Al-Jaberi Musheer Abdulwahid, Juni Muhamad Hanafiah, Kadir Shahar Hayati, Ismail Siti Irma Fadhilah, Saeed Murad Abdu, Ying Lim Poh
Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
JMIR Res Protoc. 2020 Feb 27;9(2):e12950. doi: 10.2196/12950.
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 lives in general and academic lives in particular.
This study aims to examine the effectiveness of an educational intervention on acculturative stress among new postgraduate international students joining Malaysian public universities.
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 in the intervention (educational program) or control group (waiting list). Participants in the intervention group will receive 7 sessions in 9 hours delivered by an expert in psychology and the researcher. The control group will receive the intervention once the 3-month follow-up evaluation is completed.
The data will be analyzed using the generalized estimation equation with a confidence interval value of 95%; significant differences between and within groups are determined as P<.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 avoid such stress and perform well in their academic life.
We expect that the intervention group will score significantly lower than the wait-list group on the immediate and 3-month postintervention evaluation of acculturative stress and achieve a higher level of adjustment. Results will have implications for international students, policy makers at universities, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, and future research.
Clinical Trials Registry India CTRI/2018/01/011223; http://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/showallp.php?mid1= 21978&EncHid=&userName=Muhamad%20Hanafiah%20Juni.
INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/12950.
包括马来西亚在内的世界各地的大学吸引了许多来自不同国家的国际学生。研究报告称，国际学生试图适应东道国文化所产生的文化适应压力是影响他们总体生活尤其是学术生活的最具挑战性的问题之一。
本研究旨在探讨一项教育干预措施对新入学的马来西亚公立大学研究生国际学生文化适应压力的有效性。
本研究将采用以马来西亚公立大学为随机单位的整群随机对照试验设计。公立大学将按1:1的比例随机分为干预组（教育项目组）或对照组（等待名单组）。干预组的参与者将接受由一位心理学专家和研究人员提供的9小时共7节课程。对照组将在3个月的随访评估完成后接受干预。
数据将使用广义估计方程进行分析，置信区间值为95%；组间和组内的显著差异确定为P<0.05。该研究结果表明教育项目在降低新入学国际学生的文化适应压力并使他们能够应对新环境方面是有效的。本研究结果将为之前关于国际学生文化适应压力、文化适应和调整的知识做出贡献。此外，预计这些结果将有助于提高大学政策制定者对其研究生国际学生文化适应压力问题的认识，以及他们如何帮助学生避免此类压力并在学术生活中表现出色。
我们预计干预组在文化适应压力的即时和干预后3个月评估中得分将显著低于等待名单组，并实现更高水平的调整。研究结果将对国际学生、大学政策制定者、马来西亚高等教育部以及未来的研究产生影响。
印度临床试验注册中心CTRI/2018/01/011223；http://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/showallp.php?mid1= 21978&EncHid=&userName=Muhamad%20Hanafiah%20Juni。
国际注册报告识别码（IRRID）：PRR1-10.2196/12950。
