This research examines what facilitates and hinders the adjustment of adolescent
international students attending public secondary school in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The purpose of this study is to determine a set of categories that can be used by school
personnel to, better assist newly arriving international students in their adjustment process.
The critical incident technique developed by Flanagan (1954) is used for this
research to discover what events facilitate and hinder the adjustment of these international
students. Twenty-one secondary students, ages fifteen to eighteen, are interviewed from
three different public schools in the Vancouver School District. From the interviews, a
total of 352 critical incidents are used to develop seventeen categories which answer the
question: What facilitates and hinders adolescent international student adjustment? To
test for reliability and validity, four tests are carried out in order to establish the
soundness and comprehensiveness of the categories including independent rater
agreement, comprehensiveness of categories, participation rate, and expert validation.
The results show that adolescent international student adjustment can be
facilitated or hindered in the following ways: receiving encouragement or support,
receiving advice or information, receiving help, appreciating others, being accepted,
making friends, having fun, participating in activities, learning English, communicating
effectively, speaking own language, performing well academically, experiencing less
demand at school, making decisions, impressed with environment, experiencing
dilemmas, and experiencing local annoyances. Portraits of adjustment and maladjustment
are given as well as case studies in order to highlight the categorization system in both a
general and specific way. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge regarding
international student adjustment because of its use of an adolescent, rather than adult,
international student population. This research is also very practical in that it can be
useful as a basis for individual and group counselling, various school-based and district
programs, and general support and information for school personnel and newly arriving
international students. Ideas for further research using this subject population are also
suggested.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/8211 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Popadiuk, Natalee Elizabeth |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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