a growing experience - Student Services - University of Melbourne

HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTSThese variables do differentiate among students’ perceptions of well-being in manydifferent domains 376 . Some variables are more powerful and pervasive in theircapacity to differentiate than others.TIME IN AUSTRALIAIt is generally thought that the longer international students spend in the host country,the greater their adaptation and the lower their level of cultural stress (Adler, 1975;Church, 1982), although Ward and her colleagues (Ward, Okura, Kennedy & Kojima,1998; Ward & Kennedy, 1999; Ward & Rana-Dueba, 1999) argue that whilesociocultural adjustment relates to length of stay, psychological adjustment does not.Three measures have some input to measuring length of stay: years of enrolment atthe university, years of secondary schooling in Australia and completion of aFoundation Studies Program.The number of years of enrolment in the sample ranges from 1 to 9, with 82.6 per centhaving been enrolled between 1 and 3 years and 99.2 per cent between 1 and 6 years.If time in Australia is associated with adaptation and level of cultural stress, it wouldbe expected that the longer students had been enrolled, the lower their score on theCultural Stress scale. In fact there is not a significant relationship between years ofenrolment and cultural stress level. Some significant relationships between years ofenrolment and well-being in domains of life were found: a stronger sense of generalconnectedness in Melbourne (though not for social mixing or membership oforganisations), greater satisfaction with living arrangements and financial support,greater involvement in unpaid work, more sexual partners, a higher level of abuse anddistress, and higher use of alcohol.Some of these might be seen as evidence of sociocultural adaptation (for example,stronger sense of connectedness, greater satisfaction with accommodation andfinance), but others seem more likely to be due to the effluxion of time (for example,number of sexual partners, more experiences of abuse). In any case, the percentagevariance in all of these variables associated with years of enrolment is very small,ranging from 0.5 per cent (connectedness) to 3.2 per cent (abuse and distress). Theyears of enrolment variable does not provide a great deal of useful information aboutstudents’ adaptation and well-being across the domains that were investigated.Two sub-groups of students spent time in Australia prior to enrolment in theuniversity. Some 243 students spent from one to three or more years of theirsecondary schooling here, while 315 had undertaken a Foundation Studies program,aimed at preparing them academically and culturally for university study. Experience376 The following are the domains that were explored:• Relating to others in Australian society: connectedness, social mixing, organizations, culturalstress, stress from home;• Living and studying in Melbourne: living arrangements, finances, paid work, unpaid work,lifestyle balance (study, social life and nutrition), abuse and distress;• Health and health-related behaviour: physical health and its interference with study, depression,anxiety, stress, self-esteem, sexual partners, use of condoms, relationships, use of drugs, use ofalcohol, gambling and smoking, self-harm;• Use of university health and counseling services.Rosenthal, Russell & Thomson, 2006 119