A Phenomenological Study of the Intercultural Experiences of Indonesian International Mobility Students

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to investigate the intercultural experiences of the Indonesian students while at tending a student exchange program in Thailand. Informed by Gu, Schweisfurth, and Day’s Four-dimension Change (2010), and Zhai’s Adjustment Issues and Social Support, the transcript of the semi-structured in-depth interviews from five international Indonesian students were iteratively examined for the nature and conditions that may have influenced the students’ intercultural experiences, the challenges they met during their stay in the host university, and the strategies they used to cope with these challenges. The findings revealed that the international Indonesian students’ experiences in their host universities and in Thailand were mostly influenced by (1) positive information (N=38; 51.35%), and (2) positive emotion (N=16; 21.62%) with a substantial inter-rater agreement (kappa=0.837). Throughout their stay in their host university and in Thailand, the participants encountered three main challenges; cultural differences (N=36; 62.07%), language (N=9; 15.52%), and pre-departure preparations (N=8; 13.79%) and disclosed that experiences related to education (N=4; 6.90%) and environment or weather (N=1; 1.72%) were less challenging with substantial inter-rater agreement (kappa=0.789). As coping strategies to the challenges, the participants mainly opted to (1) stay quiet/away (N=26; 36.62%), consult fellow international students (N=20; 28.17%), contact their friends and families at home (N=11; 15.49%), and use communication strategies such employing verbal and non-verbal communication, and initiating dialogs (N=8; 11.27%), while consulting teachers and/or assigned advisers (N=6; 8.45%) was the least used coping strategy. While limited in terms of data, the findings point to the indispensability of conducting pre-departure orientations by the home university that includes cultural know-how, institutional policies and regulations, and coping strategies in case participants meet challenges.