AN ANALYSIS OF ACCULTURATIVE STRESS AND SOCIOCULTURAL ADAPTATION AMONG INTERNATIONAL STUDENT IN HAJEE MOHAMMAD DANISH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY DINAJPUR

Abstract

The current study explored acculturative stress and its association with socio-cultural adaptation among international students of Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technical University, Dinajpur, the public University with higher international student all over Bangladesh. It examined whether various socio-demographic variables and the socio-cultural adaptation process predict the stress level regarding acculturation. The data was collected from 137 international students from various countries studying in the university. The completed survey comprising of acculturative Stress, motivation factors, socio cultural adaptation and academic adaptation as well. The one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that socio-cultural adaptation scores in relation to level of study Bachelors students' socio-cultural adaptation (W72.44, SD=14.65) indicate higher level of adaptation than postgraduate student (M=63.05, SD=14.13) this may be due to age which influence the acculturative stress) and nationality are statistically significant. The international students from Asia such as Bhutan with (M=75.00) and Nepal (72.70) were more significantly adapted (p=0.025) to the socio- cultural activities in HSTU than student from Africa like Nigeria, Somalia and Djibouti with (M=65.40, M=62.75 and M=62.00) respectively. It was also found that cultural distance is also related to stress and coping models because the transition between more distant cultures may comprise greater life changes and cause more distress. Multiple regression analysis found the acculturative stress as dependent variable of the respondents were entered into the regression equation with socio¬cultural adaptation, motivation factors, academic adaptation and some socio demographic variable as dummy the results shows a significant correlation (R=0. 659, Sig F=0.000) between acculturative stress and socio-cultural adaptation of the respondents. Meanwhile, about 43% (R2 =0. 434) of the total variation of these predictors scores are explained by acculturative stress scores. There was also shows negative and significant relationship between acculturative stress and socio-cultural adaptation ((3= -0.470, Sig. t= 0.000) and also academic adaptation has positive and significant relationship (0=0.357, Sig. t=0.000) this indicated that the person with moderately high acculturative stress show low level of socio-cultural adaptation and responses quick to the academic activities. Confirmed the null hypotheses, the Chi-square analyses are applied. From the analysis we found that result indicate that gender, marital status, financial support, place of living and country of origin were not significantly different between acculturative stress. Multicultural training workshops should be offered to university staffs such as the teaching staff as well as those who work at the international student office. This will help them to be more aware of the inter cultural diversity of the students as well as the adjustment process experienced by international students.