Institutional management of acculturative stress among international students: a resource-based framework

Introduction

Studying abroad means that students need to constantly face unfamiliar rules and requirements. A student may be very confident in his course learning, but he doesn't know how to contact his tutor, how to register for residence, or how to object to an administrative decision. These seemingly daily uncertainties will consume students' time and attention [1, p. 700]. When multiple problems occur at the same time, they may jointly trigger acculturative stress, that is, the psychological and real burden of individuals adapting to different cultural environments. Although colleges and universities cannot eliminate all the difficulties encountered by students in the process of acculturation, they can change many institutional and environmental conditions in which students face these difficulties [2, p. 152].

Relevant review studies show that language requirements, social relations and academic requirements are important factors that appear repeatedly in the adaptation process of international students [3, p. 621]. Soufi Amlashi et al. found that there was a significant correlation between acculturative stress and adverse psychological outcomes in a meta-analysis involving 26 studies with a total sample size of 7,247 people, with an average correlation coefficient of r = .39 [4, p. 200]. This evidence shows that acculturative stress is not only a matter of student satisfaction. However, a university may have provided psychological counselling services, but still retains confusing processes and contradictory information guidance. Therefore, the management of acculturative stress should not only rely on psychological counselling, but also include the improvement of various services for students and their organization.

Theoretical foundations

Berry's acculturation theory believes that adaptation is the result of the interaction between individuals entering a new cultural environment and the receiving environment [5, p. 28]. International students may want to actively participate in campus life while still maintaining a connection with their mother tongue and original culture. Therefore, an effective college management method should enable students to participate in normal academic and campus activities equally and smoothly, and cultural assimilation should not be an implicit prerequisite for participation in these activities.

Conservation of resources theory believes that the generation of pressure is related to the threat or consumption of resources to some extent [6, p. 517]. For international students, important resources include not only time, but also information that can be understood, reliable contacts, and interpersonal relationships that can provide practical help. An inexplicable registration regulation may constantly consume these resources, and clearly designating a responsible department and providing a clear process can help students save these resources. From this perspective, college management needs to pay attention to the administrative costs that can be avoided, and not only emphasize the individual coping ability of students.

Core dimensions of institutional management

Administrative access

The Accessibility Of Administrative Services Is A Reasonable Starting Point. Before students arrive at school, colleges and universities should provide a concise guide with the update time, which should cover matters such as registration, residence certificate, insurance, tuition and academic contact channels. Each process should specify the responsible department, the deadline, and the channels for continuing to seek help when the problem cannot be solved. The relevant information should also be actually tested by students who have recently completed these processes. If there is a contradiction between the information on the school's official website and the information in the informal instant messaging group, the university should correct the relevant information in time, instead of simply reminding students to confirm by themselves.

Academic induction

Academic induction should be mainly the responsibility of each department, and should not be fully handed over to the international office. International students need to know the school-approved citation standards, curriculum evaluation standards, seminar participation requirements and how to actively seek feedback from teachers. Arranging a short formative task in the first month after admission can help teachers and students discover possible understanding deviations before formal important assessments. These measures do not lower academic standards, but make academic requirements that are not clear to freshmen clearer and more visible.

Social participation and sustained contact

Effective social participation requires creating opportunities for students to have repeated and continuous interaction. Relevant studies show that the degree of interpersonal contact and social connectedness is closely related to the intercultural adjustment of international students [7, p. 666]. Li and Peng's research also found that support from social networks in both home and host countries is associated with lower levels of acculturative stress [8, p. 73]. Peer mentoring, mixed group projects and language exchange activities can make international students' interpersonal interactions no longer completely dependent on chance opportunities. Although it is easy to make statistics about participating in a cultural festival, in contrast, whether students have established lasting interpersonal relationships and whether they really feel accepted by the campus group are more meaningful evaluation results.

Coordinated referral and support services

All kinds of support services of colleges and universities should be operated as an interconnected whole. For example, a student who faces housing difficulties, sleep problems and absent from school at the same time should not be asked to repeat the same problem to multiple departments. With the consent of students, tutors can help students get further support through a clear referral mechanism while protecting students' personal privacy information. Peer mentors can help students solve problems in daily adaptation and life navigation, and when it comes to clinical psychological or mental health problems, it must be the responsibility of professionally qualified staff. In a survey of 186 international students, Bai found that students' perceived university support can negatively predict their acculturative stress [9, p. 100]. Relevant studies in the Chinese situation also show that social support is related to the better level of individual adaptation in a stressful environment [10, p. 20]. However, none of the above studies alone can prove that a specific university support program can achieve the expected results.

An implementation and evaluation framework

Phased implementation

Phased implementation can help colleges and universities distribute responsibilities more reasonably. Before students arrive at school and within the first month after admission, the focus of the work should include providing accurate information, clarifying specific contacts, and conducting a preliminary needs assessment. In the first semester, departments of colleges and universities can focus on evaluating students' academic adjustment, peer contact and the use of relevant support services. In the later stage, you should also pay attention to some hidden issues, such as thesis guidance, internship requirements and uncertainty before graduation. The support provided to different students should also be different, and students' academic level, language experience and time spent in the host country should be taken into account.

Cross-unit coordination

Colleges and universities also need to appoint a clear coordinator to follow up cross-departmental issues. The international office can be responsible for maintaining and updating the procedural guidance; departments can be responsible for academic induction; the student affairs office can organise peer counselling activities; and the counselling services can provide professional support. A monthly centralised review of unresolved student consultations and problems helps to detect institutional problems that may otherwise be seen as individual cases but are actually recurring.

Evaluation and monitoring

The evaluation mechanism of colleges and universities should be moderate and practical. Process indicators can include: the proportion of guidelines that keep up-to-date, the median time required for students to receive replies to inquiries, the completion of referrals, and the participation of peer mentoring activities. Outcome indicators can include students' perceived university support, sense of belonging, academic adjustment and acculturative stress. Conducting a short and confidential questionnaire survey at the time of admission and at several points in the future can help colleges and universities determine whether the relevant difficulties persist. In addition, a small number of different types of students can be interviewed to learn more about why some well-publicised service items are still not actually used by students.

Discussion

The framework proposed in this article takes the practical question from "How can students better cope with pressure?" Turn into "What requirements from the university system and management can actually be avoided?" Acculturation itself still requires students to make some efforts. However, contradictory information, vague scoring rules, and referral processes that ultimately cannot be solved are all problems at the organisational and management levels. These problems can be systematically reviewed, can be clearly responsible for the corresponding departments, and can also be improved through college management.

This framework is of certain significance to many higher education institutions, including universities in Central Asia, including universities in Kazakhstan that accept Chinese students. However, this article does not believe that a support model can be applied to all colleges and universities. Teaching language, immigration and residence process, college staffing, and students' past intercultural experience will all affect the implementation of specific measures. Therefore, before directly introducing projects designed by other regions or other countries, colleges and universities should first understand the main obstacles that international students actually face.

Conclusion

Acculturative stress cannot be managed solely by psychological counselling. Colleges and universities should make various processes clearer and easier to understand, clearly explain academic norms in the early stage of students' enrolment, support students to establish lasting peer ties, and help students get support and professional services that meet their actual needs in a timely manner. At the same time, tracking the operation of college services and the actual experience of students can help college administrators find obstacles that could have been avoided and adjust the corresponding management measures in time. The ultimate goal is not to eliminate the challenges of international education itself, but to ensure that the organisational and management problems of universities themselves do not further increase the adaptation burden of international students.