CULTURAL ADAPTATION, SOCIAL INTEGRATION AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, international student pursuing higher education has grown rapidly. However, while pursuing higher education these students often confronted with certain challenges in adaptation of host country culture, which may affect their academic performance. Grounded on acculturation theory, this study aims to investigate culture adaptation and its role in academic performance through social integration in higher education institutions (HEI). The data has been collected from a sample of 480 international students studying HEI across United Kingdom using convenience and snowball sampling. Multiple regression using Hayes process macro is applied on hypothesize model. The results revealed that students with high degree of culture adaptation significantly outperform in their academic endeavor. Further, findings show that social integration act as mediating mechanism in transforming culture adaptation to greater academic performance. The findings provide valuable insights for educators and higher education institution to foster social and academic integration for improving culture adoptability and academic performance of international students.