英文摘要 |
This study aims to explore the impacts of various sources of social support on overseas adjustments, and the relationship between overseas adjustments and life satisfaction as well. The adjustment problems that international exchange students might encounter include general adjustment, interaction adjustment and study adjustment. Some studies find that personal traits could mitigate adjustment difficulties, but this study attempts an investigation of the impact of organizational factors, namely social support, on the relationship between adjustment and satisfaction. In the context of overseas study, social support is at least from three sources: exchange schools, parent schools, and families. In our theoretical framework, social support is treated as an antecedent variable of overseas adjustment, and assumed to be positively correlated with overseas adjustments and life satisfaction. The results indicate that, in the short-term exchange program, social support provided by exchange schools is effective n improving adjustments difficulties, in particular, those of general adjustment and interaction adjustment. Whereas, social support provided by parent schools and families result in negative effects on overseas adjustments, specifically, study adjustment. That is to say, students would not be able to rely on the support from their home countries to effectively solve overseas adjustment problems. The reason is probably that the high extent of home country support leads to a high level of student’s dependence and then impedes their overseas adjustment. In addition, the results reveal a salient relationship between general adjustment and exchange student’s life satisfaction. Finally, we highlight some implications for the future practices and studies of short-term exchange programs. |