How to Smooth International University Students’ Adaptation in Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to an important problem of international students’ adaptation in host countries. They face a lot of cross-cultural adaptation problems, especially in their first year of study. The problem concerns Ukraine, as well, for an increasing number of international students come to get higher education. Hence, the purpose of the research is to reveal major difficulties of international students in Ukraine and to design a programme of activities aimed at assisting them in their cross-cultural adaptation in this country. The research procedure involved 5 stages. In the first stage theoretical background for the research was prepared: international and national scientific literature review on the problem. The second stage included the identification of target groups, pedagogical observation and working out a self-designed questionnaire. The respondent group consisted of 60 international students of the first year of study in Ukraine, namely on the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels from 3 Kyiv universities. Next, after receiving the students’ consent to participate in the research, they were handed the designed questionnaire. The fourth stage was aimed at collecting the quantitative data and their analyzing. It resulted in identification of challenges, problems and difficulties of the international students’ cross-cultural adaptation in Ukraine. In the final stage a special programme of activities was worked out to make cross-cultural adaptation of international university students in Ukraine smoother and less stressful. This methodology allowed to identify, evaluate and systemize the most typical challenges, problems and difficulties. Thanks to the analysis, 3 categories of them were distinguished: linguistic, academic and socio-cultural. On their basis a special cross-cultural programme of activities and recommendations in different environments (linguistic, academic, socio-cultural) which correlate with the identified problems was designed for university staff (teachers and administration), campus staff, students’ councils and host country students. It is planned to introduce the research results and the designed programme in the educational process of the universities. Their implementation is believed to facilitate cross-cultural adaptation process of international students and to make it less painful.