13.1% Less- Less-15.1%
20.2%
No change- No change- No change- No change-
50.8% 41.6% 32.1% No 44.0%
change-
More-18.3% More-34.8% More-32.5% 43.3% More-27.8%

More-
22.6%
Male 86 Less-25.6% Less-29.4% Less-15.1% Less- Less-17.4%
16.3%
No change- No change- No change- No change-
52.3% 43.5% 32.6% No 46.5%
change-
More-18.6% More-18.8% More-33.7% 45.3% More-23.3%

More-
27.9%

My hypothesis that US citizens would have fewer changes in eating behavior

than international students was not supported by this data. In fact, it appears to
be that US citizens have more overall change than the international students.

“Since “Since “Since “Since “Since

coming to coming to coming to coming coming to
N UNCG I UNCG I UNCG I to UNCG UNCG I
Citizenship eat…” snack…” go out to I eat eat “junk”
Status eat…” “healthy” food…”
food….”
Non- Less- Less- Less- Less- Less-
Resident 25.5% 13.7% 17.6% 19.6% 3.9%
Alien
No No No No No
change- change- change- change- change-
43.1% 45.1% 29.4% 45.1% 39.2%

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 More- More- More- More- More-
19.6% 33.3% 23.5% 13.7% 31.4%
Resident Less- Less- Less- Less- Less-
Alien 57.1% 16.7% 14.3% 26.5% 8.2%

No No No No No
change- change- change- change- change-
16.3% 47.9% 28.6% 53.1% 51.0%

More- More- More- More- More-

4.1% 20.8% 30.6% 10.2% 22.4%

US Citizen Less- Less- Less- Less- Less-

25.2% 16.1% 12.6% 17.6% 19.7%

No No No No No
change- change- change- change- change-
51.7% 40.3% 33.6% 41.6% 44.5%

More- More- More- More- More-

18.5% 32.2% 35.3% 29.0% 26.5%

DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONS

My findings suggest that an older student with a higher educational status

who is single is not more likely to be very proficient in English. In fact this data
suggests the opposite. The results were really inconclusive and not significant
for any of my hypotheses. The mini literature review that I conducted has
suggested otherwise. Their have been many studies that find that these factors
do in fact play a part in a students English speaking abilities and in their
acculturation process.
I believe that the cultural adjustment of international students is an
important subject to study and one that still needs much attention. There are
many aspects of adjustment that are very hard for students in college. The
international students have to adjust to moving away from home and being in a
different culture with unfamiliar customs and values. These things need to be

118
addressed and dealt with. As I mentioned before, there are some serious side
effects, both mentally and physically that come with the stress of cultural
adjustment. Knowing what helps students get through the acculturation process
easily will help students in the future.
Another important point that I see for international students is the growing
number of eating disorders that occur in the college years. Eating disorders are
not relegated to only rich Western women, they are becoming more and more
prevalent in other societies as well. A pattern could develop of women and men
who come to the US as international students and feel stressed out as a result.
This stress may lead to changes in eating behavior and may become unhealthy
changes. There is a lot of room for research in both of these broad topics. I
think many people assume that these are individual problems and it is up to us to
take social action and help make a change.

119
Saretha Lavarnway A study of collectivist behaviors and the desire to
participate in extreme sports
Introduction:
Many people travel throughout the world for a variety of reasons.

According to Robert Madrigal (1995), people travel in either groups or

individually. Madrigal hypothesized that each person’s personality type

determined weather an individual traveled with a group or independently.

Through a survey, he found his hypothesis to be supported. People who

traveled independently were internally motivated and this was associated with a

specific personality; a type t personality. People who traveled collectively were

externally motivated. External motivation was not associated with a type t

personality. One limitation in this study is that Madrigal’s tests did not extend to

international participants. In an international article published in 2004, Pizam,

Jeong, Reichel, Boemmel, Lusson, Steynberg, Volo, Kroesbacher, Kucerova,

and Montmany studied young adult tourists across the globe to determine their

behavior. They theorized that the behaviors of high risk takers are different from

those behaviors of low risk takers. The participants took several personality

tests as well as answered a questionnaire that determined the characteristics of

risk taking behaviors. These research findings strongly supported the theory

that certain personality types partake in behaviors associated with risks. In

another international article, Bela Florenthal conducted a study in Israel in 2000

where she hypothesized that certain personal values are associated with high-

risk sport conception. Her research findings supported that high risk takers are

more likely to partake in high risk sports activities. High risk sports such as rock

120
climbing are generally associated with a type t personality as stated by Feher,

Meyers, and Skelly in 1998. This suggests that there might be a correlation

between certain personality types that travel independently and risky behaviors.

There has been little research done examining possible connections between

personality types, travel, and risky behaviors. Based on this need, the current

study is designed to determine if a correlation exists between collectivists and

extreme behavior. Collectivist is an adjective describing people who feel socially

obligated in their behaviors. The hypothesis is that students identified as

collectivists will not be interested in physically extreme activities.

This paper will focus on exploring the idea that people with a collectivist

personality are not interested in participating in extreme sports such as rock

climbing. This specific topic has not been previously studied. However, through

researching internationally published articles, I surmise that a possible correlation

exists.

With the hypothesis: students identified as collectivists will not be

interested in physically extreme activities, it is necessary to also analyze

statistics using the questions centered on the activity participation and the

desires for participation in extreme activities. According to Table 4, the category

of bowling was most often chosen by participants of the survey. The sport

activities can be divided into two groups: individual sports and group sports. The

individual sports considered extreme sport activities. Table 5 correlates the age

of the participants with individual sports and group sports. There is a significant

121
correlation (p=.023) between those who participate in individual activities and

those that participate in group activities. This suggests that people active in

group sports are then also active in individual sports. The inverse correlation

between increased age and decreased likelihood of participation in either

individual or group sports suggests that the older the participant, the less likely

they were to chose any activities. The data was supported through the interview

process. Graduate students repeatedly stated in the interview that they do not

have enough time to participate in activities. According to Table 6, the highest

percentage of survey participants have participated in adventurous activities one

or two times (37%) followed closely by the willingness of participants to try

something adventurous but have yet to do so (30.2%). However, only 16% of

the participants enjoy extreme activities on a somewhat regular basis according

to Table 7.

When looking at the participants through the social obligation and

personal preference categories, it was determined if the individual could be

considered a collectivist. Questions 90 through 115 on the survey were given

point values and tabulated. The higher this score, the more the individual was

considered collectivistic. The reliability of the scale has alpha at .779, thus

reliable. When comparing this collectivistic score with the participant’s

willingness to participate in extreme activities, it should be noted that there is not

a strong correlation as can be seen in Table 2.

Table 1:

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 SPBPERS_SEX

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid F 253 74.9 74.9 74.9
M 85 25.1 25.1 100.0
Total 338 100.0 100.0

This table gives percentages of female to male participants.

Table 2:

CITIZENSHIP

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid NON RESIDENT ALIEN 51 15.1 15.1 15.1
RESIDENT ALIEN 48 14.2 14.2 29.3
US CITIZEN 239 70.7 70.7 100.0
Total 338 100.0 100.0

This table depicts citizenship status of all participants.

Table 3:

123
 ETHNIC_NAME * CITIZENSHIP Crosstabulation

Count
CITIZENSHIP
NON
RESIDENT RESIDENT
ALIEN ALIEN US CITIZEN Total
ETHNIC_NAME 0 0 1 1
ASIAN 25 15 3 43
BLACK 6 5 25 36
HISPANIC 6 9 4 19
NATIVE AMERICAN 0 0 3 3
OTHER 6 4 16 26
WHITE 8 15 187 210
Total 51 48 239 338

This table divides the participants by ethnicity and resident status.

Table 4:

Sports Frequencies

Responses Percent
of
124
 Snowboardi
70 9.2% 26.0%
ng
Total 758 100.0% 281.8%
a Dichotomy group tabulated at value 1.

This table shows the percentages of responses for each category.

125
Table 5:

Correlations

Rate y
Rate your willingn
frequency to
of particip
Number participatio in
of Number of n in physic
individua Group Age in adventurou extrem
l sport Sports Years s activities. activiti
Number of Pearson
1 .367(**) -.194(**) -.113(*) -.
individual sport Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .037 .
N 338 338 338 338
Number of Group Pearson
.367(**) 1 -.182(**) -.124(*) -.
Sports Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .001 .023 .
N 338 338 338 338
Age in Years Pearson
-.194(**) -.182(**) 1 .047 -.
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .001 .389 .
N 338 338 338 338
Rate your Pearson
-.113(*) -.124(*) .047 1 .445
frequency of Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .037 .023 .389 .
participation in
N
adventurous 338 338 338 338
activities.
Rate your Pearson
-.050 -.055 -.020 .445(**)
willingness to Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .357 .314 .709 .000
participate in
N
physically extreme 338 338 338 338
activities.
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

126
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

This table shows the correlation between the type of sports preferred and the age
of the participants.

Table 6:

127
 Rate your frequency of participation in adventurous activities.

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid I prefer nothing
35 10.4 10.4 10.4
adventurous
Willing to try something
adventurous but have 102 30.2 30.2 40.5
yet to do so
Participated in
adventurous activities 125 37.0 37.0 77.5
one or two times
Participate in
adventurous activities 45 13.3 13.3 90.8
three to five times a
Participate in
adventurous activities 26 7.7 7.7 98.5
more than five times
Please Select 5 1.5 1.5 100.0
Total 338 100.0 100.0

This table shows the participants willingness to participate in extreme activities.

Table 7:

Rate your willingness to participate in physically extreme activities.

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid I do not enjoy activities
that are physically 98 29.0 29.0 29.0
extreme
I am willing to try
physically extreme 93 27.5 27.5 56.5
activities but have
I enjoy physically
extreme activities and 92 27.2 27.2 83.7
participate infre
I enjoy physically
extreme activities and 37 10.9 10.9 94.7
participate sever
I thrive for the opportunity
to participate in 17 5.0 5.0 99.7
physically e
Please Select 1 .3 .3 100.0
Total 338 100.0 100.0

128
This table shows the participants participation level of extreme activities.

Table 8:

Correlations

Rate your
willingness
to participate
in physically
extreme
ic activities.
ic Pearson Correlation 1 .091
Sig. (2-tailed) .099
N 326 326
Rate your willingness to Pearson Correlation .091 1
participate in physically Sig. (2-tailed) .099
extreme activities.
N 326 347

This table shows the correlation between the participants collectivist grouping
and their willingness to participate in extreme activities.

Discussion:

The tools used for this mixed methods research were a forced answer

survey and interviews. Surveys allow for a large data set to be generated from

the sample population. The interviews allow for a more focused set of data.

Interviews are a great source of personal information, allowing the researcher a

better understanding of the findings. This mixed method approach is a valid and

reliable means of collecting data.

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 The analyzed data does not support my hypothesis. The data, as shown

in Table 8, is not significant at the 0.05 level. I can not reject the null hypothesis.

There is not enough evidence to correlate students identified as collectivists and

their interest levels of physically extreme activities. There are several limitations

to this study. First, the participant population could be larger. There was only a

16.5% return rate of the surveys. This limits the sample size and the

representation of the student body of UNCG. Participants were selected from

the UNCG roster, thus it is a convenient sample for our data collection. This

limits the ability to generalize the findings to the general public community. Also,

international students may have had difficulties in translating all the questions.

The questions on the survey should be processed through an international test

sample for misunderstandings and necessary changes. The interview questions

should also have been discussed as a group prior to the interview process. As

discovered after the interviews, the people doing the interviewing interpreted

some of the questions differently. This could easily be avoided in the future

through discussion or training.

There are a few points of interest generated from this data. The data

suggests that people active in one area of sports are more likely to be active in

another area of sports. This is a useful piece of information in terms of

marketing. For example, if I am operating a climbing gym, then I should think of

marketing for clientele in other sport venues. Another item of interest is the

reverse correlation of sports and age. Through the survey alone it would seem

that older people are less active. However, most of the older participants were

130
graduate level students. By indexing the interviews, it is clear that all

participating interviewees feel that they do not have time for many extra curricular

activities. I am interested in knowing if activity level would change post

graduation. I recommend further testing should be done to determine changes

in activity level after the completion of graduate school.

In conclusion, there is no significant correlation between students

classified as collectivists and their interest in physically extreme activities.

Further research should be done with a larger sample size that is representative

of the general global population. This study will be helpful in the marketing of my

climbing gym and by generating more questions and avenues of future research.

131
Eliza BlakeHow do Race and Citizenship Status Relate to International
Students’ Experience of Discrimination
in the United States?

The color line belts around the world and that the social problem of the twentieth
century is to be the relation of the civilized world to the dark races of mankind.

W.E.B. Du Bois, 1900

The Present Outlook for
the Dark Races of
Mankind

1. Introduction
a. The Research Question in Context
The question under investigation in this research project is this: How do
race and citizenship status relate to international students’ experience of
discrimination in the United States? Like all research questions, this one
emerged from a here-and-now context: The place is a medium-sized American
university in a mid-sized southeastern city; the time is a post-9/11 era influenced
by ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rapidly-advancing economic
globalization, and an alarming array of recent campus violence in the area.
Several well-publicized episodes of campus violence, most involving international
students and all involving minority-race students, took place locally and regionally
during the design and implementation of this study. These involved (1) an on-
campus shooting of a student at the study university, (2) a race-related attack on
three international students at another local college campus, and (3) a deadly
shooting spree at a university in a neighboring state, resulting in numerous
deaths, including the suicide of the Korean-born student offender. Although
campus violence is not the topic of this study, these events informed the thought
processes of both researchers and participants in the course of this investigation
of cross-cultural contact experiences of domestic and international university
students.
b. Variables

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 The independent variables in my investigation were (1) minority-race
status – or “non-whiteness” – measured by both IT demographic data and
race/ethnicity survey items, (2) citizenship status – or “non-Americanness” –
measured by IT demographic data, and (3) identifiability as non-American, as
measured by survey items addressing international students’ self-assessment of
their discernability as non-American by their appearance and speech. The
dependent variable was perception of discrimination, measured by survey item
Q119 which read as follows “Since coming to [this university], I have been
treated unfairly because of my skin color, race, ethnicity, or nationality,” and
provides a five-point Likert-scale selection of choices running from “(1) strongly
agree,” to “(5) strongly disagree.”
c. The Hypotheses in a Conceptual Framework
The American tradition lends itself to a binary model of race and
citizenship status – one that boils everything down to “white or black” or “us
versus them” – and one that is overly simplistic and fails to capture the nuanced
complexity of race and national origin as lived experience in America. That being
said, there is some value to conceptualizing along these lines, if we can do so
while maintaining a keen awareness of the historical interests and exploits that
motivated the construction of race and citizenship as concepts in this way in the
first place. Understanding how race and citizenship status have functioned in
America – and how they continue to function – requires an exploration of the
dynamics of such an oppositional model, because this model has had a
substantial role in the creation and maintenance of race in America. Thus,
although this investigation acknowledges (and indeed explores) both gradation
and contradiction associated with racial and national identity their consequences,
the study also relies on an assumption of a quite dualistic pattern of social
division in America.
This way of looking at the relationship of race to citizenship includes
seeing a spectrum of people who are “marginalized” on one end and
“mainstream” on the other. This bipolar spectrum of social empowerment shows
considerable overlap with a skin-color spectrum of people who, on the less

133
powerful end of the spectrum, appear “dark,” and on the other, “light.” And so if
both race and citizenship can mark us, to one degree or another, with an elite
status or with stigma, as authorized insiders versus aliens, then the intersection
of the two likely represents a deepening of that status. Three hypotheses arise
from this conceptual framework: (H1) nonwhite students will report experiencing
more discrimination than white students, regardless of international/domestic
status; (H2) international students will report more discrimination than domestic
students; and (H3) international students who assess themselves as easily
identifiable as non-American will report experiencing more discrimination than
other international students. I will argue that, for international students in
America, identifiability as non-American interacts in meaningful ways with
identifiability as non-white to produce experiences of discrimination.
2. Literature Review
There exists a vast, open canon of sociological literature examining the
many permutations of race, national origin, and discrimination in general, and of
their influence of these variables on international students enrolled in American
institutions of higher learning in particular. W.E.B. Du Bois (1996), famous for
predicting that the problem of the 21st century would be that of the color line,
understood early on that on a worldwide level, race – or, more specifically,
membership in “the dark races” – is related to nationality, and that non-white and
non-American people share a position of subordination vis-à-vis white America.i
Infamous for his seeming dismissal of the relevance of race in America today,
William Julius Wilson (1980) delineated the historic process by which economic
factors have overtaken overt racial discrimination as the primary conditioning
force in the lives of an “underclass” of black Americans living in racially-
segregated poverty.ii Joe Feagin (1991) re-asserts the prevalence and relevance
in America of anti-black discrimination in public places,iii and Herbert Gans (1999)
provides a theory of a reorganization of the American racial hierarchy from
“white-nonwhite” to “black-nonblack” as the salient categories around which a
new racial classification schema is forming.iv

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 Among scholars of American postsecondary education, attention has been
focused on the needs of international students experiencing discrimination.
Charles and Stewart (1991) explore the role of academic advising in helping
these students cope with discrimination (along with other related and unrelated
stressors),v and Davies (2007) studies cultural and cognitive processes of Asian
students studying in Western universities.vi Hanassab (2006) investigated the role
of factors such as students’ sending country’s geographic region (particularly the
Middle East and Africa) in differential levels of perceived discrimination.vii Hayes
and Lin (1994) use a social adjustment model to place perception of
discrimination in a framework of barriers to social and academic success.viii Lee
and Rice (2007) used in-depth interviews with international students to explore
their difficulties associated with contact with Americans, including perception of
unfair treatment, cross-cultural intolerance, and hostility.ix b. International
Student Identifiability
Using identifiability index, the 107 international students who provided an
answer to questions 21-23 can be described in terms of their identifiability as
follows: in this fairly normal distribution, half the group had a score of seven or
above, meaning that they see themselves as identifiable as non-American, while
the other half scored six or below, meaning that they see themselves as blending
in among Americans, are neutral or unsure on the issue, or just got tired of
answering questions and started checking the middle box for the ease of it. With
a standard deviation of 3.26, approximately two-thirds of the scores fall between
3 and 9.5, with the more extreme scores represented by those who agree
strongly on the identifiability items (about 10% of these 107 respondents) and
those who disagree strongly (about 17% of the group). The average international
student rated himself/herself as a 6.25, just barely above the middle score of
“neither agree nor disagree.” Indeed, more people (15%) answered with the
neutral, middle score than any other score.

135
 Page 136 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

c. Discrimination and Race

To address the first hypothesis (that non-white students will report more
discrimination than white students, regardless of international/domestic status), I
conducted an independent samples t-test for equality of means. The results
show a mean score of 1.61 for white respondents on the survey item about
discrimination (Q119) and 2.30 for nonwhite respondents. Because of the
significance level of .000 (P ≤ .05), we cannot assume equal variances, and the
two-tailed significance level is .000 (t = 5.485) meaning that we would expect little
or no possibility that the difference between our sample groups occurred by
chance alone. We have evidence, then, to support the hypothesis that nonwhite
students in the population experience more self-assessed discrimination than do
white students, regardless of international/domestic status (see appendix page
36 for tables).
d. Discrimination and Citizenship Status
My second hypothesis predicted that international students would report
more discrimination than domestic students, and another independent samples t-
test produced mean scores to support this: a discrimination level of 1.73 for the
American respondents on the discrimination question and 2.28 for non-
Americans. Because of the significance level of .011 (P ≤ .05), we cannot
assume equal variances, and the two-tailed significance level is .000 (t = 4.030),
meaning that we have little or no chance of observing this difference in the
general population by chance alone, so again we will view this difference
between our two sample groups as significant. We have evidence, thus, to
support our hypothesis that non-American students perceive more discrimination
than do Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity (see appendix page 37 for
tables). It is worth pointing out the similarity between the differences: the
white/nonwhite discrimination score split (1.61/2.30) resembles the
American/non-American split (1.73/2.28) closely, even though we know that
these two characteristic types (race and citizenship), despite considerable
overlap, are by no means identical in our respondent group or population.
e. Discrimination and International-Student Identifiability

136
 Page 137 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

For the third hypothesis (“International students who assess themselves

as easily identifiable as non-American will report experiencing more
discrimination than other international students”), I conducted a bivariate
correlation to obtain a Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicating the strength of
relationship between international students’ identifiability as non-American and
their experience of perceived discrimination. This procedure suggested a
positive, moderate-to-weak relationship (Pearson’s r = .308), meaning that the
more identifiable as non-American, the higher the perception of discrimination
(see appendix page 38 for correlation statistics). The one-tailed significance
level is .01, meaning that we can be at least 99% confident that this association
is significant in the population. However, the low correlation level reminds us that
there are other factors playing the larger part in the variation among international
students’ experience of discrimination.
f. Interview Analysis
The second phase of the study involved the collection and analysis of
qualitative data via eleven in-depth interviews with international students. These
data allowed for further exploration of the concepts undergirding the first phase of
the project. As described in section 3e above, interviewees responded to
questions and prompts relating to discrimination. Some students denied
experiencing discriminatory treatment, while others launched unprompted into
spontaneous accounts of discrimination, such as this 44-year-old Japanese
doctoral student. She initiated this exchange while still in the “stress” portion of
the interview, several sections prior to the official discrimination questions:
PARTICIPANT: Why I should say, sometimes I get unkind treat,
treatment from others
RESEARCHER: Mm hm.
PARTICIPANT: Not only on campus but in the community,
sometimes I don’t know, because I’m Asian, or because, I really
don’t know, sometimes, why I get, like, a, if I walk in the line of the
grocery store
RESEARCHER: Mm hm.

137
 Page 138 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

PARTICIPANT: the check-out person like, hi, how you are doing,
how are you doing
RESEARCHER: Mm hm.
PARTICIPANT: and the same person who did this just don’t do
that to me.
RESEARCHER: Mm hm.
PARTICIPANT: So sometimes I wonder how come?

When the interviewer does get to the official questions, this student has more to
say on the matter of how Americans normally treat her:
PARTICIPANT: Um I tend not to sugarcoat what I say, so –
RESEARCHER: Please don’t.
PARTICIPANT: So I hope I don’t offend you, but it can be very
extreme, from I feel like I’m not exist at all
RESEARCHER: Mm hm.
PARTICIPANT: to like a patronizing
RESEARCHER: Mm hm.
PARTICIPANT: [indistinct] When I was in a gas stand on [name of
local street], some man even approach me, “Which shop, which shop
are you working?” Shop means, I mean
RESEARCHER: [both chuckle nervously] Mm hm. OK....

This student’s level of sophistication may be atypical,4 and it appears that she
has put a fair amount of prior thought into concepts such as dehumanization,
sexual objectification and social invisibility. She connects her race, nationality,
and gender with her American experiences of being treated at best as inferior
(“like a patronizing”), and at worst as a sex object (being approached by a male
stranger, in an area known for its sex shops and prostitution) or simply non-
existent (“I feel like I’m not exist at all”).

4
This participant’s self-selection for the interview phase of the study was influenced by her high
level of education in a related field and her familiarity with interviewing as a research tool,
according to a later report by the interviewer.

138
 Page 139 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

Another Japanese woman also began early in her interview with an

almost-unstoppable flow of unpleasant discrimination experiences. Also without
specific prompting on the topic, this participant responds to the interviewer’s
mention of her Japanese accent with a detailed account of experiences related to
her identifiability as a non-white non-American:
PARTICIPANT: Sometimes I cry. At stores people are prejudiced?
Prejudice?
RESEARCHER: Discriminatory? You’re discriminated against? So,
they’re prejudiced?
PARTICIPANT: Yes! Prejudice. There was this old, white lady when I
was at the store one time that pushed in front of me when I was
standing in line.
RESEARCHER: Wait – just pushed in front of you? Did you say
anything?
PARTICIPANT: Yes, I said, “Excuse me, I was standing here.” But she
ignored me completely! She didn’t even acknowledge me. I was so
angry and told her how rude she was being but she still ignored me.

Her next remarks clarify that discrimination has not been an off-campus-only
experience for this student:
PARTICIPANT: I experience discrimination at UNCG. It’s like I’m some
strange animal. It occurred when I moved here and it still occurs.
Especially men – I think because of – they like Asian porn.

She describes being repeatedly “hit on” by men, and feeling cursed:
PARTICIPANT: But it happens everywhere. Cars will stop and men will
yell things. I got so depressed and had to see a counselor because I
was hit on too much. When I get honked at it startles me, and I walk
often because I don’t drive.

139
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Section 6: Conclusion

This participant sent her interviewer a follow-up email that explicitly connects her
“alien” status as a non-American (specifically as an Asian woman) with a
distressing sense of psychological alienation:
I’ve always felt that I have no voice in this society, being a foreigner,
Asian and female.... Sexuality is a big issue here which I feel
pressured in terms of even having one! In America, sexuality is the
most important aspect in life and if you are not sexual, you feel like an
alien (well, I am actually a legal alien) or there’s something wrong with
you. Sorry, another negative!

Not all the interviewees, however, connect being in America with

discrimination. Other students characterize their American experience as a
refreshing entrée into diversity of thought, emotional warmth, and freedom from
social restrictions, and view their travels away from home as a welcome respite
from some of the less desirable aspects of the cultural milieu in their sending
country.
This 24-year-old Chinese graduate student discusses his take on a mass-
murder-suicide shooting that was still in the daily news at the time of his interview
(an event which, for many Americans and non-Americans alike, exemplifies the
worst that America has to offer), and his seeing in it an illustration of the general
warmth of the American personality:
RESEARCHER: Ok, so what do you think you have gained from your
experience here? So far –
PARTICIPANT: So far, it’s ah, I think, ah, like the most recent case for
example, I heard about what happened at VT5 [making a gun shape
with hand] and the people of America, like ah when I read the CNN,
like ah, they regard the shooter, the murderer, as one of the victims, is
the most impressive. I mean the forgiveness. So, you asked me ah,
so far what I’ve learned here is like ah, I know that ah, the spirit of ah,
I’m guessing, I mean the culture, people are open. Open to the world

5
Virginia Tech, or, officially, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

140
 Page 141 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

and they believe, ah, the value, the value of ones own life and don’t be
so considered about other people’s opinion. And do your own, ah,
make your own self best. Yes, ah, this is what I’ve learned so far.
(Smiling) I sorry my, ah (laughing) I am not good at English....

This student, however, again presents the possibility that inclusion in the self-
selected pool of interview candidates may be associated with a higher level of
sophistication or a greater propensity to reflect on comparative cultural and social
dynamics, as in the following discussion:
RESEARCHER: Okay, Well what do you feel will be most valuable
about your experience so far?
PARTICIPANT: The most, ah, the most valuable experience. Think
ah, I live in I-house [“The International House,” a campus housing
option] and ah, I think that ah, like in China we have like 1.7 billion
people but we are all Chinese. Sometimes we are not open like to all
different culture. Like here, my roommate is from Nigeria and my
neighbors ah, are from Spain, Mexico. So it’s really a good experience
to ah, know their culture and know. Sometimes you know when I was
in China, I think foreign people, foreign country are so misery
[mystery?] ah how are they living? I’m so curious about that.
Interesting. But now, um, when we living together with, some things
we have in common, by nature but some things we are a little different
by culture. Yes. Yeah, I think that’s the most valuable experience.

Sophistication and self-selection notwithstanding, the themes reflected in this

interview are part of a larger pattern of interviewees who do not experience
discrimination on the basis of their identifiability as non-American and non-white.
A 25-year-old student from India touches on several of these themes:
Um, I, honestly, before I came, I thought this was a lot more
discriminating country, but at least in [this state], I did not find those
sort of things here.... US is a lot more open. I mean it gives you a lot

141
 Page 142 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

more freedom to do things your own way. In India it’s a little bit harder,
we are a democracy too, but it’s a little bit harder for you to be an
individual and do like, yea.... Uh, I still feel like an outsider with them
but it does not mean that they are being discriminator or anything, its, I
still feel like an outsider, that’s all, yea.

She remarks on appealing aspects of US culture that compare favorably with her
home country, including openness, freedom, and individualism, and she draws a
distinction between being perceived as an outsider and being unfairly
discriminated against.
Only one interview participant was white and a native English speaker,
and he suggested the shared cultural heritage6 between England (his country of
origin) and the US (now his adopted home) as a possible mitigating factor when it
comes to fitting in and not being treated “as any different than anybody else.”
Like the young Indian woman discussed above, this student qualitatively
distinguished identifiability as non-American (in his case, by his British accent,
often evoking “stupid questions,” he said) from problematic discrimination:
RESEARCHER: um, when you’re in public, how do you think
Americans treat you?
PARTICIPANT: er, pretty much, I mean I don’t think they treat me as
any different than anybody else.
RESEARCHER: um, I mean you’ve already said, that the main thing
that identifies you as not being from here is your accent. Do you ever
feel like you do get treated differently when people are taking into
account how you sound?
PARTICIPANT: [pause] not [pause] not really dramatically, I mean
they, like when they hear my accent, then, er, maybe the questions
start, but that’s, but not really.

6
This interviewee perceived a lack of cultural differences between England and the US, and he
noted that “a large part of like American culture was based on English culture to a certain extent.”

142
 Page 143 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

The only differential treatment he perceives consists of naïve but harmless

questions that he seems to interpret as stemming from a benign blend of
curiosity and ignorance. It is impossible to determine from this sample of one
whether sharing a racial and cultural identity with mainstream America act as a
protective factor for international students, but we can note that his lack of
discrimination parallels the experiences of others of the non-white interviewees
from regions of the world that are culturally, geographically, and linguistically
much further afield than suburban England.

5. Discussion
The evidence collected in this study suggest that race and citizenship
status are associated with experiences of discrimination, although by no means
in a total or deterministic fashion. Both the quantitative and the qualitative data
suggest that for international students in America, being identifiable in public as
non-white or non-American or both meaningfully relates to differential treatment
by Americans. Several interview participants provided anecdotal evidence that
this discriminatory treatment can be highly stressful and have serious
consequences for the wellbeing of the recipients. On the other hand, the
evidence also suggests that this facet of life in America is not all-encompassing
and that there are co-existing benefits to life in America for international students.
For some students, these attractive aspects predominated, and they denied
being made unwelcome or marginalized in connection to their race or citizenship
status. For those who communicated perception of discrimination in their survey
or interview responses, these experiences were part of a larger, sometimes
contradictory picture that often included motivation to remain in the US.
There are also alternative explanations. Other, unrelated differences
could account for differing experiences of discrimination, including variation in
motivations and goals for being in the US; degree of social connection with
versus isolation from Americans; personal attribution styles or other cognitive
factors; sex, age, and gender presentation; experience coming from worse
conditions in the sending country; and/or nuances within identifiability that the

143
 Page 144 of 204
Section 6: Conclusion

index did not capture, such as the varying stigma levels attached to particular
regions, ethnicities, or religions.

6. Conclusion
Our lives are conditioned by our economic, social, and political context,
and whether we have a worldly perspective or a parochial viewpoint, there is no
escape from the impact of cross-cultural contact. Therefore, addressing the
dynamics of inter-group contact and conflict is a central requirement for
educators, policy planners, and researchers. Whether our focus is on the
violence in our community or in our world, or on demanding shifts in the
economy, our social context creates a need for change. These required changes
include everything from a departure from American-style xenophobia, to
improvements in post-secondary educational settings serving both American and
international students in a functional, safe, and welcoming environment.

144
 8. Statistical Tables and ChartsMethods section 3b. Differences in sex
composition of respondent and non-respondent groups
SPBPERS_SEX

respondent or nonrespondent: respondent

F
M

SPBPERS_SEX
PERS_SEX
F
M
nrespondent: respondent

SEX SPBPERS_SEX
F
M
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid F 252 74.6 74.6 74.6
M 86 25.4 25.4 100.0
Total 338 100.0 100.0

145
 SPBPERS_SEX

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent

F
M

SPBPERS_SEX
SPBPERS_SEX
F
M

pondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent

SEX SPBPERS_SEX a

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid F 1066 62.6 62.6 62.6
M 636 37.4 37.4 100.0
Total 1702 100.0 100.0
a. RESPONSEstatus1 respondent or nonrespondent = 0
nonrespondent

146
Methods section 3b. Differences in race composition of respondent group and
sample
ETHNIC_NAME
SAMPLE

RACE
NO RACE LISTED N %
ASIAN
NONE 14 .7
ETHNIC_NAME

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent

ETHNIC_NAME
BLACK
NONE LISTED
ASIAN
BLACK

ASIAN 316 15.5

HISPANIC

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent

HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
NONE
WHITELISTED
ASIAN
ETHNIC_NAME
NATIVE AMERICAN
BLACK
HISPANIC

BLACK 339 16.6

NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
OTHER

OTHER
NONE
WHITELISTED
ASIAN
BLACK
HISPANIC

WHITE
NATIVE AMERICAN

HISPANI
OTHER
WHITE

ETHNIC_NAME

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent 101 4.9

C
NONE LISTED
ASIAN
ETHNIC_NAME BLACK
HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
OTHER
NONE LISTED

NATIVE 10 .5
WHITE
ASIAN
ETHNIC_NAME
BLACK
HISPANIC
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
NONE LISTED
WHITE
ETHNIC_NAME ASIAN

OTHER 147 7.2

BLACK
HISPANIC
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent NATIVE AMERICAN
NONE LISTED
OTHER
WHITE
ASIAN
BLACK

WHITE 1114 54.6

HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
WHITE

2041 100.0
TOTAL

ETHNIC_NAME

RESPONDENTS
respondent or nonrespondent: respondent
NONE LISTED
RACE
ASIAN N %
NONE 1 .3
ETHNIC_NAME

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent BLACK

NONE LISTED
ASIAN

ETHNIC_NAME
BLACK
HISPANIC
HISPANIC
ASIAN 42 12.5
NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
OTHER

NATIVE AMERICAN
WHITE
NONE LISTED
ASIAN
BLACK
ETHNIC_NAME
HISPANIC

OTHER
NATIVE AMERICAN

BLACK 35 10.4
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent OTHER
WHITELISTED
NONE
ASIAN

WHITE
BLACK
HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER

HISPANI
WHITE

ETHNIC_NAME

19 5.6
C
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
NONE LISTED
ASIAN
BLACK
ETHNIC_NAME
HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent OTHER
WHITELISTED

NATIVE 3 .9
NONE
ASIAN
ETHNIC_NAME BLACK
HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent OTHER
NONE
W HITE LISTED
ASIAN

OTHER 27 8.0
ETHNIC_NAME BLACK
HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
OTHER
NONE LISTED
WHITE
ASIAN
BLACK

WHITE 210 62.3

HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
WHITE

337 100.0
TOTAL

147
 Respondents and Sample
Major Race Groups
(those constitututing more than 1% of sample, and more than 5% of respondent group)
Race Respondent Respondent Sample Sample Respondent-to-Sample
N Column N Column Ratios
% % N Column %
ETHNIC_NAME

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent

Asian 42 12.6 316 15.7 13.29 0.80

NONE LISTED
ASIAN
BLACK
ETHNIC_NAME HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
WHITE
NONE LISTED

Black 35 10.5 339 16.8 10.32 0.62

ASIAN
BLACK
ETHNIC_NAME HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
WHITE
NONE LISTED
ASIAN
ETHNIC_NAME

Hispanic 19 5.7 101 5.0 18.81 1.14

BLACK
HISPANIC
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent NATIVE AMERICAN
OTHER
NONE LISTED
WHITE
ASIAN
ETHNIC_NAME BLACK
HISPANIC

Other 27 8.1 147 7.3 18.37 1.11

NATIVE AMERICAN
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent OTHER
WHITE LISTED
NONE
ASIAN
BLACK
HISPANIC
NATIVE AMERICAN

White 210 63.1 1114 55.2 18.85 1.14

OTHER
WHITE

TOTAL 333 100.0 2017 100.0 16.51 1.00

Respondents Age Stats Non-Respondents Age Stats

N Valid 337 N Valid 1702
Missing 0 Missing 0
Mean 28.52 Mean 26.21
Median 25.00 Median 23.00
Mode 20 Mode 22
Std. Dev. 9.520 Std. Dev 8.191

148
 undergrad or grad

respondent or nonrespondent: respondent

250

200
Frequency

150

100

50

0
Undergraduates Graduate Students

undergrad or grad

undergrad or grad

respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent

1,250

1,000
Frequency

750

500

250

0
Undergraduates Graduate Students

undergrad or grad

Status at Respondent Respondent Nonrespondent Nonrespondent Status at

UNCG Frequency Percent Frequency Percent UNCG

Undergrad 203 60.2 1265 74.3 Undergrad

Graduate 134 39.8 437 25.7 Graduate
Total 337 100.0 1702 100.0 Total

149
Sample Age by University Status (Undergrad/Grad)

Std. Std.
Sample Deviatio Error
Age_approx University Status N Mean n Mean
(age within one 1469 23.96 6.581 .172
year) Undergrads

Grad students
572 33.38 8.981 .375

Levene's Test for

Equality of
Sample Variances t-test for Equality of Means
Age_approx Std.
(age within one year) Sig. Mean Error
(2- Differen Differen
F Sig. t df tailed) ce ce
Equal variances
122.011 .000 -26.079 2039 .000 -9.425 .361
assumed
Equal variances not
-22.826 820.819 .000 -9.425 .413
assumed

Population

150
 CITIZENSHIP

NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP

NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid NON RESIDENT ALIEN 268 1.7 1.7 1.7
RESIDENT ALIEN 399 2.5 2.5 4.2
US CITIZEN 15283 95.8 95.8 100.0
Total 15950 100.0 100.0

Sample
CITIZENSHIP

NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP

NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid NON RESIDENT ALIEN 268 13.1 13.1 13.1
RESIDENT ALIEN 399 19.5 19.5 32.7
US CITIZEN 1374 67.3 67.3 100.0
Total 2041 100.0 100.0

151
152
 CITIZENSHIP

Respondents
respondent or nonrespondent: respondent
NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP

respondent or nonrespondent: respondent

NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIPa

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid NON RESIDENT ALIEN 50 14.8 14.8 14.8
RESIDENT ALIEN 48 14.2 14.2 29.1
US CITIZEN 239 70.9 70.9 100.0
Total 337 100.0 100.0
a. RESPONSEstatus1 respondent or nonrespondent = 1 respondent

CITIZENSHIP
Nonrespondents
respondent or nonrespondent: nonrespondent
NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP

respondent or nonrespondent: respondent

NON RESIDENT
ALIEN
RESIDENT ALIEN
US CITIZEN

CITIZENSHIP a

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid NON RESIDENT ALIEN 217 12.7 12.7 12.7
RESIDENT ALIEN 350 20.6 20.6 33.3
US CITIZEN 1135 66.7 66.7 100.0
Total 1702 100.0 100.0
a. RESPONSEstatus1 respondent or nonrespondent = 0 nonrespondent

153
Statistics for Section 4b. Identifiability Index

Reliability Statistics for Identifiability Index

Cronbach's Alpha
Based on Standardized
Cronbach's Alpha Items N of Items
.913 .920 3

Inter-Item Correlation Matrix for Identifiability Index Items Q21, Q22, and Q23
Q21 Americans Q22 Americans Q23 Americans do
can usually can usually not always
identify me as identify me as a understand my
non-American by non-American by spoken English.
my appearance. my accent or
speech patterns.

Q21 Americans
can usually
1.000 .805 .732
identify me as
non-American by
my appearance.

Q22 Americans
can usually
identify me as a .805 1.000 .839
non-American by
my accent or
speech patterns.

154
 Q23 Americans
do not always .732 .839 1.000
understand my
spoken English.

Histogram
Identifiability Histogram
20

15
Frequency

10

Statistics
5
identifiability_12_point_scale
N Valid 107
Missing 231
Mean =6.2523Mean 6.2523
Median
Std. Dev. =3.25951 6.0000
0 N =107 Mode 6.00
-2.00 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00 Std. Deviation 3.25951

identifiability_12_point_scale

155
Statistics for Section 4d. Discrimination and Citizenship Status
(H1) Nonwhite students will report experiencing more discrimination than white
students, regardless of international/domestic status.

Q119 Since Std. Std.

coming to this american_or_ Deviatio Error
university, I have not N Mean n Mean
been treated
unfairly because of 0 not 100 2.28 1.173 .117

my skin color, American

race, ethnicity, or
1 American 238 1.73 1.069 .069
nationality.

Q119 Since coming to Levene's Test for

this university, I have Equality of
been treated unfairly Variances t-test for Equality of Means
because of my skin Std.
color, race, ethnicity, or Sig. Mean Error
nationality. (2- Differen Differen
F Sig. t df tailed) ce ce
Equal variances
6.474 .011 4.185 336 .000 .549 .131
assumed
Equal variances not
4.030 171.449 .000 .549 .136
assumed

156
Statistics for Section 4c. Discrimination and Race
(H2) International students will report more discrimination than domestic
students.

Q119 Since Std. Std.

coming to this nonwhite_du Deviatio Error
university, I have mmy N Mean n Mean
been treated 1 nonwhite 126 2.30 1.202 .107
unfairly because of 0 white
my skin color,
202 1.61 .952 .067
race, ethnicity, or
nationality.

Levene's Test for

Q119 Since coming to Equality of
this university, I have Variances t-test for Equality of Means
been treated unfairly Std.
because of my skin Sig. Mean Error
color, race, ethnicity, or (2- Differen Differen
nationality. F Sig. t df tailed) ce ce
Equal variances
24.438 .000 5.785 326 .000 .693 .120
assumed
Equal variances not
5.485 220.922 .000 .693 .126
assumed

157
Statistics for Section 4e. Findings: Identifiability and Discrimination
(H3) international students who assess themselves as easily identifiable as non-
American will report experiencing more discrimination than other international
students.

Descriptive Statistics
Std.
Deviatio
Mean n N
International-
Student 6.25 3.260 107
Identifiability Index
Q119
Discrimination 1.89 1.127 338
Question
Correlation of Q1197 with International-Student Identifiability Index
International Q119
-Student Discriminatio
Identifiability n Question
Index
International- Pearson Corr. 1 .308(**)
Sig. (1-tailed) .001
Student
N
Identifiability Index
107 107

Q119 Pearson Corr. .308(**) 1

Sig. (1-tailed) .001
Discrimination
N
107 338
Question

7
Survey item Q119, measuring the dependent variable of perception of discrimination, read as
follows: “Since coming to [this university], I have been treated unfairly because of my skin color,
race, ethnicity, or nationality.” Response choices were provided on a five-point Likert-scale
running from “(1) strongly agree” to “(5) strongly disagree.”

158
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed).

159
Matt Hodler International Students’ Extra-Curricular Involvement at UNCG Can Lead to
Extended Social Networks

Introduction

According to a United States’ Department of Education report from August of 2002, our total

enrollment of the country’s higher education was 15.6 million students and was expected to

reach 16.3 million by 2006 (Gerald and Hussar). The growing trend is projected to continue,

reaching 17.7 million full-time students by 2012. This is a substantial proportion of our total

population. It also indicates the growing importance of a college degree in our current

economic environment. All of these students are not United States citizens. The United

States educates many of the world’s students as well; as many as 565,000 of these college

students are international citizens (Kujawa 2005). Kujawa states that this number is rising

again after a period of decline. Using the projection of 16.3 million students in higher

education, about 3.5% of our student population across the nation is classified as

“international.’ More importantly, the United States Department of Commerce issued a report

stating that these international students contributed $13.5 billion to the United States

economy annually (Ford 2007).

The impact of international students on our country can be felt on the campuses as

well as in the cash registers of this country, and the trend will continue. Because of their

impact on daily student life in the United States, it is important for us to get acquainted with

these students. Why are they here? What are they studying? Why are they choosing U.S.

schools?

These questions are both broad and important. However, I am more interested in the

basic impact that these students have on our universities and colleges. It has long been said

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that “college is the best four years of your life.” It is where you meet your friends, your future

spouse/significant other, challenge your mind, experience new things, etc. College students

spend a great deal of time with their peers, which will lead to more intimate relationships,

stronger friendships (Bleiszner and Adams 1992). Their friends determine, both overtly and

implicitly, in which activities the student will participate, what kind of music or art the student

will expose him/herself to, what classes he/she will take, where he/she will live, if he/she will

travel abroad, where he/she will work, and so on. In short, the student’s friendship network

will not only shape and determine a student’s collegiate experience; it will be his/her collegiate

experience in many ways.

If we agree that friendship network, or social network, is important to college students, it is

important for us to determine how these are developed. All of us that have attended college

remember some well-intentioned adult, whether it be a parent, an aunt, or neighbor, telling us

to get involved at college. “It is the best and only way to meet people,” they said. Is this true?

Is involvement the way to an extended social network? I would like to whittle down this

question a bit more. Is this true for the international student? Does involvement in a formal

club/sport/organization on campus extend the social network of international students? I

intend to explore the answer to this question and explore other avenues for social network

extension along the way.

Literature Review

Numerous studies have been conducted that examined international students and their

club/sport/organizational membership/participation, usually called extra-curricular activities. I

will focus on five such articles.

The first article was published in 1964 by Banerjee. He surveyed a proportion of

college males living in student housing in India. Banerjee found that extra-curricular

participation is a characteristic of international student life. This means that it is normal for

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students to participate in clubs in their home countries so participation is not a uniquely

American aspect of collegiate life. It was also found that this living situation (living with other

students) helped to facilitate participation. Overall, this study was limiting because of the

small sample set and the fact that it only considered male students of one nationality (Indian)

in their home country. However, it is of consequence because we can assume that

international students are aware of extra-curricular activities in the collegiate setting upon

enrolling at a United States college or university.

The second article, by Joetta Carr et al, was a study of institutional support groups for

Asian women at a major university in the United States (2004). This study is applicable

because it underscores a gap of usage of institutional resources by Asian women students.

Carr found that international students did not always know where to go or what was available

to them, in terms of support groups. Although these findings are also limited in scope because

of the specific group of study, it does lead to interesting questions about whether or not

international students know how to get involved or what is offered to them in terms of extra-

curricular groups. Are international students acquainted with their available options? Are

they actively recruited like the general population? As limited as Carr’s study was, it raised

some interesting questions about general knowledge of services and accessibility to said

services of international students on United States’ campuses.

Hayes and Lin authored an interesting article based on literature review and secondary

data analysis that was aimed towards campus counselors dealing with international students’

adjustments to the United States (1994). Hayes and Lin found that friendship with host

nationals (U.S. citizens) greatly helped their overall adjustment, but they also found that host

nationals were not very likely to engage in unsolicited interaction with international students.

They theorized that campus organizations would be a good way for these students to “open

the door” to American campus life, especially relationships with host nationals (1994:15).

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 Higgins lii and Jackson explored the collegiate experience of Asian international

students at a larger university in the Midwestern United States. In this study, they found that

student involvement was “critical” to student development and a successful transition to life in

college (2003: 379). Like Carr, Higgins lii and Jackson found that Asian students were

generally not inclined to use many university services, including student organizations.

Klomegah’s study of international students’ feelings of alienation at a historically black

University in North Carolina concurred with Higgins lii and Jackson in finding that student

participation was very important to the successful transition of international students.

Klomegah also found that there were more feelings of alienation in international students who

had infrequent social contact with other students (2006). The most interesting part of this

study was Klomegah’s limitations. Because this study took place at a historically black

university and the international students, being from Africa and the West Indies looked more

like the overall student body, students were more likely to interact with international students

because of homogeneity of physical appearance. This limitation was interesting because

most international students may not have this feeling of homogeneity when on other college

campuses, he stated that this homogeneity lead to increased social contact and, therefore,

less alienation overall among the international students.

Most of these studies were published in education or counseling journals, so they

looked at specific countries of origin and specific issues. However, we can generally say that

the literature stated that extra-curricular involvement for international students is not an

unknown aspect of college life (Banerjee) and that it has been found helpful in transitioning to

American life and in gaining more social contact (Hayes and Lin, Higgins lii and Jackson, and

Klomegah). We also know, thanks to Carr and Higgins lii and Jackson, that international

students may not be inclined to use university services, or may not know about the services

offered.

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 This study extends a bit on these studies in that I wanted to see if participation in extra-

curricular activities (club/sport/organization) really did extend international students’ social

network. Like Hayes and Lin, I found that many international students did feel that

participation did extend their social network. However, as I will explain further, there are

limitations to my study that do not allow me to confidently say that international students who

participate in clubs/sports/organizations at UNCG have larger social networks than those

international students who do not participate in extra-curricular activities. My results, although

limited as well, support some of the basic findings of the above literature and could be used

as a first step in further examining the importance of extra-curricular participation of

international students in the United States.

Findings

The International Student Survey at UNCG was the third of its kind. It was a collection

of 198 questions asking students a variety of questions about their drinking habits, their social

networks, major choices, religious affiliations, country of origin, age, degree that is sought,

along with many other questions of interest. I looked at club membership or participation,

positing that club or organization membership/participation would extend the social network of

international students at UNCG.

The survey was distributed to a sample of 2041 from a student population of 15950.

The survey had 347 respondents. The demographics of the respondents were very similar to

that of the non-respondents and that of the entire population. The average age of the

population was 26.2 years of age, with a range from 17 to 78 years of age. The respondents’

average age was a little higher than the overall population (28.6). Non-respondents had an

average age of 26.2 years. (See Table 1 for demographics).

Other demographics include the students’ level of study (graduate/undergraduate

classification), the sex of the students, residency status, and the majors. The UNCG reported

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statistics for the entire population state that 23.1% of the students are graduate students,

while the remainder (76.9%) is undergraduate. Being an historic women’s college, UNCG

has a majority of females on campus (68.3%), while less than a third of the students are

males, at 31.7%. The University also states that students come from 39 different countries,

with South Korea and China having the highest representations. More than two-thirds of the

students are white (69.1%) and Native-American is the lowest ethnicity represented at UNCG

(0.5%). “Undecided” is the highest declared major on campus, with 5.3% of the students in

that category. Biology is the second highest (4.4%) and more than five departments among

the other schools at UNCG have less than 1% of the students declaring their major in that

field. Less than 2% (1.7%) of the UNCG population is Non-Resident Alien and 95.8% are

U.S. Citizens.

More than one third (39.2%) of the respondents were graduate students and 60.8%

were undergraduates. Almost three-fourths of the respondents were female (74.9%) and

25.1% were males. The most popular major was “Undecided” as well, with a slight bump up

to 5.9% of the respondents reported that as their major. Eight majors shared the least

number of respondents at 0.3%. These majors included pre-business focuses, and various

others in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Unknown” was the most frequent (21) response

to country of origin, while Taiwan and Japan both had four students respond. “White” was the

highest ethnicity of respondents, at 61.4% and “Native-American” was the least frequent

ethnicity reported (0.9%). U.S. citizens make up 70.6% of the respondents and 14.1%

reported to have the status of “Resident Alien.”

Non-respondents were more likely to be male than respondents (37.5%), but were still

the minority as far as sex went; 62.5% of non-respondents were female. Level of study was

also a bit different for non-respondents; almost three fourths of non-respondents were

undergraduates (74.7%) and the remaining 25.3% were graduate students. Non-

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respondents’ residency status also was different proportionately than respondents. Non-

respondents were less likely to be U.S. Citizens than respondents, with two thirds (66.6%) of

them maintaining that status. At 12.7%, Non-Resident Alien was the lowest citizenship status

for the non-respondents. The lowest ethnicity rating for non-respondents was “Native

American,” with 0.4% from that ethnicity making up the non-respondents’ ethnicity. ‘White”

made up the highest ethnicity group that did not respond to the survey (53.2%). “Undecided”

was the most common major for non-respondents, at 5.3%, while numerous majors from all

schools had the lowest percentage of students that did not respond (less than 1%). Twenty

South Koreans did not respond, making them the highest nationality group from the

International non-respondents. China and India followed with 18 and 17, respectively.

UNCG Sample Respondents Non-

Population Respondents
N 15950 2041 347 1694
Age (Mean) 26.2 yrs 26.6 yrs 28.6 yrs 26.2 yrs
Male 31.7% 35.4% 25.1% 37.5%
Female 68.3% 64.6% 74.9% 62.5%
White 69.1% 54.6% 61.4% 53.2%
Black 18.8% 16.6% 11.2% 17.7%
Other 4.7% 7.2% 8.4% 7.0%
Asian 4.0% 15.5% 12.4% 16.1%
Hispanic 2.2% 4.9% 5.5% 4.8%
Native American 0.5% 50.0% 0.9% 0.4%
Undergraduate 76.9% 72.4% 60.8% 74.7%
Graduate 23.1% 27.6% 39.2% 25.3%
US Citizen 98.0% 67.3% 70.6% 66.6%
Resident Alien 2.5% 19.5% 14.1% 20.7%
Non-Resident Alien 1.7% 13.1% 15.3% 12.7%
Table 1 - Demographic Characteristics Summary
(Population, Sample, Respondents, and Non-respondents)

As stated earlier, my hypothesis is that club/organizational membership at UNCG will

extend an international students social network. Within the survey there was a grouping of

questions (numbers 125-127) asking international students about their

participation/membership in clubs/organizations at UNCG and how this affected their social

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network. These questions could be answered on a Likert scale (1-5). A response of one

indicated that the student “Strongly Disagreed” with the statement and a response of five

indicated that the student “Strongly Agreed” with the statement. An example of this type of

question would be “membership or participation in a club/sport/organization has extended my

social network at UNCG.” The table below shows a frequency table, with percentages, that

illustrates the international students’ responses to this question. Table 2 (see below)

illustrates that almost three-fourths (73.3%) of the international students who reported being

in a club/sport/organization indicated that this membership/participation extended their social

network.

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent
Strongly 1 2.8% 6.7% 6.7%
Disagree
Disagree 1 2.8% 6.7% 13.4%
Neither agree 2 5.6% 13.3% 26.7%
nor disagree
Agree 9 25.0% 60.0% 86.7%
Strongly Agree 2 5.6% 13.3% 100.0%
Total 15 41.7% 100.0%
Missing 21 58.3%
Total 36 100%
Table 2 - membership or participation in a club/sport/organization has extended my social network at
UNCG

The above mentioned question was part of a three question grouping that we set as a

scale for measurement. We combined the three questions and found that summation scale,

which ranged form 3-15, was a reliable scale based on a good Cronbach’s Alpha score of

0.749. (See Table 3). Cronbach’s Alpha models internal correlation among the items in a

scale. With our score of 0.749, we can see that the individual scale questions reliably

measure the same characteristic, being that club/sport/organization membership/participation

helps to extend the social network of our international respondents.

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 Cronbach’s Alpha Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized
Items

0.749 0.751
Table 3 – Cronbach’s Alpha

The average score on the social network scale (the summation of the three question

grouping) was 10.17. It was found to differ a bit between citizenship statuses. U.S. Citizens

had an average score of 10.08 on the scale. Both Resident and Non-Resident Aliens scored

10.35 of the scale. Although not significant, we found that Non-Resident Aliens were more

similar to U.S. Citizens than to Resident Aliens when using one-way ANOVA.

Similarly interesting results were found when examining group statistics within

the social network scale, although similarly insignificant. Males and females had very similar

scores on the scale, 10.24 and 10.15, respectively. When the respondent was asked about

his/her ties to UNCG or Greensboro before starting school here, we received interesting

information. When the students were asked if they had anyone form their hometown or home

country here at UNCG before coming, the students who responded with a “yes” scored a

10.51 on the scale while respondents with a “no” answer scored a 9.45. When a student’s

previous ties were extended a bit to the entire Greensboro city area, the answers were even

more interesting. Students who responded with a “yes” actually had a lower score (9.98) than

the respondents who reported that they did not know anyone from their hometown or home

country in Greensboro before starting school at UNCG.

Another demographic difference that was found to be insignificant but interesting was

degree-seeking status. Undergraduates scored almost a complete point higher on the scale

than graduate students (10.51 for undergraduates to 9.52). This is interesting mostly

because it reinforces conventional wisdom that undergraduate students are more socially

active on campus and are more likely to join clubs/organizations to meet more people. This

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scale by no means answers this questions but it could be an interesting starting point for

further research.

Characteristic Social Network Scale Mean

Citizenship Status
U.S. Citizen 10.08
Resident Alien 10.35
Non-Resident Alien 10.35
Sex
Male 10.24
Female 10.15
Previous Social Tie at UNCG?
No 9.45
Yes 10.51
Previous Social Tie in Greensboro?
No 10.36
Yes 9.98
Level of Study
Undergraduate 10.51
Graduate 9.52
All Respondents 10.17
Table 4 – Social Network Scale by Demographics and Social Ties

We found that our respondents’ demographics did fit well with the overall population

that was being studied, but we cannot truthfully apply these answers to the entire student

population of international students. Respondents numbered 347 out of a sample set of 2041

(17.0%). Of these 347 students, 100 of them were classified as international students. This

makes up about 15% of the total international students on campus. Because of the lack of

statistical significance, we cannot place these characteristics on the entire UNCG population

of international students. However, the response number was high enough to see some

likelihood of applicability.

Discussion

As show earlier, our scale questions that asked if respondents felt that club

membership/participation extended their social network. This means that there was a degree

of consistency in the answers, or that the scale was reliable in this measurement. We can

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say that, of the respondents, international students who participated, or were members, of

formal clubs/sports/organizations on campus felt that this membership/participation facilitated

in the extension of their social networks. We cannot say that their social networks are greater

than those who do not participate in clubs/sports/organizations because we failed to include

questions that we lead to this determination in our instrument. There are some other factors

that could lead to extended social networks besides the membership/participation in formal

clubs/sports/organizations.

Social ties of individuals before enrolling at UNCG were one factor that was included in

our instrument that we could examine further for relationships. We looked at our scale

variable and compared total scores to those that had previous ties in both Greensboro and

UNCG. These scale differences, in terms of previous ties, are somewhat counter-intuitive

because it would be assumed that the student’s social networks are already higher when the

person set foot on campus if they have previous ties. However, this is interesting because

the differences are not as would be assumed. Students who knew someone in Greensboro

who was form their home country or hometown had lower scores than those who had no

previous social ties to people in Greensboro. There are a few questions to ask in response to

these statistics, even if they are not statistically significant. Are students with previous ties

more or less likely to join clubs or organizations on campus? Does having previous ties

inhibit one’s ability to be active and meet new people because you will spend more time with

them? If a person’s ties are not on campus, does this mean they spend more time off of

campus with the person they already knew? These are but a few questions that can be

further examined just when looking at these responses.

The limitations that we discussed earlier, i.e. the failure to determine total social

network of respondents, both participants and non-participants, limited some of our

comparison making abilities. Also, as mentioned earlier, the interviewing process of twelve

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self-selected international students was interesting, but not pertinent to my hypothesis

because the questions were very limiting and did not completely cover the hypothesis.

The most interesting part of this survey and interview project was the process itself.

We have read articles about the importance to write clear questions that could be interpreted

in one way. This has proven to be more difficult than meets the eye. Somebody somewhere

will interpret a question differently than a researcher intended, and invariably, that person will

be surveyed.

The difficulties presented in a team research project also arose. Even with a regularly

scheduled meeting time (once a week), a forum to speak with each other (e-mail and

blackboard), a very active project leader, and numerous discussions outside of formal

discussion avenues, there was a disconnect among the researchers in the class. If this

survey has revealed anything, it is the importance of the research team to do three things: (1)

communicate often about various hypotheses and research questions, (2) each researcher

should familiarize him- or herself and the team with all instruments to the point of intimate

knowledge of hypotheses being tested, questions being asked, order in which they are asked,

et cetera, and (3) testing of all instruments, by both researchers and a test group. These

three practices of good researchers are of paramount importance. As in all research, we

were limited in our resources- specifically time. However, the three practices mentioned

above can save a great deal of time in the end by taking the extra time in the beginning to

follow them.

Conclusions

Interesting conclusions can be drawn from this study. There was a low number (15) of

international students who claimed to be members of a club/sport/organization on campus.

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We also found that a majority (74.7%) of these international students agreed that this

participation/membership extended their social network. All of the clubs on campus should be

encouraged to actively recruit international students because, as the literature as shown us,

social contact is important to a successful transition process of the international students in

the United States and an overall positive experience at American Universities. These extra-

curricular activities, by definition, lend themselves to increased social contact via participation.

UNCG should make more of an effort towards making these opportunities for involvement

known to the international student community on campus.

This study can also be replicated with fewer limitations. The next researcher can make

certain to ask questions of the general population in regards to social network and compare

non-participants to participants to determine if extra-curricular participation really does extend

international students’ social networks. Another comparison that a researcher could make,

having a larger pool of respondents, is social network compared to country of origin of the

international student. He/she could then examine further the collectivism/individualism of said

country for participation/membership rates and social network size and extension.

The most substantial conclusions can be drawn from the process itself. The three

aforementioned practices for successful team research all revolved around one idea: the

importance of communication within a research team. Constant communication and

familiarization leading to correct adjustments of instruments cannot be undervalued.

Research teams must mandate communication among all members and the instruments must

be known intimately by all members of the research team. This constant communication and

familiarization will lead to the most consistent and best possible results by the research team.

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Joyce Clapp How does religion affect acculturation for international students?

Introduction This paper explores data collected through an online survey and semi-

structured interviews as part of class activities in the spring 2007 session of SOC616,

the sociology graduate level research methods class at the University of North

Carolina at Greensboro (UNC-G). The research topics explored in our work were

many and varied; however, my focus was on how religion affects acculturation for

non-citizen students. I hypothesized that for international students (non-citizens),

those who attended an ethnic place of worship were likely to be less acculturated, on

average, than those who attended a non-ethnic place of worship or none at all. While

this hypothesis proved to be flawed, the research and research process were just as

interesting as they would have been had my research yielded the results I expected.

We often learn as much from research that doesn’t yield our expected results as

research that does confirm our suspicions, and this research provided field testing for

ideas that hopefully will be followed up on in further research. Acculturation is a tricky

concept to measure; after all, to measure acculturation, we need to be able to define

what culture is, something that we as academics are still struggling with. In this

research, culture was operationalized through language, social connections, product

usage, and media usage; however, this is certainly not the only way to measure

acculturation. As the world continues to shrink, this is a question that will continue to

face social scientists of all stripes. Hopefully, research exploring religion and

acculturation will be part of this continuing work.

Literature Review

When searching for information on many topics, one could go to one’s favorite abstract

search engine and find a veritable cornucopia of literature to peruse. This is not the case in
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sociological and other social science literature, in regards to religion, acculturation, and

international students in the United States. However, interesting research has been done in

other related areas of inquiry that can inform the present study.

Kim (2004) didn’t directly explore acculturation in international students, but looked at

second generation Korean-American students and campus ministries, conducting exploratory

research on Korean-American Christian campus ministries, and why students would choose

those ministries over other available religious options. Kim visited 30 organizations, including

both Korean and non-Korean campus ministries. She conducted participant observations at

five of them, and conducted 100 interviews, half with staff from Korean ministries and half with

staff from other, non-ethnic ministries (Kim 2004:24). She speculated that both cultural

differences, and a feeling of solidarity created through being treated differently due to one’s

appearance, might assist the formation of ethnic campus ministries. She found that students

reported joining ethnic ministries due to a desire to belong to organizations where they were

the majority, due to the desires to be around other Korean students, and to feel a connection

to those that they are similar to (Kim 2004). Also, she found that many of those students who

might have been inclined to join a multi-ethnic ministry often felt pressured by forces both

within and without the Korean community to join a Korean ministry. Thus, students who might

have been inclined to acculturate more fully were encouraged and even pressured by

members of their ethnic community to maintain their cultural ties to that community through

Korean campus ministries (Kim 2004).

Wang and Yang (2006) pursued similar research, studying Chinese students and

scholars living in Iowa City, Iowa and Macomb, Illinois. Through participant observation and

in-depth interviews, they explored whether Chinese converts to Christianity were likely to join

a Christian church simply because of ethnic nature. They also explored whether, in the

absence of ethnic Christian options, conversion to Christianity was still likely, and if so,
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through what kinds of churches. They found that there were many reasons for Chinese

students and scholars in these situations to convert. Non-cultural reasons included perceived

pressure to convert during church services, or a feeling of being caught up in the moment.

Cultural reasons included being dissatisfied with the backlash against religion in China and

enjoying the freedom to be religious in the United States, and being dissatisfied with the

materialistic culture in China. However, the researchers also found that the Chinese

churches marketed themselves aggressively to Chinese students. When Chinese churches

were not available, students tended to convert through “personal bonds” to whatever

denomination suited them or to one to which friends or professors belonged. In the end,

Wang and Yang concluded that such “ecological factors” were important to understanding the

conversion process (Wang & Yang 206:191). In Iowa City, where evangelical Chinese

churches marketed themselves heavily at Chinese students, most students converted to

these churches or organized Chinese ministries of their own. In Macomb, students felt more

free to choose any denomination that suited them, and they did (Wang & Yang 206:190).

Thus, Wang and Yang found that cultural pressures could influence the student’s choice of

religious organizations, just as Kim did.

On the other hand, Ghorpade, Lackritz, and Singh did not study international students

in particular. Their respondents consisted of 320 university students, both ethnic minorities

and Caucasian. The researchers distributed questionnaires consisting of 101 questions

covering “10 personality and cultural constructs,” along with basic demographic measures,

which were administered to students at a “large state university” in the western United States

(2004:1215). These students were recruited through either student organization meetings or

classroom settings. The measure of acculturation used was the Psychological Acculturation

Scale (Ghorpade et al 2004:1217), which asks the respondents to identify with either an

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ethnic cultural group or the “white Anglo American cultural group”, and then measures

“emotional attachment, understanding, and appreciation for the values, beliefs, attitudes, and

behaviors of the two groups” (Ghorpade et al 2004:1217). The researchers hypothesized that

ethnic minorities who were Christians would show higher levels of acculturation than those

who belonged to non-Christian religions.

For this scale of psychological acculturation, the researchers did not find that those

respondents who reported being Christian showed higher levels of acculturation than those

respondents who reported being non-Christians; in fact, those who scored highest, on

average, on the scale were those with “no preference”, and that those with no preference had

the next-to-smallest standard deviation, which means that they were the most alike each

other (Ghorpade et al 2004:1220-1221). However, it is important to note that those students

who had immigrated themselves to the United States were less likely to show higher levels of

acculturation on average, and this level was going to be lower the as age at time of

immigration increased (2004:1221). This would seem to indicate that it would be possible that

international students would have different qualities than the ethnic university students that

Ghorpade studied.

Sodowsky and Plake (1992) also studied ethnic minorities in a university setting. Their

sample was 606 international students and post-doctoral students, as well as permanent and

naturalized United States residents associated with a “major mid-western university”

(Sodowsky & Plake 1992:54). To measure acculturation, they used the American

International Relations Scale, which measures acculturation, language usage, and perceived

prejudice through a 34 item instrument measure that employees Likert scales and multiple

choice questions (Sodowsky & Plake 1992:54). The researchers also included three open-

ended questions: “Please state how your national origin is related to your identity,” “Please

state how you perceive Americans treat you” and “Please state how you respond to
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Americans” (Sodowsky & Plake 1992:55-56). Their main research questions were, are

people from different continents different in their acculturation, and do other variables (such

as religion) moderate their acculturation (Sodowsky & Plake 1992:54).

Sodowsky and Plake found that Muslims reported a higher perceived prejudice, on

average, than Protestants and Catholics and found no significant differences between

Buddhist-Hindus and Catholics, and Buddhist-Hindus and Protestants. They also found that

that Muslims were less acculturated than other groups, and Catholics were less

acculturated than Protestants. Finally, they found that people who belonged to no

organized religion used English less than other groups, but that Muslims were close in their

language usage to that group, and that Catholics used English less than Protestants

(Sodowsky & Plake 1992:55). In other words, the closer to “mainstream” religion in the

United States that the respondent was, the more they used English. This research was

interesting in that it showed that religion could have an effect on acculturation and English

use; however, the results were not broken down by ethnic group, so we have no idea, for

example, if these were primarily Asian Muslims, African Muslims, or Arab Muslims, all of

whom are going to acculturate in different ways and at different rates. Still, the research

was interesting in that it showed a possible connection between religion and acculturation,

unlike the work of Ghorpade et al.

Finally, Faver, Cavazos, and Trachte (2005) looked at 96 Mexican-American social

work living in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley (Faver et all 2005:1 & 5). They used self-

administered anonymous questionnaires, including demographic measures and Likert scale

questions about causes of and solutions for poverty; the scale specifically assessed beliefs

about structural causes of poverty. Their research question relevant to this study was “Are

Catholic students more likely than non-Catholic students to believe that poverty is a result of

structural factors (e.g., low wages, lack of job opportunities) rather than individual factors
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(e.g., lack of motivation or skills)?” (Faver et all 2005:5). The researchers found that there

was not a strong relationship religion and beliefs about poverty; just 5.1% of variance in

poverty attitudes could be attributed to being Catholic; in other words, being Catholic did not

contribute significantly to holding that poverty has structural causes, not individual (Faver et

all 2005:9-10). The authors speculate that this is in part due to Hispanic Protestantism

looking very much like Catholicism (Faver et all 2005:11). Also, they stated that using an

acculturation measure as another variable would have been useful (Faver et all 2005:11). As

with much of the other work reviewed here, this study was not done on international students

themselves, and in fact, almost eighty percent of these respondents were second or third

generation children of immigrants, a group that has been shown in previous research to be

very acculturated (Faver et all 2005:11). It could be speculated that the findings here would

be stronger for international students who had not been in the U.S. for an extended period of

time, especially given that while the relationship between religion and opinions on poverty

was not strong, it was statistically significant.

In conclusion, the literature is not directly revealing on the subject of international

students, religion, and acculturation, but does inform us about how ethnicity, immigration,

students, religion, and acculturation might work together. Kim found that students who might

have been unlikely to join an ethnic campus ministry might do so out of cultural pressures.

Ghorpade and fellow researchers found that students with no religious preference were likely

to be more acculturated, on average, while Sodowsky and Plake found that those students

who were Protestant were more likely to use English than other students, but that there were

not significant differences in acculturation between religious groups except for Muslims and

Catholics, who were likely to be less acculturated. Finally, Faver, Cavazos, and Trachte

found that being Hispanic-Catholic explained some variance in opinions on structural versus

individual explanations for poverty. In other words, we have five groups of researchers who all
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found fairly different results. This is not surprising – they were all in different settings, working

with different types of students, and asking related but different questions about a very

complicated, multi-facetted topic. Acculturation is a complicated process that does not take

one path for every individual; there could be many influences on the process. Thinking strictly

about international students, there would be even more possible influences than these

researchers found, such as length of time in the United States, whether they plan on staying

in the United States after they finish their schooling, and if they don’t, whether they attend an

ethnic place of worship to stay closer to their own cultural roots, so that the transition home

will be easier. Or, do they attend a non-ethnic place of worship to broaden their horizons

while they are here? Are students who are more likely to acculturate for other reasons self-

select to a non-ethnic place of worship? These are all factors that the literature can only

somewhat inform us on; however, the literature does inform us that there are many factors to

consider, and that the question of how acculturation and religion are related is not a simple

one. The present research will explore some of these questions, but clearly, there is much

here to examine.

Table 2: Religious Characteristics, Respondents and non-citizens

Non-
Respondents
citizens
N 337 100
Do you attend a place
of worship in the
United States?
Yes 54.6% 56.0%
No 45.4% 44.0%
Which of the
following options
best describes your
religious beliefs?
Buddhist 3.3% 8.0%
Christian 62.3% 47.0%
Hindu 1.8% 5.0%
Islamic 2.4% 8.0%
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Pagan 0.6% 0.0%
Jewish 1.5% 0.0%
Taoist 0.3% 1.0%
Atheist 6.5% 8.0%
Agnostic 14.5% 14.0%
Other 6.8% 9.0%

While our descriptive statistics provide us with some general information about the

respondents to this survey, the specific hypothesis for the present research was related to

acculturation and religion. Before discussing the hypothesis testing, it is interesting to look at

some related information about the religious tendencies of the respondents. For all

respondents, the majority – 61.9%, or 210 persons – reported being Christian. However, only

184 (54.3%) reported that they attend a place of worship in the United States, while 153

respondents reported that they do not attend a place of worship in the United States (45.1%).

(2 respondents did not complete this question.) This means that more respondents reported

attending a place of worship than did not.

However, the hypothesis being discussed here was concerned not with all

respondents, but with non-citizens. When we filter out citizens, there are 100 respondents left

for analysis. Of those non-citizen respondents, 56 reported that they do not attend a place of

worship in the United States (56%) versus the 44 respondents (44%) who reported that they

did. For non-citizens, most respondents reported that they did not attend a place of worship in

the United States. The majority reported being Christian, though only at 47%, less than the

total group of respondents.

The hypothesis explored in the present research looks at acculturation in addition to

religion. To be able to test the effect of religion on acculturation, we first need to be able to

measure acculturation. There were many questions designed to measure acculturation in this

survey, most of which were included in the acculturation scales built in this research, which

are discussed below. Please note that there was one language related question which this

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researcher determined should be omitted from the language scale: “Americans do not always

understand my spoken English… Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neither agree nor disagree,

Agree, Strongly Agree.” Upon consideration, this researcher felt that the other language

questions asked about the respondent’s preferences, one of the issues at the heart of

acculturation, while this question might have been answered with thoughts towards how the

respondent feels that they are perceived in public or how Americans perceived the

respondent, which would confound the results. Thus, this question was left out of the

language scale.
Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for Scale Items

Question Mean N
Language
I prefer to speak in… 3.22 87
I prefer to think in… 3.21 87
When I am at my house, dorm, or apartment,
I speak… 3.16 87
When I am with my friends, I speak… 3.58 87
Media
I prefer to read books and magazines in… 3.67 87
I prefer to listen to music in… 3.34 87
I prefer to watch TV shows in… 3.71 87
I prefer to watch movies in… 3.89 86
Products
I prefer to eat food from… 2.65 100
I prefer to use products from… 3.27 100
Social
My close friends are from… 3.00 99
I preger going to gatherings/parties at which
people are from… 3.13 100

All questions used to build the acculturation scales were operationalized through Likert

scales. Respondents were asked to respond to the statements listed for each scale in the

above table with the following answer choices:

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.. Native language all of the time (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
.. Native language most of the time
. Native language and English equally
English most of the time English all of
the time

or

My home country all of the time

My home country most of the time
.. My home country and the USA
.. equally The USA most of the time
. The USA all of the time (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

depending on which set of answer choices was most applicable to the particular question. N

is not 100 (the total number of non-citizens) for all questions, because not all respondents

answered all questions. Non-responses were removed from statistical consideration, and all

further information concerning these scales is for valid responses only. For our individual

items, we can see that non-citizen respondents were, on average, most acculturated on

language usage when watching TV shows, and least acculturated when it came to food.

These questions can be used to build four small, related summative scales: language,

media, products, and social connections. These summative scales each provide a different

measure of acculturation. The language scale ranges from 4 to 20, with 4 representing

someone who prefers to use their native language all of the time in all of the specified

situations, 20 representing someone who prefers to use English all of the time in all the

specified situations, and 12 someone who uses their native language and English equally in

the specified situations. The media scale also ranges from 4 to 20, with 4 representing

someone who prefers to their native language for all specified media consumption, 20

representing someone who prefers to use English for all specified media consumption, and 12

someone who prefers their native language and English equally for all specified media

consumption,. The product scale ranges from 2 to 10, with 2 representing someone who

prefers to use native products all of the time in all of the specified situations, 10 representing
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someone who prefers to use native products all of the time in all the specified situations, and

6 someone who prefers to use native products all of the time in all the specified situations.

The social scale ranges from 2 to 10, with 2 representing someone who prefers persons from

their native country all of the time in all of the specified social situations, 10 representing

someone who prefers persons from their native country all of the time in all of the specified

social situations, and 6 representing someone who prefers persons from their native country

all of the time in all of the specified social situations.

These smaller sub-scales can also be combined into one large acculturation scale,

ranging from 12 (least accelerated, preferences for home country and native language) to 60

(most acculturated, preferences for American culture and English), with a midpoint of

36.

Table 4: Scale Means for Non-Citizens

Scale Mean N
Language 13.2 87
Media 14.6 86
Products 5.9 100
Social 6.2 99
Overall
39.8 85
Acculturation

On average for the non-citizen respondents that answered the relevant questions, their
language scale score was 13.2, which would be a little above the midpoint on the scale.
These students prefer using English and their native language nearly equally, with a slight
preference for English in the specified situations. The average on the media scale was 14.6,
which would indicated a slightly higher preference for English in media consumption than in
actual speaking, thinking, or social situations. The mean for the product scale was 5.9, which
was very nearly the midpoint of 6; these students prefer products from their home countries
and the United States equally. The mean for the social scale was 6.2; these students are
very slightly more socially comfortable with Americans than with students from their native
countries. Finally, the mean on the total acculturation scale was 39.8. These students have a
small preference for English in speaking, thinking, and media consumption, American culture,
and Americans in social situations.

Table 5: Cronbach's Alpha for Scales

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 Cronbach's
Scale
alpha
Language 0.754
Media 0.777
Products 0.652
Social 0.634
Overall
0.838
Acculturation

However, building our scales doesn’t matter unless they’re reliable. Cronbach’s alpha

measures how well a scale measures the same sorts of things – how well the scale “hangs

together.” All 4 of the sub-scales have acceptable alphas; also, the scales with thes smallest

number of questions have the smallest alpha, leading to the conclusion that they would be

even more reliable with added questions. Perhaps most importantly, we find that alpha for

our total acculturation scale is the highest. The scales are reliable measures of acculturation,

within the confines of what was asked in this survey. (Another measure of reliability would be

whether we would expect to see a correlation between the scales in the population of

international students. These scales are all highly correlated with each other; see Table 9).

Finally, once the scales are built, we can turn our attention to testing the hypothesis.

The original hypothesis for this study was that for international students, those who attended

an ethnic place of worship in the United States were likely to be less acculturated, on

average, than those who attended a non-ethnic place of worship in the United States or no

place of worship at all. For this study, non-ethnic will be defined as Caucasian, and ethnic

will be defined as non-Caucasian. This is problematic – there are, after all, primarily

Caucasian places of worship that would still be considered “ethnic” (for example, a Greek

Orthodox parish.) However, given the limitations of this study, this is the best way to

operationalize this hypothesis. Also, as long as a student is attending an ethnic place of

worship, this hypothesis does not differentiate between respondents whose ethnicity

matches their place of worship and those respondents who don’t match the ethnicity of the

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place of worship.

Table 6: Dominant Ethnicity at Place of Worship, If Any

What is the ethnicity of

most of the persons at
your place of worship,
if you attend a place of
worship?
Caucasian or no 73.0%
place of worship
Non-Caucasian 27.0%

For respondent non-citizens, 27 out of 100 attended a non-Caucasian place of

worship.

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Table 7: T-test information for Social and Language Scales

Mean (and N) Mean (and N)

Equal for Caucasian/ for Ethnic
Variances No Place of Place of
Sig Worship Worship p for t-test
Language Scale 0.791 13.3 (63) 12.8 (24) 0.478
Media Scale 0.527 14.7 (63) 14.5 (23) 0.846
Product Scale 0.241 6.0 (73) 5.9 (27) 0.679
Social Scale 0.004 6.3 (73) 5.7 (26) 0.037
Total Acculturation
0.358 40.2 (63) 38.8 (22) 0.377
Scale

Having operationalized definitions for this hypothesis, independent samples t-testing

can be used to test it. Our null hypothesis would be that there is no difference between non-

citizen students who attend an ethnic place of worship and other non-citizen students, in

regards to acculturation. Our test hypothesis is that there is a difference between these two

groups. The independent samples t-test for non-citizens shows that we can assume equal

variances for language, media, product, and total acculturation, which means that we can

make conclusions about the population of non-citizens students at UNC-G. The t-test shows

that, on average, for those students who attend an ethnic place of worship versus for those

students who attend a non-ethnic place of worship or none at all, there is virtually no

difference on language, media, product, or total acculturation for the two groups. Furthermore,

none of these results are statistically significant (p=0.478, 0.846, 0.679, and 0.377,

respectively). We fail to reject the null hypothesis, and do not find a difference between the

two groups for language, media, product, or total acculturation in the population of

international students at UNC-G.

However, we cannot assume equal variances for the social scale, and thus, cannot

make conclusions about the population in regards to the social scale, but we can look at it

from the point of view of looking at the sample. We see that there is a sizable difference
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between the two groups for the sample, and that the difference is statistically significant

(p=0.037). We can be 96.7% sure that a difference exists between students in this sample

who attend an ethnic place of worship versus a non-ethnic place of worship or none at all.

Furthermore, it is in the direction speculated - mean acculturation for students attending a

non-ethnic place of worship or none at all was 6.3, but for students who attend an ethnic

place of worship, only 5.7. For this sample, there is a difference between the two groups, 22

in regards to social acculturation. Student in this sample who attend an ethnic place of

worship have a greater preference in social situations for persons from their home country

than students who do not attend an ethnic place of worship.

Through the t-tests, we failed to see religion affect acculturation, for most of the

acculturation scales, including the overarching one. What other variables might affect

acculturation? Determining how these other variables actually interact with religion and

acculturation is out of the scope of this paper, but we can briefly explore some other

variables that might have an effect. Possibilities that come to mind include years in the

United States, age, and whether the student lives on or off campus.

Table 8: T-test for Living Arrangements

Mean (and N)
for off-campus
Equal Mean (and N) (either with
Variances for On roommates or
Sig Campus parents) p for t-test
Language Scale 0.683 12.7 (10) 12.8 (24) 0.611
Media Scale 0.345 15.7 (10) 14.5 (23) 0.179
Product Scale 0.205 5.6 (10) 5.9 (27) 0.421
Social Scale 0.047 6.2 (10) 5.7 (26) 0.881
Total Acculturation
0.567 40.2 (10) 38.8 (22) 0.858
Scale

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Here we have a t-test for living arrangements, with students who live on-campus in on

group, and students who do not live on campus, no matter their particular housing

arrangements, in another group. We see no statistically significant differences in

acculturation, on any scale, based on living arrangements.

Table 9: Correlation Matrix

Years
in the
Acculturatio United
n Language Media Social Products States Ag
Acculturatio
Pearson
n
Correlatio
1 .848(**) .775(**) .718(**) .598(**) 0.127 -0.0
n
Sig.
(2tailed) 0 0 0 0 0.247 0.94
N 85 85 85 85 85 85 8
Language Pearson
Correlatio
n .848(**) 1 .446(**) .549(**) .312(**) 0.007 0.09
Sig.
(2tailed) 0 0 0 0.003 0.951 0.39
N 85 87 86 86 87 87 8
Media Pearson
Correlatio
n .775(**) .446(**) 1 .354(**) .399(**) .227(*) -0.0
Sig.
(2tailed) 0 0 0.001 0 0.036 0.84
N 85 86 86 85 86 86 8
Social Pearson
Correlatio
n .718(**) .549(**) .354(**) 1 .532(**) 0.058 -0.1
Sig.
(2tailed) 0 0 0.001 0 0.571 0.28
N 85 86 85 99 99 99 9
Products Pearson
Correlatio
n .598(**) .312(**) .399(**) .532(**) 1 0.045 -0.1
Sig. (2
tailed) 0 0.003 0 0 0.655 0.25
N 85 87 86 99 100 100 10

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Years in the Pearson
United States Correlatio
n 0.127 0.007 .227(*) 0.058 0.045 1 -0.0
Sig.
(2tailed) 0.247 0.951 0.036 0.571 0.655 0.76
N 85 87 86 99 100 100 10
Age Pearson
Correlatio
n -0.008 0.092 -0.022 -0.108 -0.116 -0.03
Sig.
(2tailed) 0.943 0.399 0.842 0.285 0.252 0.767
N 85 87 86 99 100 100 10
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

When we correlate years in the United States and age with our scales, the only

significant correlation (at the 0.05 level) that we find between these two variables and any of

our scales is between the media scale and years in the United States. We would expect to

see a positive correlation between preferring media in English and time spent in the United

States.

There are other possible connections to be explored which are beyond the scope of

the present research. Other possibilities that might influence acculturation include

membership in social organizations or sports (and what particular organizations the student

is a member of), whether the student plans on staying in the United States or returning home

after graduation, and the particular variety of place of worship that the student attends and

how often. Perhaps being a member of a minority religion would have more effect than

attending an ethnic place of worship. Clearly, there is much more of interest to be found in

this data set and continued research along these lines.

Qualitative Findings

Table 10: General Information about Interview Subjects

Country
India 2 Japan 3
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Taiwan 2 China 1
Canada 1 England 1
Costa Rica 1 Saudi Arabia 1

Average Age 29.7 Level In School

Lowest Age 22 Graduate 12
Highest Age 44

The qualitative data collected through our class activities cannot be used for hypothesis

testing, with only 12 interviews; however, we can examine it to see if it reflects our

quantitative findings, and how it might inform our overall understanding of connections

between religion and acculturation.

However, before we examine the interviews themselves, it is important to examine a

little information about our qualitative participants, in the same way that we did for the

quantitative participants. There were 12 respondents total. Of those, all were graduate

students. The average age was almost thirty (compared to 28.5 for our respondents, and 26.1

for the UNC-G population). They were from a variety of countries, though there was a definite

skew towards South Asia, with 8 out of the 12 being from the region. It was impossible to tell

from many of the interviews what the gender of the person being interviewed was, and this

was not noted by all the interviewers. All were non-citizens.

What did the students who were interviewed have to say about religion and

acculturation? For many, religion was not a large part of their lives, and they felt like the

impulse towards religiosity was a distinctly American impulse. This response dovetails with

our quantitative results, where only a little over half of the non-citizens attended a place of

worship. As one respondent said, “I definitely don’t know, I don’t know any, but definitely I

think that over here there’s a big push towards churches and church groups. Like, American

students and young adults going out and doing things as a group, the only thread between

them might be because they attend the same church” (Blake 2007). Another student reported:

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Interviewer: Do you have an international friends that attend?

R: I don’t really know I don’t think so. The foreigners I know at UNCG their French,
Mexican, Indian, German and I don’t think religion is that important as it is at least in
the south here, they keep saying its different…as compared to the north and other
parts of the US (Lewis 2007).
And yet another student reported:

I don’t know if you know that most Japanese people, we are not religious… The
way we do things . . . Buddhism . . kind of… Or a derivative of Buddhism. Like
the funerals, stuff like that is Buddha style. But, we are people who go to (unable
to make out word, but sounds as a reference to type of holiday/worshipping
place?), we celebrate Buddhist’s new year… But we celebrate Christmas too…
Pretty much, we are non-religious people. So, I think, pretty much same way, I
don’t have particular religion (Ernestes 2007).

For some students, lack of attendance at a place of worship was at matter of their

personal religious tendencies, which tend towards a way of life and a belief system instead of

a religion requiring active worship: “I think I don’t really attend but my family are Buddhists so

for us it seems like more more like uh you believe in that but you don’t really do that much

worship” (Boylston 2007). Another Buddhist student reported the same (Clapp 2007).

Of the 12 students interviewed, one reported being Muslim, one Sikh, one agnostic,

and three Buddhist. Two students reported that they didn’t attend a place of worship but

didn’t specify whether they ascribed to a belief system, one student was Indian and reported

praying and having a place for worship in her home but didn’t specify a belief system, and

three students stated that they were agnostic. Finally, one subject reported “Ok, but I am er,

an atheist. But I like to go to church sometimes to see how, em, I mean, uhm, to learn how

people deal with the depression. They show you the right way to go, I mean, they know how

to em, be happy and that is good. Uhm, yes, I like to learn that” (McDowell 2007). In the end,

none of the students interviewed reported a strong role for religion in their lives in the United

States, or attending a place of worship in the United States on a regular basis, except for the

lone Muslim. Unlike most of the other students, he reported a very strong role for religion in

his life: “First of all, our religion is Islam. Islam is not religion- I cannot say only religion.
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Islam, to us, how we can act in life. He teach us- He teach us for how we can communicate

with the people. How-what we need to do throughout our lives. For that, I cannot say Islam is

only a religion” (Hodler 2007).

Given the weak role of religion in the lives of most of these students, does or has

religion affected acculturation for them? It does not seem so. Even the Muslim student who

was from Saudi Arabia – perhaps the student interviewed who would have the most reason,

in the current political climate, to feel marginalized in the United States – reported being

treated well in public, and reported having American and Japanese friends as well as Saudi

friends (though he had more American friends when living in Austin, Texas than in

Greensboro) (Hodler 2007). He reported making Saudi food at home, but “mixing it” with

American food that he also made at home. He reported speaking Arabic with his Saudi

friends, but on the subject of music, said “I listen for everything. If I like the tunes, I like the

music…. If I don‘t understand the words, it is from any country… China… Af- South Africa…

Brazilian - I… I like only… I care about the tune” (Hodler 2007). He reported that in Saudi

Arabia, time was not as important as here, but that he had learned to adapt and to be “on

time”, and that he enjoyed casual American dress here but would not dress that way at home,

despite trends towards doing so. One Saudi Arabian Muslim international student does not a

generalization make, but in many aspects, this subject seems very acculturated, despite

being the most religious person of our interview subjects.

On the other hand, my interview subject reported being Buddhist, and that she

didn’t attend a place of worship but that was a way of living life for her (Clapp 2007).

She reported needing a way to live her life, and that her beliefs had gotten stronger in the last

few years. She also self-reported that “I try to be a better person, but, um, culture wise, I feel

like I've never been able to assimilate or acculturate myself to the United States” (Clapp

2007). However, she was forthright, honest, well-spoken, and direct – hardly the stereotype
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most Americans bear of Japanese women. She reported listening to reggae music, enjoying

whatever movies interested her, and that she mostly still enjoys Japanese food, but that she

enjoys dressing casually like Americans, and that she mostly speaks and even thinks in

English, and that speaking in Japanese can be challenging (Clapp 2007). How acculturated

is this person? That is difficult to judge. Like most of our interview subjects, and like most of

the survey respondents, she seems to sit in the middle between her native culture and

American culture, more acculturated in some areas, less so in others, and ending up in the

middle. This is perhaps the most interesting story told throughout these interviews – and that

is also reflected by the quantitative results – and is summed up neatly by one young

Japanese student: “It’s kinda weird, like I’m not 100 percent. . I don’t fit in here 100 percent…

But - I don’t fit in Japanese culture anymore… Like, every time I go back, I have a - like, a

reverse culture shock… Even my sisters say ‘you smell like American’ “ (Ernstes 2007). This

statement reflects the status of many of these students when it comes to culture (again,

reflected in our quantitative results, in that for most of the acculturation scale means for the

survey data came out very near their midpoints.) They may not be acculturated completely,

but would not completely fit in in their home country anymore, either.

Our qualitative sample was too small to make any firm judgments. However, for

these interviewees, there would not seem to be a direct correlation between religion and

acculturation. Indeed, the most religious member of the cohort was also one of the most

acculturated. This is in line with our quantitative results, which also did not find a

connection.

Finally, apart from the issue of finding connections between religion and acculturation,

the interviews also point at the issues surrounding measuring acculturation. For example,

where do you categorize the 44 year old Japanese woman that thinks in English, enjoys

Japanese food, and listens to reggae? Where do you place her on an acculturation scale?
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This is a question that can’t be answered with one small class project. Thorough qualitative

work on the subject of religion and acculturation would require a larger sample, and perhaps a

matched sample, with a purposive sample of equal numbers of worship attendees and non-

worship attendees. The present qualitative work, however, was certainly enough to begin

exploring some of the issues surrounding this research.

Discussion

This research did not find a connection between religion and acculturation, for any

scale but social preferences (and that, only for the sample, not the population). This is not to

say that there is not a connection between these concepts – in this researcher’s opinion,

these results may be problematic. This survey involved a small data set – of the 2040

students sampled, only 339 responded, giving a response rate of about 16.6%. Of those 339,

only 100 were non-citizens, out of 667 non-citizens in the UNC-G student population (14.7%).

With such a small sample size, the results may not be generalizable or accurate for the larger

population. This issue would be better examined using data from a larger sample. Also,

further thought should be given to creating better measures of acculturation; the yardsticks

used in this research were just a beginning. Finally, examining whether attending a place of

worship that matches one’s own ethnicity makes a greater difference than simply looking at

whether the respondent attends any ethnic place of worship, along with looking at other

possible influences.

Be that as it may, the results we have do provide interesting information about

acculturation and international students at UNC-G, and have implications for further research.

These results tell us that most students occupy a middle ground between their home country

and the United States, something that is reflected in both our quantitative and qualitative

findings. Neither our qualitative nor our quantitative findings seem stronger than the other;

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indeed, they seem to compliment each other well. Exploring this “middle ground” and what it

means to be a student who belongs neither to their home culture or to the culture of the land

they currently occupy would be interesting.

However, these results may point to other implications as well. It is possible that

religion itself does not directly affect acculturation, but that religion is a mitigating factor for

other variables that would affect acculturation. For example, do students who plan on

returning home acculturate less? Are they more likely to seek out ethnic worship experiences

to maintain cultural ties in preparation for returning home? Is it possible that many of these

students attended ethnic places of worship when they first arrived in the United States, and

then, as they became more acculturated, began attending non-ethnic places of worship and

then none at all? It is possible with this question that we have a chicken-and-egg situation,

with many factors interacting to determine how well and on what levels international students

are acculturated. It is also possible that what several students told us during our interviews is

accurate, and that religion is a more important factor for most Americans than for many

international students. This is an implication that should be explored further. This may also

imply that religion is not as important a factor as other factors, such as the examples outlined

above. In this researcher’s opinion, it is difficult to tell from the present research what might

be important and what might not be; only further research, informed by the findings of the

present research, can inform these questions.

Conclusions

This paper sought to find a connection between acculturation and religion for

noncitizen students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In both qualitative and

quantitative explorations, it failed to find a connection on any scale except for social

preferences, and that only for the sample of data collected in this research. Otherwise,

religion did not seem to affect acculturation. However, as both a review of the existing

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literature and the present research show, there is clearly more research to be done on this

issue and further questions to be asked, including about how we measure acculturation and

how we measure religion. The next steps, in this researcher’s opinion, would be exploratory

interviews with many non-citizen students – certainly more than the twelve our class was able

to interview – to determine for which students religion is important, why is was important for

those students, and overall, how better yardsticks of acculturation and religiosity might be

built. These interviews could be used to inform a survey focusing on just these issues,

instead of a survey covering a hodge-podge of information. Further research should also

work on building a model of the process of acculturation, focusing on many factors that may

interact together to affect the process of acculturation.

These results are applicable outside the research setting, mostly in the arena of

university policy. International students are far from home and family, and many of them are

quite young. If we develop a better understanding of acculturation, universities could apply

this knowledge to creating a more comfortable atmosphere for students, which would ease

their transition to life in the United States, and, ultimately, assist in their academic progress.

Understanding the role that religion plays for these students would also assist university

policy makers in working with off-campus ministries to, again, ease the transition for these

students. Clearly, research of this sort could improve conditions for international students and

assist in creating more positive academic and social conditions for them, and clearly, there is

much to be done in this area.

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