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This article was downloaded by: [HKUST Library]On: 06 February 2012, At: 20:13Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Learning Chinese abroad: the roleof language attitudes and motivationin the adaptation of internationalstudents in ChinaBaohua Yu aa School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Sydney,NSW, Australia
Available online: 10 Jun 2010
To cite this article: Baohua Yu (2010): Learning Chinese abroad: the role of language attitudesand motivation in the adaptation of international students in China, Journal of Multilingual andMulticultural Development, 31:3, 301-321
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Learning Chinese abroad: the role of language attitudes andmotivation in the adaptation of international students in China
Baohua Yu*
School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
(Received 25 July 2009; final version received 12 February 2010)
The objectives of this study are to investigate the interrelationships of a number ofaffective variables related to studying Chinese as a second language (L2); toexamine the relationships between affective variables in second languageacquisition (SLA) and the indices of adaptation; and thirdly, to assess thechanges over time in the attitudes and motivation of international students andtheir sociocultural and academic adaptation during their nine-month Chinesestudies at a tertiary level. The results show that integrative motivation plays a veryimportant positive role while language anxiety plays a very important negativerole in both sociocultural adaptation and academic adaptation. Moreover,academic adaptation, long being ignored in the literature of crossculturalpsychology and SLA, is found to be closely and positively related to socioculturaladaptation in this study. The conclusions are drawn accordingly in respect oflongitudinal research design and the importance in relating language-relatedvariables to the adaptation of L2 learners. Suggestions to host institutions andinternational students are also made in the paper.
Keywords: attitudes and motivation; second language acquisition; socioculturaladaptation; academic adaptation; international students
Background
In 1950, China opened its door for the first time to international students, with 33
students from Eastern Europe. Almost six decades later, having hosted the Olympic
Games and successfully joined the World Trade Organisation, China has become more
integrated with and also more attractive to the outside world. The country’s rapid
economic growth and increasing international influence have drawn large numbers of
students from abroad. The annual increase in the rates of students entering the country
has been in double digits since the 1990s. It is reported that the enrolments of
international students in China had reached 195,503 by 2007 (Xinhua Net 2008).
These students are involved in different types of study programmes, with Chinese being
the most popular subject. The recognition of China as a world power and the desire to
have the knowledge and skills in the language and the culture that will open up
possibilities of cooperation in businesses and trade with their home countries are the
key factors that motivate the students to study in China (Hanban 2007).
Chinese also seems to be acquiring priority as a second or foreign language in
many countries. According to Zhang (2006), in Asia, the governments of Korea,
*Email: [email protected]
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Vol. 31, No. 3, May 2010, 301�321
ISSN 0143-4632 print/ISSN 1747-7557 online
# 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01434631003735483
http://www.informaworld.com
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Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam all encourage their citizens
to learn Chinese. This is a very different situation from 30 years ago when, for
example, Chinese was forbidden in Indonesia and Cambodia. In the West, Chinese is
ranked the second most important foreign language in the USA and is the most
frequently used second language (L2) in Canada and Australia. In England, the
government sponsors the learning of Chinese, and in France there are more than 300
primary and secondary schools offering Chinese courses (Zhang 2006).
Yet the international students in China remain one of the most under-studied
populations so far. In particular, very little research has tried to relate academic/
sociocultural adaptation to language attitudes and motivation, and even less research
has been devoted to the time effect on the study variables.
The research reported here is not only one of the few studies which employs
longitudinal data, but it also bridges the gap between the literature on the affective
variables in studying Chinese as a L2 in China and the sociocultural/academic
adaptation of the international students concerned. The following sections will
examine the literature on two facets of adaptation, the relationships between
adaptation, L2 proficiency, attitudes and motivation in second language acquisition
(SLA), and background and contextual factors affecting adaptation. The purpose of
the study, the hypotheses to be tested and the significance of the study will then be
presented, followed by research method, results and discussion, and conclusions and
implications.
Literature review
Two important facets of adaptation of international students
Church (1982) suggested that international students experienced difficulties elicited
by the new culture in addition to the problems encountered by domestic students.
Berry (1985) identified four domains of problems of adaptation in studying foreign
students’ acculturation: environmental (such as climate, dress, housing and food),
sociocultural (such as interpersonal and intergroup relations, and social contact in
general), academic (such as courses, exams, deadlines and language comprehension)
and psychological (such as mental health status, self-esteem and identity). Accord-
ingly, more recent studies show that international students encounter problems
pertaining not only to sociocultural adaptation, such as adjustment to social customs
and norms (Schwarzer, Hahn, and Schroder 1994), and psychological adaptation,
such as feeling depressed, anxious and lonely due to the loss of their social support
networks (Sandhu and Asrabadi 1994; Yang and Clum 1995), but also academic
adaptation such as worrying about their language proficiency and academic
performance (Hayes and Lin 1994; Kagan and Cohen 1990; Ying and Liese 1994).
The primary task of most international students is to obtain good academic
results in the foreign institutions. Academic issues are at the forefront of both these
students’ and their institutions’ concerns. Research shows that academic success has
a significant impact on students’ sociocultural adaptation and psychological well-
being and vice versa (Li and Kaye 1998). It can be inferred that the relation between
sociocultural adaptation and academic adaptation is significantly positively asso-
ciated and may be reciprocally causally related. ‘Adaptation’ in this paper refers to
international students’ sociocultural and academic integration with the target
language group, which are seen as the two indices for measuring adaptation in this
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paper. This conceptualisation combines Ward’s notion of sociocultural adaptation
that refers to an individual’s ability to fit in or negotiate interactive aspects of the
new cultural environment (Ward and Rana-Deuba 1999) with Tinto’s academic
adaptation that refers to an individual’s ability to be involved in positive educational
outcomes (Tinto 1993).
Relationship between adaptation and second language (L2) proficiency
Masgoret and Ward (2006) established an interactive model of the relationships
between target language proficiency, communication competence, effective inter-
cultural interaction and sociocultural adaptation. Basically, the core components of
an international student’s sociocultural adaptation are language proficiency and
communication competence, supplemented by effective intercultural interaction,
which in turn constitute a part of the broader construct of sociocultural adaptation
(Masgoret and Ward 2006). Good proficiency in the target language is the basis of
successful communication among members of different ethnolinguistic communities
(Dornyei and Csizer 2005). In a studying abroad context, better language fluency is
seen to be directly related to more interaction with members of the host culture and
as such leads to fewer sociocultural adjustment problems (Ward and Kennedy 1993).
Other studies suggest that greater interaction with the host community would
contribute to better competence in the host language (Clement, Noels, and Deneault
2001). Ward (2004) concluded that target language skills helped establish social
support and interpersonal relationships and these facilitated adaptation.Meanwhile, the academic adjustment of students studying abroad has also been
found to be affected by issues related to language (Furnham and Alibhai 1985;
Holmes 2000). In a recent review of empirical studies relating to international
students’ adjustment to their academic achievement in English-speaking universities,
Andrade (2006) suggests that difficulty with English language and culture is the
primary factor affecting academic and sociocultural adjustment. It is plausible to
propose that sociocultural/academic adaptation is positively correlated with L2
proficiency.
Affective variables related to second language (L2) proficiency and the two indices ofadaptation
Educators, teachers and parents in both Western and non-Western countries have
long considered that motivation, in particular integrative motivation, is an essential
factor for successful SLA. Dornyei (2001) and Oxford and Ehrman (1992) proposed
that learners’ attitudes and motivation were important for increased language
competence and L2 proficiency. Research on motivation in L2 learning has been
widely influenced by the work of social psychologists Robert Gardner, Richard
Clement and their colleagues in Canada where French and English are the two
official languages. These researchers have intensively studied the role of L2 learning
motivation and generally adopted a social psychological approach, regarding
motivation in SLA as socially grounded (Gardner 1985; Gardner and Lambert1959). The socio-educational model (Gardner 1985, 2000, 2005a) has laid a very
good foundation for hypothesising that motivation, integrativeness and instrumental
orientation are positively correlated with each other, which have a negative
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correlation with language anxiety; and integrative motivation and language anxiety
are the two most influential determinants of L2 achievement.
It is argued in a classic work by Gardner and Lambert (1972) that diverse motives
seem to fall under two headings, instrumental and integrative. Integrative motivation
is a complex of attitudinal, goal-directed and motivational attributes. It concerns a
positive affective disposition towards the L2 community and the desire to achieve
language proficiency in order to participate in and develop a sense of belonging to
L2 community. On the other side of the coined term, instrumental motivation arises
from the desire to learn the language as a means of achieving practical purposes such
as improving one’s economic status or getting social recognition (Gardner and
Lambert 1972; Lightbown and Spada 1999). Integrative motivation was found to be
more powerful than instrumental (Dornyei 1990; Gardner and Lambert 1959, 1972).
Language-related variables such as integrativeness and motivation play very
important roles in the cultural learning process and sociocultural adaptation(Masgoret and Ward 2006). The underlying dynamics have been attributed to the
fact that higher levels of integrativeness contribute to the prediction of higher levels
of motivation (Masgoret and Gardner 2003), and both are associated with high levels
of intercultural contact (Masgoret and Gardner 1999). Moreover, increased
intercultural contact and satisfaction with that contact have been found to be linked
to fewer sociocultural difficulties (Ward and Kennedy 1993; Ward and Searle 1991).
It is reasonable to hypothesise that integrative motivation is positively correlated with
sociocultural adaptation.
A low level of language-related anxiety is associated with high-level linguistic self-
confidence and positive perceptions regarding one’s L2 achievement (Clement,
Gardner, and Smythe 1980). In fact, confidence in being able to communicate in an
adaptive and efficient way when using the L2 is an important predictor of foreign
language achievement (Clement and Bourhis 1996; Clement, Dornyei, and Noels
1994). Due to the close interactive relationship between foreign language achieve-
ment and sociocultural adaptation (Masgoret and Ward 2006), it is inferred thatmore L2 confidence will result in greater willingness to communicate, which in turn
leads to more contact with the host community. And the increased intercultural
contact and satisfaction with that contact have been found to be linked with fewer
sociocultural adjustment difficulties (Ward and Kennedy 1993; Ward and Searle
1991). It is therefore plausible to hypothesise that language anxiety is significantly
and negatively correlated with sociocultural adaptation.
A key component of crosscultural adjustment is effective communication
(Gudykunst and Hammer 1988; McGuire and McDermott 1988), and one important
contributor to effective communication is target language proficiency. Zimmerman
and his colleagues (1996) found that the ability to communicate with fellow students
was essential to transcultural adaptation in an academic setting. Examining
sojourners’ increased ability to use the language in interactions with members of
the host culture, studies (e.g. Gullahorn and Gullahorn 1966; Sewell and Davidson
1956) suggested that a sojourner’s level of fluency in the language of the host country
might influence his or her degree of adaptation. Church (1982) argued that the
relationship between language fluency and social interaction was most likely areciprocal one, which indicated that increased language confidence led to greater
participation in the host community, which, in turn, led to improved language
proficiency in the host language. As noted earlier, academic adaptation is regarded as
important as sociocultural adaptation for international students, and both are seen
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as being reciprocally causally related to each other. Therefore, it is reasonable to
predict that academic adaptation has a similar positive association with integrative
motivation, and a negative relationship with language anxiety, in the same way as
sociocultural adaptation.
Background and contextual factors affecting the adaptation of international students
Black and Mendenhall (1991) and Ward and her colleagues (1998) pointed out that it
was problematic to simply accept the U-curve of adaptation without using a
longitudinal design. Such a conclusion suggested that time-related variables such as
age of arrival and length of residence were important factors determining levels of
adaptation. Therefore, such factors in relation to adaptation were summarised asfollows.
Age of arrival and length of residence
Studies showed that the younger the individuals were, the smoother the process of
adaptation (Beiser, Barwick, and Berry 1988), while young people who were older
than others often encountered more substantial adaptation problems (Aronowits
1992; Sam and Berry 1995).
Ward and Kennedy (1996) found that sociocultural adaptation increased
remarkably between one and six months and only slightly over the next six months.
In another study conducted by Ward and others (1998), the sociocultural adaptation
of Japanese students in New Zealand improved significantly over a four-monthperiod but did not show any increments at six or 12 months. Such findings support a
‘learning curve’ of sociocultural adaptation with a steady increase over the first 4�6
months, followed by a levelling off until the end of the first year. That was to say, on
the whole, sociocultural adaptation would become better with length of residence in
the first 12 months. However, there was barely a study in the West examining what
the ‘curve’ is like after the first year of international study. Fortunately, Senyshyn,
Warford, and Zhan’s recent study (2000) is an exception. Their study found the
second year students’ adjustment was almost level with the first year thoughadjustment was linear with problems decreasing from the first year to the final year
(Senyshyn, Warford, and Zhan 2000). More recently, Yu and Watkins (2008) studied
international students studying Chinese at a Chinese University, and found that Year
2 international students reported the lowest level of integrativeness while having the
highest level of language anxiety among all the participants sampled ranging from
Year 1 to Year 4. Those studies seem to indicate that Year 2 international students
may meet more challenges in language-learning attitudes and motivation, and their
adaptation is also in a very critical transitional stage. Therefore, second-year studentsmay need more attention from researchers.
According to Brown (1980), acculturation in SLA goes through four stages, and
follows a curvilinear path like a U-curve proposed by Lysgaard (1955): excitement
and euphoria; culture shock; a gradual, tentative and vacillating recovery; and a near
or full recovery (either assimilation or adaptation). Such a curve reveals the
psychological feelings experienced by international students. Based on U-curve
theory, Year 2 students should be placed at the stage of ‘a gradual, tentative and
vacillating recovery’ according to their time in China (e.g. at least one year).Therefore, it is reasonable to predict that those students reporting longer residential
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time in China may feel a better psychological adaptation. In the same sense, it is
possible that they will also experience a better sociocultural adaptation or a better
academic adaptation.
Local friendship networks and perceived cultural distance
According to Bochner (1982), local friendship networks are expected to function to
facilitate students’ attainment of academic and professional goals. That is to say, a
positive relationship between local friendship networks and academic adaptation will
be possible. Other studies have consistently shown that the greater the similarity that
sojourners perceive between the host culture and their home countries, the higher the
level of sociocultural adaptation they report (Furnham and Bochner 1982; Searle
and Ward 1990; Ward, Bochner, and Furnham 2001; Ward and Kennedy 1999). As
two important facets of adaptation, sociocultural and academic adaptations are
supposed to be highly and positively related to each other. Therefore, it is plausible to
hypothesise that a high level of sociocultural/academic adaptation will have positive
relationships with good local friendship networks and similar perceived cultures.
The above literature presents a review of the relevant theories and research in the
three fields under consideration: attitudes and motivation in SLA, sociocultural
adaptation and academic adaptation. It also provides reasonable linkages between
study variables from the three fields though few studies have tried to link them
together. The following part will present guiding hypotheses in this study.
The study
In order to have a clear picture of the interrelationships and changes among study
variables, three relationships and three changes over time were examined in the
present study: first, the relationships between affective variables in language learning;
second, the relationships between affective variables in language learning and the two
indices of adaptation; third, the relationships between background variables (such as
age of arrival), contextual variables (such as length of residence, local friendship
networks and perceived cultural distance) and the two indices of adaptation; and
fourth, the changes over time in attitudes and motivation in SLA and the two indices
of adaptation.
In the light of previous research and literature, guiding hypotheses of this study
are put forward as follows.
Hypothesis 1
Relationships between motivation, integrativeness and instrumental orientation willbe found to be significantly positive; however, language anxiety will be found to be
significantly and negatively correlated with these variables.
Hypothesis 2
The underlying structure emerging from the affective variables in SLA will remain
relatively stable over time.
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Hypothesis 3
Integrative motivation will be significantly and positively related to the two indices of
adaptation in both the pre-test and the post-test.
Hypothesis 4
Language anxiety will be significantly and negatively related to the two indices ofadaptation in both the pre-test and the post-test.
Hypothesis 5
The younger students are when arriving in China, the longer they reside in China, the
more similarity they perceive between their own and the target culture, the more local
friendship networks they have, the higher will be their levels of sociocultural
adaptation and academic adaptation.
Hypothesis 6
The indices of adaptation are positively correlated with each other in both the pre-
test and the post-test.
Hypothesis 7
Language-related attitudes and motivation will increase while language anxiety will
decrease from Time 1 to Time 2.
Hypothesis 8
Self-rated Chinese language proficiency will increase over time.
Hypothesis 9
Positive sociocultural and academic adaptation will increase over time.
The study reported here is unique in that it integrates theoretical constructs from
three different sets of literature: motivation from SLA, sociocultural adaptation from
crosscultural psychology and academic adaptation from higher education literature.
To my knowledge, it is the first attempt to link language attitudes and motivation,
and sociocultural adaptation to international students’ academic adaptation in thecontext of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This study also has the advantage
of being a longitudinal one that allows insights into the underlying causal
relationships and how attitudes and motivation in language learning and socio-
cultural and academic adaptation change over time. It will increase our under-
standing of the relationship between affective variables in the language learning and
adaptation of international students in China. The study also provides some
practical suggestions for both host institutions and international students on how
to enhance international students’ L2 motivation and L2 confidence as well asadaptation in their language-learning context.
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Method
Procedure and participants
As reported earlier, Yu and Watkins (2008) found that international students in Year2 of their programme met more problems in language learning and studying abroad
than those in other years. This would suggest the need to look more closely at this
year group in this longitudinal study.
This study was conducted at Beijing Language and Cultural University, which is
regarded as a key university in China, hosting the largest number of foreign students
majoring in Chinese. Data collection was carried out in two sessions over a nine-
month period. In each session, all participants were requested to complete the same
survey questionnaire.The first session was conducted in September 2005 (immediately after the
beginning of the new academic semester). All second-year international students
were invited to participate in the survey. In this session, 215 students (136 females, 79
males) completed and returned the questionnaire. Their age ranged from 18 to 41
(M�22.55, SD �3.63). They were from England, Honduras, France, Germany,
Spain, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Kazakhstan, Mauritius,
Mongolia, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan
and South Korea.The second session was conducted in June 2006. The sample consisted of 90
second-year international students from the same university (64 females, 26 males).
Their age ranged from 18 to 40 (M�22.83, SD �3.97). They came from England,
France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and
South Korea. Since this was designed as a longitudinal study, those 90 students who
had participated in both sessions were identified, and the two sets of data were
matched across time.
Instruments
The survey questionnaire used was validated in a previous study (Yu and Watkins
2008) and was subsequently revised. It consisted of items related to background and
contextual information, affective measures, sociocultural adaptation and academic
adaptation.
The questionnaire was translated into Chinese given that the participants’
language proficiency in Chinese was competent for this task. In order to test this
assumption, two international students were randomly selected from Beijing
Language and Cultural University and were invited to check whether they couldunderstand the whole survey questionnaire before the first session distribution.
Results showed that both students had no difficulty in understanding the whole
Chinese survey. In addition, the researcher’s contact information was disclosed to all
the participants in case they should meet any difficulty in understanding or
completing the survey. Participants are free to withdraw from the survey at any
time when they feel it is too difficult for them or for other reasons.
Background and contextual variables
The following background characteristics and context-related variables wereexamined.
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Age of arrival. Participants were asked to report how old they were when they arrived
in China.
Length of residence. Participants were asked to indicate how long they had been
in China. Their responses were classified into five categories: 1 year (Time
512 months), 2 years (12 months BTime 524 months), 3 years (24 months
BTime 536 months), 4 years (36 months BTime 548 months) and 4 years plus
(Time �48 months).
Local friendship networks. Participants were asked to say how many Chinese friends
(if any) they had made during their stay in China. The definition of ‘friend’ was
provided as ‘people that you contact most frequently in daily life and study’.
Perceived cultural distance. Participants were asked to rank the cultural distance
between their own country and China on a five-point Likert scale with 1 being very
different and 5 being very similar.
Affective variables
Language-related affective variables were measured using an adapted and revised
version of the Attitudes/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB; Gardner, Tremblay, and
Masgoret 1997) designed for university students. There were 73 items in this
questionnaire, which were set out on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The modified AMTB included nine measures.
Attitudes towards Chinese culture. This measure consists of three positively and three
negatively worded items. A high score reflects a positive attitude.
Attitudes towards learning Chinese. This measure consists of four positively and four
negatively worded items, with a high score indicating a positive attitude.
Desire to learn Chinese. Five positive and five negative items comprise this measure.
High scores reflect a positive attitude.
Chinese class anxiety. This measure consists of five positively and five negatively
worded items. A high score represents a considerable level of apprehension
experienced when called upon to use Chinese in the Chinese classroom.
Chinese use anxiety. This measure consists of five positively and five negatively
worded items. A high score reflects a considerable level of apprehension when called
upon to use Chinese.
Interest in foreign languages. This measure consists of five positive and five negative
items, with a high score indicative of an interest in learning and using any L2.
Instrumental orientation. This measure consists of four positively worded itemsassessing the degree to which students seek to learn Chinese for pragmatic reasons.
Integrative orientation. Four positively worded items comprise this measure, whichassesses the extent to which students seek to learn Chinese for integrative reasons.
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Motivational intensity. This measure comprises five positively and six negatively
worded items. A high score represents considerable effort expended to learn Chinese.
Empirical research on the role of attitudes and motivation in L2 learning
has focused on four constructs that are aggregates of above measures. Integrativeness
was represented by three measures: interest in foreign languages, attitudes towards
Chinese culture and integrative orientation. Motivation was represented by three
measures: attitudes towards learning Chinese, desire to learn Chinese and motivation
intensity. Instrumental orientation was represented by one measure: instrumental
orientation. Language anxiety was represented by two measures: Chinese class/
course anxiety and Chinese use anxiety, and thus there were 20 items in measuring
this construct.
There are several ways of scoring the constructs in AMTB. Gardner (2005b)
pointed out that researchers could either aggregate measures of constructs or
aggregate the constructs depending on different research purposes. Taking aggregates
of the constructs, for example, Masgoret (2006) computed ‘integrative motivation’ by
aggregating integrativeness, motivation and instrumental orientation. This study
adopted the method of computation to measure ‘integrative motivation’, which
consisted of 53 items in all.
Integrative motivation (pre-test, a�0.89; post-test, a�0.91). A high score onthis scale indicates that a positive affective disposition towards the Chinese
community and the desire to achieve Chinese language proficiency in order to
participate in and develop a sense of belonging to Chinese community.
Language anxiety (pre-test, a�0.84; post-test, a�0.87). A high score indicates
students’ high level of apprehension when using Chinese both in the classroom and
outside the classroom.
Sociocultural adaptation
Sociocultural adaptation was measured on an adapted 25-item Sociocultural
Adaptation Scale (SCAS) developed and refined by Ward and Kennedy (1999)
based on the compilation of data across a large number of sojourner samples,
including 16 cross-sectional samples, four longitudinal samples and one paired
comparison between sojourning and sedentary samples. Ratings were made on a five-
point Likert scale from 1 (extreme difficulty) to 5 (no difficulty).
Sociocultural adaptation (pre-test, a�0.92; post-test, a�0.87). This measure
tests how much difficulty students experience in adjusting to the Chinese society and
culture.
Academic adaptation
Academic adaptation consisted of 12 items, being assessed by the measure of
Persistence/Voluntary Dropout Decision (Pascarella and Terenzini 1980) on a five-
point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Academic adaptation (pre-test, a�0.72; post-test, a�0.79). This measure
examines to what extent the students interact with their peer group and faculty.Alpha coefficients above 0.70 are regarded as sufficient (Nunnally 1978). The
alpha coefficients of the six scales were adequate for this student sample in both the
pre-test and the post-test.
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Results and discussion
Relationships between attitudinal and motivational variables
The first purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between affective
variables, language attitudes and motivation measures, which have been found to be
important in SLA studies (Dornyei 2001; Oxford and Ehrman 1992). Factor analyses
are conducted to examine the underlying structure of these affective variables. The
seven attributes assessed by the AMTB (Gardner, Tremblay, and Masgoret 1997) are
subjected to a principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Based on factor
loadings and the Scree test, major dimensions are identified and defined. In addition,
a comparison of factors in the pre-test and post-test analyses provides further
information on the stability of the major dimensions over time.
As Table 1 shows, Factor I gains appreciable positive loadings (greater than 0.30)
from seven variables: three measures of motivation (attitudes towards learning
Chinese, desire to learn Chinese and motivational intensity), three measures of
integrativeness (attitudes towards Chinese culture, interest in foreign languages and
integrative orientation) and the measure of instrumental orientation. Such a pattern
of loadings suggests that individuals scoring highly on this factor possess a high level
of motivation in learning Chinese and openness to identify with the host language
community. Moreover, these individuals also score highly in instrumental orienta-
tion, which suggests that they also have practical aims in learning Chinese. The
structure of Factor I is stable from Time 1 to Time 2 and is defined as integrative
motivation because it was very similar to the integrative motivation factor found in
other L2 studies (see e.g. Clement, Gardner, and Smythe 1980).
Factor II in the pre-test obtains high positive loadings from two measures of
Chinese language anxiety (Chinese class anxiety and Chinese use anxiety), and
appreciable negative loadings from one measure of motivation (motivational
intensity) and one measure of integrativeness (attitudes towards Chinese culture).
The structure of this factor indicates that individuals who have a low level of
language anxiety in the Chinese class or in using Chinese are strongly motivated to
learn Chinese and have favourable attitudes towards Chinese culture. This factor was
defined as language anxiety (Gardner, Tremblay, and Masgoret 1997).
Two measures of motivation (attitudes towards learning Chinese and motiva-
tional intensity) are found to have negative and salient (i.e.�0.30) loadings on
Table 1. Factor analysis of pre- and post-test affective variables.
Factors
Pre-test Post-test
Variables I II I II
Attitudes towards learning Chinese 0.83 �0.22 0.70 �0.32Desire to learn Chinese 0.81 �0.10 0.79 �0.25Motivational intensity 0.64 �0.33 0.61 �0.46Attitudes towards Chinese culture 0.53 �0.40 0.70 �0.21Interest in foreign languages 0.69 0.11 0.45 �0.19Integrative orientation 0.52 �0.27 0.75 0.06Instrumental orientation 0.51 �0.26 0.74 0.18Chinese class anxiety �0.05 0.91 �0.01 0.85Chinese use anxiety �0.21 0.72 �0.18 0.79
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Factor II in the post-test. The above finding suggests that at the end of the second
year of studying, students reporting low level of language anxiety will also report
a high level of motivation and favourable attitudes towards learning Chinese.
The above results support both Hypotheses 1 and 2.
Relationships between affective factors and pre- and post-test indices of adaptation
The second purpose of the study is to examine the relationships between affective
dimensions and indices of adaptation (pre-test and post-test of sociocultural and
academic adaptations).As can be seen in Table 2, the correlations between affective variables in SLA and
the two indices of adaptation are all statistically significant in both the pre-test and
the post-test except for the relationship between integrative motivation in the post-
test and sociocultural adaptation in the pre-test.
The sufficient and positive relationships between integrative motivation and
measures of adaptation are consistent from Time 1 to Time 2, which may imply that
integrative motivation is a crucial factor in ensuring successful sociocultural/
academic adaptation. Such a finding is consistent with that in Masgoret’s (2006)study. Moreover, language anxiety in this study is found to be consistently and
negatively correlated with adaptation in both the pre-test and the post-test. Such a
finding indicates that sociocultural/academic adaptation may be enhanced through
a low level of anxiety.
These findings support Hypotheses 3 and 4.
Relationships between background and contextual variables and indices of adaptation
Zero-order correlations are utilised to test the relationships between the background
and contextual variables and the adaptation indices as shown in Tables 3 and 4.
Age of arrival and local friendship networks are found to have non-significant
correlations with the two indices of adaptation in both tests. Contrary to the
prediction, length of residence of the pre-test is found to have a statistically negative
correlation with academic adaptation of both the pre-test and the post-test. In other
words, the longer the students reported staying in China in the beginning of the
Table 2. Correlations of pre- and post-test factor scores with pre- and post-test indices of
adaptation (n�90).
Adaptation
Sociocultural adaptation Academic adaptation
Affective dimension Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test
Pre-test factor scoresIntegrative motivation 0.38** 0.31** 0.46** 0.30**Language anxiety �0.42** �0.22* �0.30** �0.22*
Post-test factor scoresIntegrative motivation 0.17 0.30** 0.38** 0.50**Language anxiety �0.38** �0.28** �0.30** �0.30**
*pB0.05; **pB0.01 (two-tailed).
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second year, the lower their level of academic adaptation at either the beginning or
the end of the second year. The above findings may indicate that the students
sampled residing longer in China may tend to have less interaction with their peergroup and faculty at both Times 1 and 2, compared to those reporting shorter
residential time at the beginning of the second year. Moreover, the students’
perceived cultural distance in the pre-test is found to have a statistically positive
correlation with sociocultural adaptation in the pre-test, indicating that the closer
they rank their home culture to the Chinese culture, the higher their level of
sociocultural adaptation will be. Such a finding supports the ‘cultural fit’ hypothesis
proposed by Ward, Bochner, and Furnham (2001).
Table 4 shows that none of the contextual variables in the post-test have asignificant correlation with the two indices of adaptation in the post-test.
In summary, Hypothesis 5 is almost rejected.
Relationships between the two indices of adaptation
As shown in Table 5, in the same period (e.g. at the beginning or the end of second
year), individuals reporting high sociocultural adaptation will also report high
academic adaptation, and vice versa. It can be inferred that as two aspects ofadaptation, sociocultural adaptation and academic adaptation are closely related to
Table 3. Correlations of pre-test measures with pre- and post-test indices of adaptation
(n�90).
Adaptation
Sociocultural adaptation Academic adaptation
Pre-test variables Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test
Background and contextual variablesAge of arrival 0.11 0.07 �0.03 �0.03Length of residence �0.10 �0.12 �0.22* �0.24*Local friendship networks 0.03 0.05 0.06 �0.05Perceived cultural distance 0.23* �0.03 0.09 �0.15
*pB0.05 (two-tailed).
Table 4. Correlations of post-test measures with post-test indices of adaptation.
Adaptation
Socioculturaladaptation Academic adaptation
Post-test variables n Post-test n Post-test
Contextual variablesAge of arrival 90 0.11 90 �0.03Length of residence 90 �0.04 90 �0.18Local friendship networks 71 0.09 71 �0.09Perceived cultural distance 90 �0.19 90 �0.09
Note: Two-tailed.
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each other in the same period. However, this does not necessarily imply a causal
relationship between them.
The relationship over time between sociocultural adaptation and academic
adaptation is non-significant (cross-lagged correlation �0.16, p�0.05 from socio-
cultural adaptation in the pre-test to academic adaptation in the post-test, and cross-
lagged correlation �0.09, p�0.05 from academic adaptation in the pre-test to
sociocultural adaptation in the post-test). There is no evidence for the causal priority
of either sociocultural adaptation or academic adaptation.
The next concern is whether the test�retest reliabilities of both indices of
adaptation are high. It is found that both are not high with the correlation
coefficients of less than 0.70. This suggests that both academic adaptation and
sociocultural adaptation may have changed over time.
Thus Hypothesis 6 is partially supported.
Changes in attitude and adaptation
Table 6 directs attention to the changes of the measures under investigation
occurring over the second year of study.
Table 5. Correlations of indices of adaptation in the pre- and post-test (n�90).
Adaptation
Socioculturaladaptation Academic adaptation
Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test
Sociocultural adaptation (pre-test) � 0.52** 0.40** 0.16Academic adaptation (pre-test) 0.40** 0.10 � 0.31**Sociocultural adaptation (post-test) 0.37*
*pB0.05; **pB0.01 (two-tailed).
Table 6. Paired t-test of pre and post measures.
Pre-test variables Pre-test mean Post-test mean t-Value
Attitudinal and motivational variablesAttitudes towards learning Chinese 4.07 4.16 �1.80Desire to learn Chinese 3.89 3.97 �1.47Motivational intensity 3.55 3.64 �1.44Attitudes towards Chinese culture 3.63 3.76 �1.98*Interest in foreign languages 3.98 4.14 �2.78**Integrative orientation 3.40 4.08 �0.95Instrumental orientation 3.98 3.96 0.26Chinese class anxiety 2.97 2.99 �0.23Chinese use anxiety 2.63 2.55 1.43Self-rating of Chinese proficiency 2.10 2.31 �3.73***
Adaptation indicesSociocultural adaptation 3.26 3.17 1.30Academic adaptation 3.22 3.16 0.88
*pB0.05; **pB0.01; ***pB0.001 (two-tailed).
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It can be seen that individuals report having an increased favourable attitude
towards the Chinese culture and more interest in foreign languages. Furthermore,
students report a significant improvement in their Chinese language proficiency
measured with the proficiency of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
The above results indicate that their Chinese language proficiency improves over time
along with their attitude towards the Chinese culture and their interest in Chinese
languages. However, there are no significant differences between the pre-test and
post-test results with regard to language anxiety and the two indices of adaptation,
indicating that there are no significant changes in language anxiety and the two
indices of adaptation over time. In summary, Hypothesis 7 is partially supported;
Hypothesis 8 is supported while Hypothesis 9 is rejected.
Conclusions and implications
The above findings suggest that integrative motivation plays a very important role in
the process of adaptation. It turns out to be a very good predictor of academic
adaptation. According to Dornyei (2003), the core aspect of integrative disposition
lies in identification with the L2 community psychologically and emotionally. For the
international students in this research, the L2 community are mainly the faculty staff
and their classmates. A high degree of integrative motivation will lead to a high
degree of interaction with faculty members and classmates. And such a high level of
interaction with faculty members can enhance academic adaptation (Tinto 1993). We
may conclude that integrative motivation and academic adaptation are intimately
related in SLA contexts such as that in this research.
The finding that integrative motivation is significantly and positively correlated
with sociocultural adaptation in this study is consistent with previous research
(Masgoret and Ward 2006). As reported in the literature, learners who are
integratively motivated, however, are probably also more successful at an advanced
language level than those who are not due to the fact that psychological integrationmay sustain interest and desire to learn the language longer (Dornyei 1990; Gardner
1985). Likewise, integratively motivated learners may sustain longer desire and
interest in identifying with the host country people, which is likely to contribute to
better sociocultural adaptation in the long run.
There has long been a debate in the superiority of integrative motivation over
instrumental motivation (see Au 1988 for discussion). This study did not tap such
superiority, but the adequate positive loading of instrumental orientation on
integrative motivation may suggest that instrumental motivation may be as good a
predictor as integrative motivation in predicting language achievement (e.g. Chihara
and Oller 1978). In the same sense, instrumental motivation may be a significant
predictor of both sociocultural adaptation and academic adaptation. An implication
of these results for this debate is that longitudinal data are necessary to observe and
examine predictive roles of integrative motivation and instrumental motivation in
adaptation, which can be a new direction for further investigations.
Language anxiety displays negative associations with the two indices of
adaptation. In fact, there is little documented literature tapping the relation betweenlanguage anxiety and adaptation. However, language anxiety is an important
component in defining L2 confidence (Clement, Gardner, and Smythe 1980), which
refers to one’s confidence in being able to communicate in an adaptive and efficient
way when using the L2, and which can be an aggregate of self-ratings of proficiency
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and an absence of language anxiety (Clement and Bourhis 1996). The underlying
dynamics reported in the literature are that L2 confidence is directly related to
willingness to communicate and more contact with the host community (MacIntyre
et al. 1998), and that increased intercultural contact and satisfaction with that
contact have been found to be linked with fewer sociocultural difficulties (Ward and
Kennedy 1993; Ward and Searle 1991). Similarly, it is plausible that the increased
intercultural contact with faculty staff and classmates will also be linked with fewer
academic difficulties. This research has added new empirical evidence to the
literature tapping language anxiety and adaptation.
Time of arrival, length of residence and target language proficiency are identified
as important predictors in the adaptation of Chinese adolescents in Canada (Kuo
and Roysircar 2004). Studies have also suggested that sojourners’ expectations
regarding the culture of the host country are important for sociocultural adaptation.
However, in the present study, perceived cultural distance has been found to have a
significant positive correlation with sociocultural adaptation in the pre-test but notin the post-test. This suggests that the impact of perceived cultural distance may
diminish over time. To my surprise, length of residence turns out to be negatively
correlated with academic adaptation in both the pre-test and the post-test, suggesting
that the longer the students sampled resided in China, the lower the level of academic
adaptation they reported at both the beginning and the end of the second study year.
To my knowledge, there is no empirical study that has ever tapped the relationship
between residential time and academic adaptation. Nonetheless, a close examination
of the sample who reported longer residential time may explain the negative
relationship. This study identified and examined Year 2 students because previous
studies (e.g. Senyshyn, Warford, and Zhan 2000; Yu and Watkins 2008) suggested
that Year 2 for international students might be a critical transitional stage of either
adaptation or L2 learning. In Chinese programmes, students are placed in a certain
level such as a Year 2 class according to their language proficiency as assessed by
objective test results. In such a situation, the following interpretation could be
possible. Students reporting a longer residential time in China, who should have been
in Year 3 or Year 4 but were placed in Year 2 because of their Chinese proficiency,may feel frustrated with their Chinese study and depressed as a result of not coping
well in the new language environment, and such feelings may lead to very limited
interaction with their peer group and faculty. Such a finding indicates that the second
year for international students may be the most important bridging stage between
primary language learning and advanced language learning. During such a stage,
international students may encounter more academic or language-learning problems,
as the learning content becomes more complex and more advanced interaction
between them and their classmates and teaching staff is required.
In terms of the relationship between sociocultural and academic adaptation in
the pre-test and the post-test, it seems that these are closely correlated but a
reciprocal relationship is not found in this study. Academic adaptation has too often
been ignored in the literature of both crosscultural psychology and SLA. Previous
research has identified target country language proficiency as the core issue for both
academic adaptation and sociocultural adaptation (Cheng, Myles, and Curtis 2004;
Jaboc and Greggo 2001; Senyshyn, Warford, and Zhan 2000). From a different
perspective, this study provides empirical evidence to suggest that academicadaptation was significantly correlated with affective variables in SLA and socio-
cultural adaptation. Therefore, academic adaptation should be regarded as an
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important facet of the adaptation of international students and needs to be
incorporated into the relevant literature and future research.
The findings of this study also draw attention to the cultural transition that takes
place as students adapt to their new society through an examination of the changes
of motivational variables and adaptation indices over time. It is found that two
important measures of integrative motivation, attitude towards the Chinese culture
and interest in foreign languages, are enhanced over time. Meanwhile, the students’
Chinese language proficiency is improved significantly at the end of the second year.
Integrative motivation seems to exert a long-term effect on both adaptation and
language-learning achievement, which implies that a longitudinal design is necessary
to study the dynamic changes of integrative motivation. Like the stage U-curve
theory (Lysgaard 1955), the influence of integrative motivation, a complex affective
variable in SLA, may follow a non-linear path. It is important that future research
follows this lead and tests for potential reciprocal relationships and the dynamic
curve of integrative motivation.The behaviour and attitudes of international students are often misinterpreted by
host institutions (Andrade 2006), and the latter need deeper understanding of the
students’ academic, social and psychological challenges (Roberson et al. 2000). Host
institutions may sometimes underestimate the problems in respect of social culture or
academic matters, may not be fully prepared for teaching international students in an
appropriate way, and may need to provide systematic training for both the academic
and non-academic staff. Moreover, local friendship networks are expected to
function to facilitate students’ attainment of their academic and professional goals
(Bochner 1982). However, they were found to have no significant relationship with
the study variables. Such a finding implies that, on the one hand, those international
students lack the skills to establish such networks in China, while on the other hand,
host institutions do not provide sufficient supporting programmes for such students.
One suggestion is that the host institutes pair international students with volunteer
‘host’ students, and encourage them to attend various campus activities together.
Such peer support programmes can provide an important step in helping theacademic adaptation of international students and at the same time also benefit the
intercultural awareness of the local students.
For international students, making careful psychological and academic prepara-
tion for their overseas study and life before coming to China is advice that they may
follow. More specifically, Jaboc and Greggo (2001) suggest that international
students should know their problems, be ready to develop friendships with diverse
peers, understand non-verbal behaviour, be ready to communicate with teachers and
be ready to be involved in the university community.
In summary, this study provides meaningful insights into the complex process of
adaptation and SLA of international students in China. The results suggest that it is
important that researchers in SLA consider psychological- and cultural-related
constructs relating to SLA, and researchers in psychology consider language-related
variables in studying language learners’ adjustment. Furthermore, researchers in
both SLA and psychology may take academic adaptation into consideration when
studying the adaptation of international students at tertiary level. The studyhighlights the need for longitudinal studies of academic adaptation by international
students from different cultural backgrounds. Further research may consider
sojourners’ country of origin to further examine whether students from different
countries perform differently in China. Attention should be directed to examining
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whether different measures of motivation will lead to different findings, which will
contribute to the existing knowledge on SLA motivation research.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by University Postgraduate Fellowships from the University ofHong Kong. The author would like to deeply thank the Editor, Prof. John Edwards, and twoanonymous reviewers for very valuable comments and suggestions that greatly improved themanuscript.
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