JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Recently, various universities, around the world including Malaysia have attracted many international students from different countries. Research has reported that acculturative stress resulting from international students’ attempts to adjust to the cultures of host countries is one of the most challenging issues that affects their life in general and academic life in particular. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the effectiveness of educational intervention on acculturative stress among new postgraduate international students joining Malaysian public universities.

Objective:

The current study aims to examine the effectiveness of an educational intervention on acculturative stress among new postgraduate international students joining Malaysian public universities.

Methods:

A cluster randomized controlled trial design with Malaysian public universities as the unit of randomization Will be used in this study. Public universities will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to be either as the intervention (educational program) or as the control group (waiting list). Participants in the intervention group received 7 sessions in 9 hours delivered by an expert in psychology and the researcher. On the other hand, the control group will receive the intervention once the 3-month follow-up evaluation was completed.

Results:

The data will be analyzed using Generalized Estimation equations (GEE) with a confidence interval value of 95 % and the significant differences between and within the groups were also determined through the P value < 0,05. The results of the study underlie the effectiveness of educational program in decreasing acculturative stress of new international students and enabling them to cope with a new environment. The results of this study will contribute to previous knowledge of acculturative stress, acculturation and adjustment of international students. Furthermore, such results are expected to play a role in raising university policy makers’ awareness of their postgraduate international students’ acculturative stress issues and how they can help them to avoid such stress and perform well in their academic life.

Conclusions:

We expect that the intervention group will score significantly lower than the wait-list group on the immediate and three-month post-intervention evaluation of acculturative stress and will achieve a higher level of adjustment. Results will have implications for international students, policy makers at universities and the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education and future research. Clinical Trial: The trial was registered with the Clinical Trials Registry India (CTRI) on 10/01/2018: (registration number CTRI /2018/01/011223).