International Students in the US and Factors Influencing Friendship - Research Proposal Example

INTERNATIONL STUDENTS IN US AND FACTORS INFLUENCING FRIENDSHIP Course Instructor Institutional Students’ name Affiliations Date ABSTRACT Education tends to make students explore the globe and discover new friends. As such students acquire some status in the society when they study abroad hence they will like to associate themselves with friends of their class abroad. This research is meant to the parameters that influence the relationships and friendship of foreign students who are in the US and make comparisons on how they relate to their home country friends. Therefore the objectives will be to find out factors influencing such friendships and what are the outcomes of these. Also, this will allow us to establish the number of friends international students have within the US and compare with overseas and home country. The method of data collection in this research paper will include an interview of the foreign students, document analysis and observation of how they relate to their friends. After which the findings will be evaluated and effective recommendations will be made to either prove or discard the hypothesis behind my topic of study. Contents International Students in The US and Friendship 3 1.0 Introduction 3 1.1 Aims 3 1.2 Background 3 1.3 Keywords 4 2.0 Literature Review 4 2.1Research Questions 7 3.0 Methodology 7 3.1 Research Design 7 3.2 Data 7 3.3 Collection of Data 8 3.4 Sample 8 3.5 Data Analysis 8 4.0 Limitations 8 5.0 Feasibility 9 5.1 Ethical Consideration 9 6.0 Significance 9 7.0 References 10 8.0 Appendix 12 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 12 APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE FOR TEACHERS 13 International Students in The US and Friendship 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Aims Alongside studies, international students also have a social aspect. These includes socialising and making friends. Here they will meet different people with diversified cultural, political, economic, and social backgrounds. This research proposal is meant to critically ascertain; i. The number of friends international students have compared to their home- country friends. ii. To establish the extent of the relationship between the overseas friends and home-country friends. iii. To establish the gender which foreign students are mostly likely interested in when choosing friends. iv. To identify some of the factors influencing the choice of friends by international students. v. To make a critical comparison with home country friends. 1.2 Background The United States until today since the mid-1990s has been preferred by a lot of students from the various nation for study. Key considerations for the students who want to pursue education abroad are driven by the quality of the education offered, the hospitality of that country and proper transition in the labour market at the end of their study. Apart from those key factors, students from few countries may also consider the prestige they will learn when studying in the US and the level they want to occupy in the hierarchy of social stratification. Most of the international students don’t have friends from the US. However, most of these students studying in the US make friendship with their colleagues from other countries holding the notion that birds of the same feathers flock together. As the students go overseas they tend to forget their home-country friends simply because they got new friends of their calibre and associating with their home friends may be seen as low status. On the other hand, the number of American friends foreign students have is very small and can be attributed to a number of factors including cultural backgrounds and may be language. 1.3 Keywords Friends- someone close to you but he/ she may not be your relative or lover but you benefit mutually from each other US-United States Friendship- the conditions of being friends Data- research information 2.0 Literature Review The higher education system of the United States is flocked with international students. According to a survey study done in 2011-2012, it showed a percentage increase of 6.5% compared to other last years. The study revealed that a percentage of 56 came from Saudi Arabia, China, Canada, South Korea and India. The study shows that 40% of the students who report in American campuses lack friends who are Americans (Garcia et al., 2016). The ideology of selecting international students to American campuses is to allow interaction between America and other countries and in such doing they will establish multinational roots and personal connections with many nations. These are compromised with recent students who join America for studies they realise that they don’t have American friends. According to the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, there is a variation of friendship depending on places of origins of these students and also the parts they are studying in the US (Geary, 2016). These shows that foreign students who are studying in South America have more American Friends compared to their colleagues in other regions of the United States. This makes the southern students enjoy a certain level of satisfaction. They were followed by those from the northern region of America who was of the jurisdiction of the metropolitan places. New York City registered the lowest number of friends in this category. The level of friendship among international students was predetermined by the ability to communicate effectively and understand each other. English being a universal language in the United States gave the students from English speaking countries the right to dominate the communication factor and make more American friends. These worked to the disadvantage of non-English speaking countries, for instance, East Asian students. The problem of limited language proficiency was equated to a lack of friends in America but as for the students from English Speaking Countries, they cited a problem of superficiality that is they didn’t show the interest in knowing other cultures. The pioneer of these study was Elisabeth, 2017 who said that this phenomenon will not only affect the students’ socially but will have an impact on their overall achievement of their academic excellence. She categorically stated that the success and prosperity of international students in their academic field squarely lie on the shoulders of the American students who are their host. Moreover, the contact between the international students and the host students will enhance better integration and adaptability of a new culture. According to The Chinese are Coming paper, the anxiety of students who come to study in America tentatively expect a smooth running environment that is stress-free and there they will enjoy their entire academic life in the US (Liu, 2016). Their notion is compromised when they meet a couple of obstacles. The first challenge is writing in and studying in a language that is foreign poses a problem of understanding American teachers and creating rapport with their colleagues. The other issue is about the midterm exams by which the Chinese thought that is over in high school again they meet it in America’s education system A good number of international students experience a difficulty of cultural adjustment in the United States. A case study can be drawn from Saudi Arabia whereby they have a totally different attitude towards women, they seem to seclude women in what they do and they believe that women have no role to play in the enhancing the well-being of a man. So when they reach the US where we have female tutors and lecturers who issue instructions to this Arab men makes them dump their held assumptions. Not all International Students are the Same report by World Education Services states that students originate from different social and economic backgrounds (Heck & Mu, 2016). Taking an example of Chinese and Indians, the Chinese mostly are of middle-class levels and above unlike Indians who are low-class levels. They have different intelligence quotients. Most of these students came to the US to pursue and undergraduate courses whereby they come confined in their teenage culture. For instance, a student from a royal family may not be willing to share a room with another friend he/she may want to feel a sense of pride. A greater percentage of foreign students fail to beat the adjustment and prefer to remain rigid to their culture. So to that matter, they just decide to sit together and cannot mingle with American students’ reason being that they speak things they don’t understand (Gareis, 2017). 2.1 Research Questions i. Why do international students have fewer American friends? ii. What is a relationship between overseas friends and home-country friends? iii. What gender are international students interested in making friends? iv. What are some of the factors that influence the choice of friendships? 3.0 Methodology This chapter gives detailed information on the type of research design used in conducting the study it also gives the study area, target population, sampling design, data collection and data analysis procedure that the researcher used in the course of conducting the study. 3.1 Research Design In this study, descriptive design was used. Its main purpose is a description as it exists in present. It may also help in identifying the friendship ties of America and other foreign students and come with a strategy of enhancing the adaptability of American culture by other foreign students. These design categorically analyses people or tabulated information and assist the researcher in explaining friendship patterns such as the number of friends foreign students have in America compared to the number of friends at home-country and goes ahead to explain why. 3.2 Data These are characters of common characteristics by which the researcher will want to use in order to generalise information (Neuman, 2016). The data here is the population of students who have joined the various campuses in the United States and are from foreign countries. Since students are the most affected the researcher believes that they have relevant information of interest. 3.3 Collection of Data First hand data was collected through organized questionnaire and interview schedules. Structured questionnaires were presented to students and thereby the teachers in the campuses were interviewed. Secondary data was obtained from the literatures written by professor Elisabeth Gareis who is an associate professor of communication Studies in New York. It was to provide mre information on the effects these drop of American friendship has affected general performance of the foreign students 3.4 Sample The simple random sampling method was used to select the students to be given questionnaires. This method involves identified a character and putting them together then you pick randomly (Joharapurkar et al., 2016). A sample of this study was obtained from 20 students. 10& of the sample is usually good according to statistics. 3.5 Data Analysis Information was analysed using SPSS (statistical package for social sciences) and Microsoft excel. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse and describe data to enable meaningful distribution of measurements. Moreover, the information obtained here was mostly in figure form and descriptive approach here will help analyze the attitude of American students towards the research problem. 4.0 Limitations During the use of questionnaires, some respondents may not be willing to give accurate information. The problem of transport expenditure travelling to various campuses in the United States to acquire information Unstructured interview such as abrupt interviews that were not planned for may make the researcher forget some information that he/she wanted to ask However, the limitation can be minimised through proper prior preparation by the researcher such us strict follow-up interview schedules, assure confidentiality of the information given by the respondents to make them cooperate during filling in questionnaires and finally to make a requisition of grants from the management to finance students on research. 5.0 Feasibility The research was possible because of the availability resources such as books and internet enabled computers for intensive research. This was reinforced by the research skills that was learnt in class and consultation of experts before proceeding to the field. 5.1 Ethical Consideration The information provided in the entire paper is original and very objective. Secondary sources consulted here their authors have been acknowledged. And the data was derived from the field and no information has been cooked. Sensitive information provided by the the respondents have been treated with the highest confidentiality it deserves. Finally, this is paper has never been presented anywhere for examination it is original work. 6.0 Significance The research was meant to help international students to acquire more American friends whereby they will undergo effective induction on how to adopt a new culture and learn English (Forbush & Foucault-Welles B 2016). It will also establish a conducive atmosphere for interaction between overseas students and home-county students It will encourage international marriages among students and come up with effective strategies to strengthen it The research will discard the deeply held assumptions by international students in choosing friends hence instil them rationality. 7.0 References Brouwer, J., Jansen, E., Flache, A., & Hofman, A. (2016). The impact of social capital on self-efficacy and study success among first-year university students. Learning and Individual Differences, 52, 109-118. Forbush, E., & Foucault-Welles, B. (2016). Social media use and adaptation among Chinese students beginning to study in the United States. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 50, 1-12. Garcia, A., Bucher-Maluschke, J. S. N. F., Pérez-Angarita, D. M., & Pereira, F. N. (2016). Friendship in Latin American Social Comparative Studies. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, 10(1), 1-12. Gareis, E. (2017). 21 Intercultural friendship and communication. Intercultural Communication, 9, 457. Geary, D. (2016). How do we get people to interact? International students and the American experience. Journal of International Students, 6(2), 527. Heck, R. H., & Mu, X. I. (2016). Economics of globalization in higher education: Current issues in recruiting and serving international students. In Educational leaders without borders (pp. 143-165). Springer International Publishing. Jamaludin, N. L., Sam, D. L., Sandal, G. M., & Adam, A. A. (2016). The influence of perceived discrimination, orientation to mainstream culture and life satisfaction on destination loyalty intentions: the case of international students. Current Issues in Tourism, 1-16. Joharapurkar, A. R., Chan, P., Allen, D. L., & Viswanathan, N. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,391,607. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Kashima, E. S., & Sadewo, G. R. P. (2016). need for cognitiVe closure and acculturation of international students. Multi-dimensional Transitions of International Students to Higher Education, 37. Li, J. (2016). A Cultural Hybridization Perspective: Emerging Academic Subculture among International Students from East Asia in US. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 4(9), 2218-2228. Liu, C. L. (2016). Global friendship in the US higher education environment: The cross-cultural friendship opportunities with the growing number of Chinese international students (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania). Neuman, W. L. (2016). Understanding research. Pearson. Robson, C., & McCartan, K. (2016). Real world research. John Wiley & Sons. Wickham, H. (2016). ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. Springer. Wildemuth, B. M. (Ed.). (2016). Applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science. ABC-CLIO. 8.0 Appendix APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS Questionnaire Number………. Am a student conducting research on international students in the US and friendship in comparison with home Country and factors influencing such. The questionnaire is for the purposes of collecting academic data and any information given will be treated with the highest confidentiality it deserves. 1. Which country do you come from? 2. Do you have American friends? If yes how do you interact with them? 3. How do you find American culture and system of education? 4. Do you think something must be done to strengthen friendship ties for international students with America? 5. Is it possible to change the status quo of international students friendship in America? APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE FOR TEACHERS Am a student conducting research on foreign students in America and friendship? These research is meant for academic purposes and any information given will be treated with the highest level of confidentiality it deserves 1. How long have you worked in this institution? 2. How do you usually help foreign students to adapt American culture? 3. Have you ever noticed any kind of seclusion between American and foreign students? If yes what was the cause and what step did you take? 4. What are some of the mechanisms put in place to integrate foreign students with new culture? 5. Have you ever conducted a similar research in this institution? If yes what was your findings? Thank you. Read More