ANTICIPATORY COMPETENCE AND COPING STRATEGIES OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS REGARDING THEIR CULTURAL AFFILIATION

СМАЛЬТА. 2021. No. 3. P. 99–114.

Fedotova V.

International students in Russia use various behavioural, emotional and cognitive strategies to cope with stress. Prevailing coping strategies help the students adapt to the unfamiliar learning environment. Our research shows the peculiarities of coping strategies, reveals the differences in socio-cultural adaptation scales, and investigates the difference of anticipatory competence among students from China and students representing the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The respondents who took part in this research are students from the CIS countries and from China studying in Russian institutions of higher education. We found that students from the CIS countries, representatives of low-context, polychromous and reactive culture, have the indirect coping strategy and the passive coping strategy (cautious model of behaviour) as their dominating strategies. Chinese students, whose culture may be characterised as high context, reactive with prevailing collectivism and femininity have shown the domination of pro-social behavioural strategy that is based on seeking social support. The scales of socio-cultural adaptation show differences in the students’ academic adaptation and command of the Russian language. Representatives of high-context and reactive cultures (Chinese students) find it most difficult to adapt to the peculiarities of the learning process, to the requirements set by the higher education system and to the need to communicate in the native language of the hosting country. Personal and situational anticipatory competence is more typical for students from the CIS countries, and temporal anticipatory competence is stronger among Chinese students.

Keywords: coping strategies