International Students’ Acculturation in Finland: Strategy, Stress, and Coping

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Heng Wu

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’

ACCULTURATION IN FINLAND:

STRATEGY, STRESS, AND COPING

Faculty of Education and Culture Master’s Thesis in Teacher Education 10 2021

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ABSTRACT

Heng Wu: International Students’ Acculturation in Finland: Strategy, Stress, and Coping Master’s Thesis

Tampere University

Master’s Degree in Teacher Education 10 2021

As the internationalization of Finnish higher education has become increasingly important, international students’ acculturation is gradually gaining attention. International students are exposed to a cultural milieu distinct from their own, resulting in a series of psychological transformations. To investigate international students’ acculturation experiences in terms of acculturation strategies, acculturative stress and copings, a concurrent mixed-method survey including quantitative instruments and an open-ended question was conducted on 159 international degree students in Finland. The research suggests that in Finland, the majority of international students adopted an integration acculturation strategy. Gender and ethnicity had significant impact on international students’ choice of acculturation strategy. The more oriented towards the host culture they were, the lower the degree of acculturative stress they are were inflicted on. Facing acculturative stress, international students mostly adopted adaptive coping strategies; meanwhile, maladaptive coping strategy appeared to be a significant predictor of acculturative stress. This thesis not only provides an extensive understanding of international students’ acculturation experiences in Finland, but also allows for a thorough empirical investigation. Furthermore, the research-based data and result will contribute to the formulation of more potent, equitable, and inclusive university policies that cater to the diverse needs of international students in Finland, allowing support to be provided as needed.

Keywords: Acculturation Strategy, Acculturative Stress, Coping Strategy, Finland, higher education, International Student, HEI

The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin Originality Check service.

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1 INTRODUCTION

In the domain of higher education research, the critical interest in international students' acculturation has been proliferated in recent years. Confronted with a different cultural environment, international students would come across a number of psychological changes, namely acculturation. This thesis looks into how international students perceive their acculturation experiences in Finland from a stress and coping perspective. It aims at exploring the factors that determine acculturation strategy, acculturative stress; as well as assessing how acculturation strategy, stress and coping strategies are related.

Despite the importance of international students’ psychological acculturation, there is still a scarcity of such investigations in Nordic Finland. This empirical work portrays one of the first investigations into how international students experience their psychological acculturation in the context of Finland, which demonstrates a comprehensive view of the acculturation dynamics in the student body. The findings should make meaningful contributions to development of acculturation research for international students. They not only enable a thorough understanding of international students’ acculturation process, but also facilitate befitting university policies for the psychological adaptation of international students in Finland.

Before proceeding with the discourse, it is vital to define and clarify a few concepts. International student is defined as students who study transnationally and are at present registered at a school outside of their own country (UNESCO institute for statistics, 2006). In this thesis it refers more specifically to foreign degree students in higher education who choose to study and obtain professional qualifications in Finland for a length of stay that usually lasts for several years long (Bochner, 2006). Acculturation entails the transformations that happen after contacting different cultures. Acculturation strategy pertains whether it is of value to retain the home culture while adopting the host culture. Acculturative stress is conceptualized as a response elicited by certain sources during the

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acculturation process and is related to certain behaviours (Berry, 2006b). Coping strategy is concepturalized as the flexible efforts to deal with external and/or internal problems which exceed personal bearing capacity, either cognitively or behaviourally (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

The overall structure of the study is comprised of seven chapters; they are introduction, theoretical background, context of the study, data and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. The first section introduces the whole thesis from a holistic perspective. After that, it goes on to the literature review of relevant theories. The context of the study is introduced in the third chapter. Chapter four details the research questions and design and delves into the process of data collection and analysis. In chapter five, specific findings are presented, and the results are graphically illustrated. Chapter six is the discussion and explanation of the findings in Chapter five in the framework of the literature review. It also highlights the limitation and ethical issues, meanwhile proposes ideas for future studies. The final chapter, Chapter seven, is an evaluation of the entire study, and includes the research’s concluding remarks.

This study employs a mixed methods approach that incorporates data from quantitative instruments and qualitative open-ended question. The research took the form of web survey, with data collected through the internet. Quantitative and qualitative methods were combined for data analysis.

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2 ACCULTURATION AMONG INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

This chapter deals with definitions, theories, and published trends in the topic of international students’ acculturation. The reason for reviewing the literature is to provide a theoretical background, inform the reader with the related theories. This literature review is designed in introducing the history of acculturation models that have been experimented on international students, as well as empirical studies on the topic.

2.1 Acculturation as a Strategy

2.1.1 Definition of Acculturation

Contact between people of different cultures has been an ongoing process throughout humanity's lengthy history. For a variety of causes, including commerce, war, politics, and research, people travel, move, meet, and carry their culture to other parts of the world. People from various cultural origins, as well as the community in which they live, undergo transformations which result from this process (Sam & Berry, 2006). As a result, the impact of the multicultural environment on individuals is unavoidable.

In 1883, Powell first proposed the notion of "acculturation", which signifies the psychological transformations which happen in the wake of cross-cultural imitation (Sam, 2012). This definition stresses the individual's encounter with a new culture. This term, however, has been questioned because it is often assumed that there are two factors that underpin the acculturation process: one's connections with their own cultures and with their host cultures. In 1901, Simons redefined acculturation as a bidirectional process of "reciprocal accommodation”

from a sociological point of view (Sam, 2012).

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Redifield and colleagues put forward a more comprehensive and formal definition of acculturation, which has been widely used by socialists. They described acculturation as "those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups"

(Redfield et al., 1936, p. 149). This conceptualization of acculturation addresses the most important difficulties. To begin with, it emphasizes the importance of

"continuous" and "first-hand" exposure to a different culture. Second, both groups have an impact on one another. Due to the power distance, one party would unavoidably exert greater power than the other (Sam, 2012). Finally, acculturation changes at the group level could be physiological, biological, geopolitical, sociocultural, or cultural, or a mix of these (Berry, 1991). Simply put,

"acculturation" refers to every change that emerges after the "contact" between individuals and groups from various cultural origins, and it has three distinct elements: contact, reciprocal influence, and change (Sam, 2012).

2.1.2 Acculturation Strategy

Based on the definition of acculturation by Redifield et al., Berry (1970) postulated four strategies of acculturation: assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalization, each expressing a strategy that individuals adopt in an acculturative environment. He was the first that introduced the distinction between the strategies of assimilation and integration. Following that, he separated isolation from marginalization as diverse forms of acculturation.

Four Strategies of Acculturation

Berry (1984a) developed a bi-dimensional model characterized with individuals’ acculturational strategy towards their original culture and the host culture. Two major attitudinal orientations were discovered in the model; one deals with retaining and developing an individual's home culture and identity; the other is about recognizing the importance of engagement in different cultures and establishing constructive relationships within the host culture. As a result, individuals' acculturation orientation can be categorized into four types based on

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their views toward home and host culture: assimilation, marginalization, separation, and integration.

FIGURE 1． Acculturation strategies in ethnocultural groups (Berry, 2006a, p.

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These four strategies with four different names, as shown in the quadrant model (see FIGURE 1), are determined by which group is being considered.

Assimilation entails abandoning an individual’s original culture while accepting the host culture. Marginalization happens if individuals retain neither their traditional culture nor host culture. Separation refers to persons who retain their cultural identity while being unable to integrate into the majority society.

Embracing one's home ethnicity and the host culture together is a vital component of integration. Integration is considered the most successful of the four acculturation processes, while marginalization is considered an acculturation failure. Between the two extremes are assimilation and separation. Individuals may have positive or negative perspectives about life situations at different periods since acculturation is a continual process. These points of view collide to determine the strategy or strategies people adopt.

Using Berry et al.’s (1989) model as a guideline, studies regarding international students’ acculturation strategies have been conducted from a

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variety of perspectives. Acculturation strategy was found to manifest itself in different ways according to the synergy of the sojourner’s culture, the host culture, as well as the sojourner themselves. In the study conducted by Ward and Kennedy (1994), among the sojourners in New Zealand, integration was indicated as the most adopted strategy, in which the participants were strongly identified with both cultures. Sullivan and Kashubeck-West’s (2015) investigation found that, however, the percentage of marginalized international students was relatively high. This could be due to the unique life experience of international students. In the research conducted by Cao and colleagues (2017), the most widely adopted acculturation approach among overseas students in Belgium was integration.

Empirical findings on demographic variables and acculturation strategies identify a number of associations between them during individual’s acculturation process. Individuals’ time of stay in the host country was found to be significantly connected to host culture orientation and inversely related to the culture of their home country (Cortes et al., 1994), and it also positively predicted the level of acculturation (Jasinskaja-Lahti & Liebkind, 2000). Education level was discovered to be positively connected to affiliation to the host culture (Suinn et al., 1992). As for gender, there were inconsistent results regarding acculturation strategies. On one hand, there were claims that females tend to be more insistent of their own culture and are less willing to accept the host culture (Ghaffarian, 1987; Liebkind, 1996); on the other hand, Ouarasse and van de Vijver (2005) discovered that women are significantly more inclined towards the host culture than male. Perhaps the cultural distance and differences between the two countries account for this. Ma and Wang (2015) measured the acculturation strategy of international students and found that demographic parameters may affect international students’ decision to employ different acculturation strategies.

However, because of the limited sample size, there are limits to how far the influences of those demographic factors can be taken, and more study with larger samples is expected to be conducted. Language proficiency may also be related to acculturation. International students with the assimilation strategy seemed to have gained higher local language fluency (Cao et al., 2017). Since the major acculturation strategy adopted by international students differs in various host culture contexts, and the relations of acculturation strategy and demographic

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variables are not consistent in previous studies, and require empirical investigations, the present study further investigates how international students in Finland opt for acculturation strategies.

2.2 Development of Acculturation Models among International Students

Models have been built and challenged in trying to obtain insight into the acculturation process, on the basis of Berry’s acculturation theory. Studies of acculturation models for international student groups in various host cultures have blossomed in recent years (Glass, 2014; Pekerti et al., 2020; Rasmi et al., 2009; Sullivan & Kashubeck-West, 2015; Wang et al., 2018). To emphasize the relative relevance of affect, behaviour, and cognition, Ward (2001) identified three primary approaches of acculturation studies: stress and coping, culture learning, and social identification, which are jointly known as the "ABCs of Acculturation".

Based on the three approaches described previously, several acculturation models have been designed and tested on international students. The MIDA (Multi-dimensional Individual Difference Acculturation) model was developed by using longitudinal data on international students. It discovered the predicting roles of psychosocial resources, co-national connection, and stressors on outgroup interaction, ingroup contact and psychophysical distress and all these factors are associated with the adaptation of international students (Rasmi, Safdar and Lewis, 2009). Berger et al. (2019) furthered the MIDA model and investigated the acculturation of international students of Erasmus program in Spain and Germany. The result indicated a positive relation between cultural and linguistic skills, sense of identity and the adjustment to the host society. Arends-Toth and van de Vijver (2006) combined the ABC approaches with the predictor variable of society of origin in their Multidimensional Acculturation Model (MAM). They proposed that the quality of the intergroup contact as well as the perception of the contact constitute an important part of the acculturation condition. Pekerti et al. (2020) applied the MAM and supported the idea that social contact could facilitate international students’ acculturation and personal well-being.

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2.3 The Stress and Coping Framework of Acculturation

This section concentrates on the Stress and Coping theory and related terminology prior to a brief introduction and comparison of several acculturation models concerning international students.

The “stress and coping” approach, first developed by Berry (1997), focuses on the stresses emerging from the acculturation process, and the corresponding coping strategies that ameliorate acculturative stress and lead eventually to some form of psychological adaptation. Individuals go through a number of changes during the acculturation process, and after processing through personal appraisal, some become positive and helpful facilitators and others become stressors. After the individual’s appropriate coping, the stress can be reduced and can eventually reach the so-called psychological adaption.

Acculturative stress

Acculturative stress by definition is a response elicited by certain sources during the acculturation process and is linked to a specific set of behaviours (Berry, 1970). Berry (1997; 2006) introduced the stress and coping framework of acculturation, which addresses the factors that influence acculturative stress and adaptation, along with the copings that help people overcome it.

Acculturative stress can express itself in a variety of forms. It has been documented in the literature to cause physical difficulties among international students, such as headaches, blood pressure elevation, exhaustion, sleep and appetite disturbances, and digestion issues (Mori, 2000). Acculturative stress is at the same time associated with mental problems for example isolation, helplessness, desperation, agony, sense of loss, fury, setback, and self- inadequacy, which can even induce elevated levels of melancholy and anxiety (Mori, 2000; Sam & Berry, 2006). Individuals suffering from acculturative stress are more prone to feel marginalized by society or unsure about their own identity.

Pappa and colleagues (2020) carried out qualitative research on eleven international doctoral students in six Finnish universities notwithstanding its negative presence. They claimed that if stress is seen positively, it can be used as a motivator.

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It is noticeable that acculturative stress is correlated with a variety of factors.

On the group level, the society of origin and society of settlement provide international students with the context for connection and participation. The features of the original society (demographics, civic background, financial situations) and the host society (societal support and attitudes towards ethnics) establish the basis for the assessment of cultural distance between the two contacting cultural groups (Berry, 2006b). On the individual level, The interplay of pre-acculturation moderating variables (e.g., age, gender, religion, language, status, etc.) and post-acculturation moderating factors (e.g., societal support, coping, acculturation strategies, etc.) effects the personal psychological acculturation experience.

Acculturative stress was also associated to acculturation strategies among international students. According to Wang and Mallinckrodt (2006), international students (Chinese) who are well-acculturated to the host culture (the United States) have less attachment anxiety. International students with an integration acculturation strategy exhibited less stress, while those with a marginalization strategy reported more acculturative stress, according to Sullivan and Kashubeck-West (2015). Host nationals are more effective in lowering acculturative stress by offering know-how, according to studies of foreign students' host national and co-national social chains (Olaniran, 1993).

International students had relatively less acculturative stress if there were content with supported provided by the host society (Yeh and Inose, 2003). In different cultural milieu, international students' acculturation would be facilitated by the support and assistance they received from classmates and society.

Stressors

International students may encounter a range of stressors which happen their daily lives in the host country. It is possible for a variety of life changes that are regarded as difficulties to become stressors or hassles (Safdar et al., 2003).

These stressors, such as language barriers, academic factors, sociocultural factors, discrimination, and financial factors (Rasmi et al, 2009), are likely to cause varying degrees of acculturative stress, and will affect international students' acculturation orientation in accordance with their appraisal and judgment. Acculturative stress is influenced by individual-level characteristics that

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exist prior to acculturation and emerge during acculturation, as shown in Figure 2. Personal identity, motivation, and cultural distance are all factors to consider prior to acculturation.

Chataway and Berry (1989) documented that international students in Cadana faced three major stressors: uncertain future prospects, academic pressures and loneliness. Smith and Khawaja (2010) suggested five kinds of frequently documented stressors arising in the international students’ group:

discrimination, linguistic barrier, academic factors, sociocultural factors, and practical factors. Linguistic barrier is a primary obstacle for international students in academic and sociocultural domains. Academically, language proficiency is closely associated with interaction with the teachers, assignment writing, exam results (Mori, 2000). Socially, language barriers impact on international students social networking (Mori, 2000). As for educational stressors, even though academic stress is rather ubiquitous among all the university students, it can be intensified among international students because of the learning environment, mismatched expectations, teaching style and language barrier (Smith & Khawaja, 2011b). The international students have to build their social network in a new cultural environment after leaving their family and friends in their own countries.

But due to their personality, cultural norms and other sociocultural stressors, a large number of international students have reported loneliness, homesickness, unhappiness in the host country (Rajapaksa & Dundes, 2002; Khawaja &

Dempsey, 2008). Perceived discrimination is also regarded as one possible stressor. Compared to youths from the host country in Europe, international students from other continents reported varying degrees of discrimination (Lee &

Rice, 2007; Hanassab, 2006). Moreover, international students may also feel acculturative stress because of practical stressors. Financial problems, accommodation, transportation would all lead to psychological stress and practical problems (Mori, 2000). Khawaja & Stallman (2011) identified culture shock, social isolation, language difficulties, psychological depression, and employment difficulties to be adjustment stressors for international students in Australia. Gbadamosi’s (2018) study on international students in the UK highlights several acculturation challenges which pertained personal, academic, social and political stressors. Pappa and colleagues’ (2020) qualitative research on eleven international doctoral students in Finland found that international

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doctoral students’ stress mainly come from social relations, academic challenges, future prospects and lack of help from their surroundings.

Coping strategies

Confronted with the acculturation expriences that are appraised as difficulties, individuals adopt coping strategies that attempt to solve the existing problems.

Coping was concepturalized as the adaptable efforts to deal with external and/or internal issues that are greater than personal bearing capacity, either cognitively or behaviourally (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Researches have proposed that coping contributes significantly to ameliorating how acculturative stress affects students coming from foreign countries (Kim et al., 2012; Ra & Trusty, 2017).

However, it does not imply that all copings are effecitve in reducing or elimiating stress (Folkman, 1984).

Different types of coping strategies have been proposed in the general framework of stress and coping, such as problem-focused coping for problem solving or actively altering the stressors, emotion-focused coping for managing sentimental reactions to the situation, meaning-focused coping for personal appraisal, and avoidance-oriented coping for escaping or avoiding somatic reactivity (Carver et al., 1989; Endler & Parker, 1990; Folkman, 2008; Lazarus &

Folkman, 1984). The major focus of international students’ coping strategies is suggested to be summarized into two dimensions: adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies (Smith & Khawaja, 2011b), according to their presumed outcome (Zeitlin, 1980). The former refers to stress-responsive actions and attitudes, whereas the latter denotes a negative withdrawal from stressful situations, which frequently leads to failure; denial, self-criticism, restraint, anguish and reflection over wrong deeds, emotion inhibition and suppression, behavioural disengagement, and alcohol or substance use are all instances of maladaptive coping that can exacerbate acculturative stress. By constructing the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI), Tobin et al. (1989) comprehensively constructed college students’ coping strategies from eight primary factors, four seconday factors and finally contribute to two tertiary factors: engagement and disengagement. Engagement refers to active and adptive responses to a stressful circumstance, including problem engagement and emotion engagement;

disengegement describes passive and maladaptive coping, consisting of problem

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disengagement and emotion disengagement (Jauregui et al., 2017). Problem engagement entails active efforts (problem solving, cognitive restructuring) to handle stressful situations; whereas problem disengagement (problem avoidance, wishful thinking) is employed to avoid confronting intense situations. Emotion engagement (social support, emotional expression) refers to taking charge of one’s emotional reactions to a stressor by resorting to supportive relationships or seeking social support; whereas emotion disengagement (social withdrawal, self- criticism) involves condeming oneself and avoiding socializing.

On a large scale, disfunctional or maladaptive coping was discovered as a strong and substantial predictor of international students’ psychological distress (Khawaja & Dempsey, 2007). Previous findings have found a positive relation between the adoption of maladaptive coping methods and the degree of stress in organizations and college students (Pasillas et al., 2006; Wichianson et al., 2009), indicating that the individuals suffer more stress if they choose to avoid or inhibit their emotions. International students from Asia have been documented to use maladaptive coping strategies. Chataway and Berry (1989) found that Asian international students worked with less constructive-thinking and tension- reduction strategies. Prominent presense of maladaptive coping strategies, such as alcohol use, problem ingnorance and avoidance, was also found among international students (Bhowmik et al., 2018).

In the context of Finland, much attention has been drawn in investigating the acculturation experience of immigrants and minority populations (Jasinskaja- Lahti & Liebkind, 2000; Virta et al., 2004; Yijälä & Jasinskaja-Lahti, 2010;

Garbrah, 2011; Vincze & Moring, 2017). There is a dearth of research on how acculturation takes place on international students as a whole in Finland. As cultural connection is a prominent part of the sojourn of international students (Bochner, 2006), it is vital to investigate the nature of acculturation experience among minority students in Finland in order to enhance their adaptive process and outcome. The present research applies the Stress and Coping framework to international student’s acculturation experience in the Finnish context and aims to investigate how international students perceive their acculturation orientation, acculturation strategy in relation to demographic factors, acculturative stress as well as corresponding coping strategies. It aims at a better knowledge of some features of international students’ acculturation experiences in Finnish culture.

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FIGURE 2． The conceptual research model (Berry, 2006b, p.45)

As a summary, this literature review aims at demonstrating the history and trends of research in international students’ acculturation. The present situation of the topic fills the gap of international students’ acculturation, in the context of Finland, which is tightly connected with the study of acculturation.

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3 INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

ACCULTURATING INTO FINNISH CULTURE

As Westin (2006) points out, the socio-political foundations of acculturation in different countries varied significantly due to differences in history, language, minority populations, and integration policies. The same applies to Nordic Finland. Hereby, this chapter is going to demonstrate the context for the acculturation of international students from two perspectives: internationalization of Finnish Higher Education (FHE) and dimensions of the Finnish culture.

3.1 Internationalization of Finnish Higher Education

As internationalization is advancing at a rapid pace, societies are increasingly realizing the relevance of higher education going international. Nordic Finland witnessed a boost in the number of English programmes and international students in higher education. Under the guidance and support of state governance and finance, Finland's higher education system has pioneered mass higher education (Kosunen, 2018). Degree programs of universities and universities of applied sciences are all included in FHE; Universities are primarily concerned with research and academic instruction, whereas universities of applied science are primarily concerned with preparing professionals for the job market (Isopahkala-Bouret et al., 2021). The internalization of FHE is addressed regarding policy making as well as implementation.

At the policy-making level, higher education internationalization has been a principle in existence for decades. The focus of FHE internationalization policy diverted from exchange programs in its debut in late 1980s to international degree programs nowadays (Saarinen, 2012a). The 1980s witnessed the initiation of the FHE internationalization policies. In 1987, the Ministry of Education introduced

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the first internationalization plan, aiming at merely international cooperation in the research and scientific field by promoting international networks in exchange programs. In the 1990s, the focus of FHE had become: to enhance the research and education quality and to go internationalized. These two objectives became equally important and mutually reinforced each other. In 1991, supported by Ministry of Education, the Centre for International Mobility was established. It was designed to render services to support the internationalization of both universities and polytechnics. Then, in 1995, since Finland became a member of the European Union (EU) and set foot in some EU programmes, the multinational cooperation, and the requirement of internationalization as a funding criterion fostered the internationalization of FHE. Internationalization was no longer reckoned as a solely function of FHE, but rather a necessity in FHE policy (Nokkala, 2007). Along with the deepening of the cooperation within EU, the FHE revised its objectives for education policies. The key objectives were to improve educational quality, lifelong study, digital literacy, and the practice of integrating information communication technology to education, as well as to facilitate education’s role of boosting employment (Opetusministeriö, 2001). In 2009, the Ministry of Education took a significant step forward by announcing a new internationalization plan for FHE, with the goal of fostering strong and appealing higher education while also boosting society's role in globalization (Saarinen, 2012b).

At the implementation level, Finland put in significant efforts in boosting education export and expanding education marketization internationally.

Universities use the Ministry of Education's performance requirements to determine the size of international programs, strategic alliances, and international personnel and so on (Jogunola & Varis, 2018). In the hope of promoting FHE to the world and expanding FHE financial resources, tuition fee was also imposed to non-EU/EEA students initially in a pilot project launched by Ministry of Education (Law 558/2009; Statute 1307/2010; cited by Kauko & Medvedeva, 2016). However, a number of issues pose as challenges in the practices regardless of the policy made. Language comes as the first challenge. Compared with major English-speaking countries, Finland’s unique culture and national language require a strategic consideration for policy making and everyday practice (Dobson & Hölttä 2001). Despite the fact that Finland has become one

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of the European countries with the most English-taught higher education programs (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014), there appears to be a "hidden juxtaposition of languages" nowadays (Medvedeva, 2018), where language use is not equivalent and inclusive in real practice. On one hand, English language in international degree programs appears to be “self-evident” as Saarinen (2012b) argues. The conversion from Finnish to multilingual instruction requires changes and efforts not only from the staff, but also from the administration and the general curriculum (Renfors, 2019). As most staff in universities and higher education institutions are native Finnish, it is challenging to gear themselves up for English teaching under the premise of teaching quality.

The other challenge is managing cultural diversity in international classrooms (Renfors, 2019). As students are from diverse cultural backgrounds and have cultivated different cultural perceptions, misunderstanding and even conflicts seem inevitable when international students study and communicate under the same roof. How teachers and institutions facilitate acculturation and communication remains an unsolved problem.

The tuition fee is also an issue. The idea of tuition fee promotes FHE as a new export industry, but at the same violates the Nordic ethos of equal opportunities for free education (Kosunen, 2018). The withdrawal of free tuition resulted in the drop of both the number of applicants and the incoming international students (Hui, 2018), as most international students came to Finland for the free tuition. Both students and university administrators believe that the imposition of tuition fee would reduce the number of applicants to Finnish universities (Jogunola & Varis, 2018).

3.2 Dimensions of Finnish Culture

According to Berry (2006b), the research of acculturation experience should begin with the original society and settlement society. Acculturation takes place in a specific cultural setting, not in a "vacuum." Prior to conducting any acculturation research, it is critical to achieve a thorough perception of the society of settlement.

Since this research focuses on international students’ acculturation experience in the Finnish context, it is of importance to understand Finland’s

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culture as whole. There are various definitions of culture in the theory field. In his book Culture’s Consequences, Hofstede (1984, p. 13) defined culture as “the communal programming of the mind that identifies the members of one human group from those of another". On this point, culture represents characteristics of each collectivity of human that can be differed from each other. National culture, in this sense, also carries its society’s own distinct features. To study the culture of different countries, Hofstede (1984) put forward four dimensions of national cultures, namely, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs.

collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity. He assessed the cultural differences among 40 countries with profiles from the large international corporation HERMES’s attitude survey program. This study laid a solid foundation for the future studies regarding national cultures. Based on the four dimensions, Chhokar et al. (2007) reported appproximately similar results of Finland’s cultural dimensions, regardless of a slight increase (62) in the participating countries.

Later on, in the 2010 version of the book Cultures and Organizations, Hofstede et al. (2010) analysed the data of cultural dimension scores collected in the IBM company among 76 countries. He also extended the national culture framework to include two more dimensions: long vs. short term orientation, and indulgence vs. restraint. Hence, this section is going to introduce the six dimensions of the Finnish culture by combining empirical studies with each aspect of the Finnish culture.

Short Power Distance

Power distance refers to the interactive influence and power between the superior and the subordinate (Hofstede, 1984). The notion of power distance demonstrates how different societies approach the issue of human disparity, which occurs in areas such as material, social position, authority, and power.

There is no such thing as a truly equitable society. Some communities, however, are more equal than others. A longer power distance is associated with more unequal societies, showing that power is dispersed unequally among social sectors. Finland's power distance index was found to be particularly short compared to other participating countries in both the HERMES and GLOBE experiments, indicating a small power distance norm in the Finnish society.

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Interestingly, by analyzing the correlation of power distance with other variables, Hofstede et al. (2010) found that a country’s latitude, wealth, and population would significantly predict its society’s power distance. The latitude of a country strongly influences its technical progress, in that human beings in the colder climates are required more survival skills compared to those from warmer climes. This distinction would result in two distinct social dominance patterns.

Wealth has a negative link with power distance since wealth is usually favorably associated to a country's latitude. The maintenance of small power distance is also connected with the intention to be independent as a small nation, hence small countries tend to have short power distance in the society. Finland is a small Northern European country with of 5.5 million residents. According to OECD (2020), Finland is a wealthy country with the world’s fourth lowest poverty rate. To conclude, all the factors mentioned above constitute small power distance in the Finnish society.

High Uncertainty Avoidance

The passage of time is similar to that of a river. People can't touch the same water twice as it moves forward, just as they can't foretell what the future holds for them.

In a civilization, tremendous unpredictability would produce worry and possibly chaos. As a result, human cultures have devised a variety of strategies for dealing with uncertainty, which more or less disclose a society's underlying collective ideals among its members. The uncertainty avoidance level of Finland is medium to relatively high, suggesting a preference to avoid ambiguity and unfamiliar situations. The Finnish welfare system is advanced and extensive, aimed to provide a generally steady and dignified life for all citizens, including those without a job (Chhokar et al., 2007). The Finnish society is based on laws and regulations, and individuals must adhere to a system of codes and behaviours (Hofstede et al., 2010). Finnish people are motivated to work hard. They tend to stick to the norms and keep themselves busy and punctual in order to avoid future uncertainties.

Hofstede (1984) reported that young democracies (those who were founded the present government after World War I or later) such as Finland tend to show a higher level of uncertainty avoidance than old democracies, in that the former have taken assertive acts, either winning or losing the war and there is a will for

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a stable life. Finland had been ruled by the Swedish crown for nearly 600 years before being transferred to the Russian Empire in 1809. Finland did not proclaim independence and become an independent state until 1917, during World War I.

It is inevitable to infer that under foreign influence, Finnish society and citizens yearned for stability and independence in order to avoid the dangers of foreign rule.

Individualism

The distinction between individualism and collectivism is whether the individual's interests are superior to those of the collectivity (Hofstede et al., 2010).

Individuals in a collectivist society regard the group as the primary source of their identity, and allegiance to the group is perceived as a lifelong purpose; and the collectivist culture is related with the nuclear family structure. Individualists, on the other hand, prioritize themselves and their immediate family; thus the individualist society is linked to extended family structure. Individuals raised in individualistic society are more likely to be self-sufficient and independent.

According to research, a country’s individualism index is negatively correlated with its power distance index, and positively correlated with wealth and geographical latitude (Hofstede, 1984; Hofstede et al., 2010).

Finland, with a high individualism index score, is an individualistic society.

This means that in Finland, individuals interests take precedence above community interests. Individuals are more prone to behave in their own self- interest, with self-actualization as their life aim rather than societal growth. In Finnish schools and educational institutions, individualism is highly prized (Renfors, 2019). The classes are not structured for mandatory attendance and students are free to choose their preferred way of learning. As for the family structure, in Finland, the most common family structure is nuclear family which children and their parents only (InfoFinland, 2021). People growing up from nuclear families tend to express themselves verbally and regard speaking up their mind as a virtue. This also relates to the characteristics of an individualistic society.

Femininity

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Masculinity and femininity in a culture reveal how gender ideals are distributed in society (Hofstede, 2011). Male and female are biologically separate and play distinct functions in human reproduction. Both men and women have diverse roles in social sectors on a societal level, both in traditional and modern times (Hofstede et al., 2010). Women are supposed to be caring and gentle; men, other the other hand, are expected to be assertive, competitive, and tough. However, this contrast is not necessarily absolute, because women can be aggressive in a male society, while men can be loving and tender in a feminine society.

Finland ranks second low in the Global Gender Gap report (World Economic Forum, 2021), which assesses women’s social status. It is one of the Nordic countries that is regarded a feminine society, emphasizing work-family balance, minimal gender differentiation in social and emotional responsibilities, and women's political participation (Hofstede, 2011). In Finland, rather than men and women having separate social roles, both genders are more likely to share society responsibilities equally.

The factor Assertiveness of the GLOBE study sheds information on the Feminist traits of Finnish society. In the GLOBE survey, Finland had a low score on assertiveness, indicating that Finns are mild and non-aggressive in their social interactions.

Short Term Orientation

This dimension was developed using data from the Chinese Value Survey and is closely associated with a country's economic growth (Hofstede, 2011). It refers to a society's values towards the preservation of previous traditions while addressing current and future challenges. Traditional standards such as thrift and perseverance are preferred by societies with a long-term outlook. To prepare for the future, they take more practical steps. Most East Asian countries, influenced by Confucianism's pragmatic norms, are focused on long-term rewards. Societies with a short-term orientation, diversely, promote values that are concerned with the past and now. They are respectful of the traditions and are well-versed in them.

To be more explicit, the dimension of long-term and short-term orientations is found in a society's pursuit of Virtue (Hofstede et al., 2010), which distinguishes

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between Eastern and Western ways of thinking. Western nations think that there is an ultimate Truth that can be found, and that virtue is derived from Truth. This attitude stems from the same roots as Western religions (e.g., Christianity and Judaism). As a result, Western societies have a tendency to value logic and analytical thinking above all else. While Eastern thought emphasizes confrontation and synthesis.

In Finland, the most ubiquitous religion is Christianity. The Lutheran church is joined by roughly 70% of the population (Religions in Finland, 2020). Finland's score in this area is medium but low, reflecting a culture that is focused on the short term. In such cultures, people are more analytical and reasonable. They're worried about social and status obligations, and they' prefer to achieve quick results.

Indulgence

The pursuit of happiness is an eternal theme for human being. Countries also differ in their societies’ perception of happiness. The dimension of indulgence and restraint was thus drawn from the World Values Survey which measured people’s happiness, life control and leisure (Hofstede et al., 2010). It relates to how well people are able to manage or satisfy their natural desires. Indulgence means the weak control and relatively free satisfaction of desires; Restraint suggests a culture where the personal needs are curbed and restricted, due to traditional norms.

Finland is classified into an indulgent culture with a high score in this dimension. Finland has a high score in this area, indicating that it is an indulgent culture. Indulgent culture members are more inclined to engage in sports and leisure activities. They have a more positive outlook on life and place a high value on friendship, freedom of speech, and personal control. The Finnish culture is known for its high degree of happiness. According to the World Happiness Report (United Nations, 2020), Finland ranked first amongst the happiest countries in the world, ranking first among 156 countries. Although happiness is a subjective experience that is difficult to quantify and rate, the Finnish people's good attitude is undoubtedly due to their happiness.

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All the dimensions mentioned above combine to form the unique culture of Finland and Finnish people. In general, Finnish culture is individualist, feminist, indulgent, with high uncertainty avoidance, short-term orientation and small power distance. These features demonstrate a holistic picture of the Finnish culture. They are interrelated with each other and can be explained by various features of the country, such as national wealth, population, history, geographical location, among others.

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4 DATA AND METHODS

4.1 Research questions

Based on the stress and coping framework of acculturation, there are two primary research questions concerning this topic. Research question 1: How do international students in Finland adopt acculturation strategies? This question focuses on the international students’ orientation towards two cultures, as well as their acculturation strategies accordingly, to examine existing acculturation findings. Under this main question there are two sub-questions. The first question is: how acculturation strategy is distributed among international students in Finland? The second question is: how international students' acculturation strategy is related to their demographics?

Research question 2: How do international students in Finland experience acculturative stress? There are also two sub-questions for this question. The first sub-question is: How is international students’ acculturative stress related to their acculturation strategy? This question is designed to test extant finding about acculturative stress. The hypothesis for this question is that the level of stress of the separation and marginalization profiles are significantly higher than that of the integration and assimilation profiles. The second sub-question is: What kind of coping strategies do international students adopt to ameliorate acculturative stress? This question investigates international students’ coping strategies under acculturative stress. The third sub-question is: What is the relation between acculturative stress and coping? Maladaptive coping significantly predicting acculturative stress is hypothesized based on literature.

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4.2 Research design

This research aims for a deepened understanding of international students’

acculturation experience in Finland. As mixed method brings stronger evidence and insights into the phenomenon being studied (Johnson, 2016), the current research employs a parallel-phased mixed method (Ponce, 2015) which integrates quantitative and qualitative approaches simultaneously in the process of research designing, data gathering and data analysis (see TABLE 1). For each research question, each sub-question is weighted on a different perspective of the subject. By utilizing mixed methods, the research delves into how and how much international students orient and adapt themselves in the Finnish culture.

The entire survey consists of the following parts: demography, acculturative stress, acculturation strategy and open-ended question (see Appendix 2:

Complete Survey Questionnaire). Both measurements for acculturation strategy and acculturative stress are carried out with existing instruments. The participants were introduced the basic information of the research; thus, the information letter and introduction were attached to the beginning of the survey. After the participants have given consent to use of their data, they can start doing the survey.

A preliminary pilot study with seven participants from the target sample was conducted. It aimed at validating the instrument and review the survey questions.

According to the input from the pilot survey, the instruments and expressions were modified to be more understandable.

TABLE 1．A complementary research design using parallel phases

Research questions Data Analysis method

1. How do international students in Finland adopt acculturation strategies?

1.1 What is the most adopted strategy among international students

in Finland? Quantitative

data

Chi-square Analysis of variance 1.2 What demographic variables are correlated with international

students’ acculturation strategy?

2. How do international students in Finland experience acculturative stress and take coping strategies?

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2.1 How is international students’ acculturative stress related to their acculturation profile?

Quantitative data

Analysis of variance Hypothesis 1: The level of stress of the separation and

marginalization profiles are significantly higher than that of the integration and assimilation profiles.

2.2 What kind of coping strategies do international students adopt to alleviate acculturative stress?

Qualitative data

Deductive content analysis 2.3 What is the relation between acculturative stress and

maladaptive coping?

Triangulation Hypothesis 2: Maladaptive coping strategy significantly predicts

international students’ acculturative stress.

4.2.1 Instruments

Measurement of acculturation strategy

According to the bi-dimensional model, acculturation strategy can be classified into four modes. Two measurement methods were generated in this respect, the two-statement measurement, and the four-statement measurement (Arends-Toth & van de Vijver, 2006). Two separate scales are used in the two- statement measurement method: one for orientation towards the host culture, and the other for appreciation of the original culture. The two-statement measuring approach is preferable since it provides an efficient and thorough tool for exhibiting an individual's acculturation strategy. Studies which employed two- statement measurement methods assessed international students’ orientation to host culture and their original culture and gained fruitful findings in their cultural orientation and academic achievement (Wang & Mallinckrodt, 2006; Ma & Wang, 2015; Shafaei et al., 2016). Each of Berry's (1970) acculturation strategies is assessed separately in the four-statement measurement method. For example, Berry et al. (1989) provided the Acculturation strategy Statements (a questionnaire) which described in detail the design, validation, and conduction of the measurement of acculturation strategies specific to the cultural characteristics for immigrants. The process of this questionnaire involves the design of a primary item pool, the choice of sampling of the items, the forming of expressions positively and negatively. Finally, the questionnaire resulted in 80 items which measure four orientation of acculturation strategies. The Acculturation strategy

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Statements proved to be accountable and valid. However, it was criticized by other scholars for its ambiguity, language use and culture applicability (Ward &

Kennedy, 1994). Thus, it is important to seek for a measurement method which best fits the target group and cover the necessary information in a concise way.

For the present study, acculturation strategy was measured by Acculturation Index (AI; Ward & Kennedy, 1994), which facilitates the investigation of both two orientations and four modes of acculturation strategies when combined with a median split technique. The measurement contains twenty-one items such as clothing, food, pace of life, religious beliefs, recreational activities, assessing individuals’ orientation towards their home culture and the Finnish culture with a two-statement measuring method. After receiving the feedback from friends who assisted in finishing a pilot survey, the researcher deleted five items (general knowledge, family life, employment activities, perceptions of co-nationals and host nationals) from the original survey in order to shorten the list and get rid of items that international students were unfamiliar with. Respondents were first asked to consider how their experiences/behaviours in several fields are similar to their own culture, then consider how their experiences/ behaviours of those items similar to those of people from Finland. In this way, the participants rate their similarity with both their home countries and Finland on a 7-Likert-scale from

“not at all similar” to “extremely similar”.

Measurement of acculturative stress

International students’ acculturative stress was approached by Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students (Sandhu & Asrabadi, 1994). This scale contains thirty-six questions of six categories. It was constructed to measure international students’ cultural stress in the United States. The value of Cronbach alpha was high in previous studies, ranging from 0.87 to 0.95 (Sullivan &

Kashubeck-West, 2015; Sandhu & Asrabadi, 1994).

At the beginning of this part, the participants were requested to select the point of scale that best applies to their experiences in Finland. One question “I feel nervous to communicate in Finnish” was added to the miscellaneous items.

Finland boasts the most English-language higher education programs in Europe (Wächter & Maiworm 2008), and most international students study in the English programs and have relatively high proficiency in the English language.

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Open-ended question

An open-ended question was subsequently placed in the survey: Facing cultural differences and challenges, how do you adjust your life and studies in Finland?

The respondents were able to fill in either sentences or bullet points to simplify their answers. There was no length limit to the open-ended question, so the respondents were able to leave their answers freely.

A time bar was added to the top of the survey for the participants awareness of their progress. All the questions were set as “force to answer” to avoid any omissions. Each section was displayed at a separate page for the visual purpose.

After completing all the questions, the respondents were free to leave comments for further discussion.

4.2.2 Participants

The target sample of the present research were international degree (Associate degree, Bachelor, Master, PHD) students who were enrolled in Finnish Universities and are living in Finland. Altogether 294 answers were collected and screened; with 159 retained after empty answers were deleted. Of the 159 remaining participants, 55 (34.6%) were male, 103 (64.8%) were female and 1 (0.6%) belonged to the “other” group. The participants came from 49 different countries, with 72 (45.3%) from Asia, 54 (34%) from Europe, 13 (8.2%) from North America, 9 (5.7%) from South America, 2 (1.3%) from Antarctica and 6 (3.8%) from Africa. The participants’ age was calculated by the time their answers had been recorded. The mean age was 28.5 (SD = 6.58, range= 18 - 55) years old. The sample included 1 (0.6%) Associate degree student, 41 (25.8%) Bachelor’s students, 85 (53.5%) Master’s students, and 32 (20.1%) PHD students.

The participants’ background information was collected in the “demography” part, including the participants’ basic information. They were required to fill in their age, gender, major, level of education, country of origin, total length of residence in Finland, as well as Finnish and English language proficiencies.

Level of education

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In the survey, the respondents are required to choose their level of education from four items: associate degree, Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and Doctor of Philosophy (PHD). Since the current research only includes international degree students as the target sample, answers in the “others” option which do not justify them as degree students will be deleted.

Ethnicity

Participants are required to indicate their ethnic identity by choosing one of the following items: white, Hispanic (Latino, or Spanish), black/African American, Asian, other or mixed ethnicities.

Total length of stay in Finland

This variable was constructed, consisting of 6 categories: less than 6 months, 6 months-1year, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4 years, and more than 4 years.

Language proficiency

The participants’ subjective assessments for their proficiencies in both Finnish and English were measured with six Likert-scales, from the lowest “no proficiency” to the highest “native/bilingual proficiency”. Higher scores in this scale indicate a relatively higher level of language proficiency.

4.3 Data collection

Data was gathered by the researcher in the form of Qualtrics-XM Web survey that collected both qualitative and quantitative replies. The Web surveys are methodologically advantageous due to its low cost, high efficiency and data collection accessibility compared with other traditional methods of data gathering (Mick & Peter, 2008). Due the situation of corona virus, the participants were approached only through social media channels from the internet either individually or within student communities. Before distribution of the official survey, the researcher did a pilot survey and revised the survey based on the feedback from friends who met the sampling criteria.

After receiving the approval of the supervisor, the researcher distributed the survey by sending e-mails and text messages to friends and schoolmates that

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are suitable for the survey, as well as posting to social media including Facebook groups of student communities in Finland, Tampere University Student Union (TREY) newsletter and Tampere University Intranet (Intranews). The Facebook groups include Finnish universities’ international student groups (International Students of Tampere, ESN FINT Finland, International Students in Finland, Tampere Student Jobs) and international communities in Finland (International Friends in Tampere, British People Living in Finland, Aussies in Finland, Tampere Foreigners, Foreigners in Jyväskylä, Chinese Alliance in Finland, Scots in Finland, Pakistani Students in Finland, Foreigners in Helsinki, Foreigners in Turku, Indians in Vaasa, Pakistani Community in Finland, Finland IESAF). The Intranet is a digital network which enables peer-to-peer communication and links digital devices such as computers and phones together within a community (Howley, 2011). In schools and universities, the intranet creates opportunities for the broadcast of programs and information produced by students (Howley, 2011), which would be an appropriate channel for the distribution of this survey.

Date collection included completion of the questionnaire. All of the participants were informed of their voluntariness and privacy protection policy. A brief introduction to the research was also included in an accompanying information letter. The data collection process began in November 2020 and ended in February 2021.

4.4 Data analysis

To answer research question 1.1, quantitative data was processed with the technique of median split. Research question 1.2 was addressed using chi- square analyses of independence and one-way between-groups ANOVA tests.

To answer research question 2.1, a one-way between-groups analysis of variance was performed to examine the relation between international students’

acculturation orientation and acculturative stress. For research question 2.2, deductive content analysis was conducted. Finally, triangulation was performed by merging quantitative data and qualitative data for research question 2.3.

Quantitative data

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IBM SPSS Statistics Version 27 was utilized to analyse the quantitative data.

After all the data had been transferred to SPSS, answers that were incomplete or didn’t meet the requirements of the target sample were preliminarily deleted.

All the variables were examined by skewness and kurtosis; and proved to be normally distributed. To test the internal consistency reliability of the multiple-item variables, each measurement scale’s internal consistency was measured by Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. Internal consistency reliability refers to the extent to which constructs are homogeneous and free from measurement error (Muijs, 2011). The measure of Cronbach’s alpha would be expected to be over 0.7 for an internally consistent test (Muijs, 2011). In the previous study (Wang &

Mallinckrodt, 2006; Ward & Kennedy, 1994; Ward & Rena-Deuba, 1999), the internal consistency ranged from .91 to .95 (home culture) and from .89 to .97 (host culture). The internal consistency of the ASSIS in previous research (Sandhu & Asrabadi, 1994; Sullivan & Kashubeck-West, 2015) ranged from 0.87 to 0.95. In the present study, the results proved a high reliability: Acculturation Orientation (home culture identification, .94, and host culture identification, .95), Acculturative Stress (.94) (see TABLE 2). The Cronbach’s alpha of the constructs of shock and stress due to cultural change / shock were slightly less than 0.7.

This would be due to the limited number of items in these two constructs.

TABLE 2．Reliabilities of the scales

Source Scale No. of items Cronbach’s Alpha

AI; Ward and Kennedy (1994)

Acculturation strategies

Home culture orientation 16 .93

Finnish culture orientation 16 .95

ASSIS; Sandhu and Asrabadi (1994)

Acculturative stress

Homesickness 4 .79

Fear 4 .78

Guilt 2 .69

Perceived discrimination 8 .89

Perceived hate 5 .89

Stress due to change/cultural shock 3 .67

Miscellaneous 11 .84

International Students’ Acculturation in Finland: Strategy, Stress, and Coping

Heng Wu