Abstract/Summary

It is widely known that sojourning students experience a major, stressful life event (Savicki & Adams, 2007) as they adjust to the host-culture, which can deleteriously affect their experience and academic achievement. Therefore, this longitudinal study evaluates the impact of internationalisation at home preparation on the adjustment of one cohort of sojourning Chinese students to the host-social and academic cultures of a UK university. Undertaken primarily in a post-1992 UK university, it uses a mixed methods explanatory sequential design (Creswell, Plano Clark, Gutmann, & Hanson, 2003), conducted in two connected phases, a quantitative followed by a qualitative stage, with the emphasis being on the qualitative phase. An initial pre-sojourn questionnaire gathered background data, demographic information and assisted sampling. Following arrival in the UK, and involving 7 participants, qualitative data were collected through diaries, semi-structured interviews at three points during the year, and other artefacts such as photographs and videos. Within the context of internationalisation of education, specifically transnational education and internationalisation at home, the data were analysed against the conceptual framework of cultural background including intercultural competence, cultural adjustment and autonomy, linked with agency and transformative learning theory. The findings demonstrate that the students adjusted well, having been successfully prepared by the internationalisation at home preparation, the summer camp and sojourning as a group. Individual factors such as personality, motivation for sojourning and parental influence were also important. These results may assist policymakers and practitioners in the field to facilitate a smoother University transition for their students, in particular through the development of deep transnational partnerships.