Life of Saudi students living in Australia

ABSTRACT

Australian society is a multi cultural society (Research Services, n.d.) hence it has a diverse society. This papers aims to describe life of Saudi students living in Australia. The study revolves around three research hypothesis. The research paper is based on both secondary and primary information. For primary data collection and to be sure about the true relationship a questionnaire was filled by a sample of 30 people, from the target market. As mentioned sample size was 30 and hence a total of 30 Saudi participants completed the questionnaire. Type of research was hypothesis testing, as the study was intended to explain nature of relationship. Type of investigation was causal study. Then analytical software SPSS was used for conducting analysis. The study concludes that those who believe more in their own customs will face more difficulty in adjusting to another customs. There is no relationship between friendliness in Australian society with missing of social life in Saudi Arabia. Lastly more friends one has from different backgrounds less likely it is that they will miss their friends in Australia. 

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INTRODUCTION

Literature review

Australian society is a multi cultural society (Research Services, n.d.) hence it has a diverse society. Just about all International students go by way of a turbulent period while adjusting alive in new surroundings (UC, nd). During this time you could go through an array of emotions, from fascination and also excitement, to loneliness and also frustration. Leaving all that is familiar is likely to culture and trying to adapt to a new cultural, social and academic environment is usually a challenging experience. However, research indicates that those who find themselves more flexible, adaptable, with a high level of tolerance and good sociable skills are better when controlling these challenges (UC, nd). Most important challenges of surviving in a new country are mentioned below in the figure 1.

Figure 1 Challenges of surviving in a new country

Akinsulure-Smitha, Dachosb & Jones (2013) discussed challenges that people face in new countries when they leave their own country. Various phases are undergone in this phase. There are various phases of adjusting in a new country.  Your ability to adapt culturally leads to a more successful academic, social, and personal life. However, settling-in and adjusting to a new environment takes time for everyone. Although there is not a time frame for how long cultural adjustment may take, there are three main stages that everyone goes through.

Figure 2 Three phases in adjustment

The first stage is of extreme happiness, fascination and excitement. You are independent as you have control over your life. You are very positive about being in a new cultural environment and confident in yourself.

Second stage is the time when you begin to interact with the culture. Coming across unusual and unpredictable behaviors of people, you begin to question or even dislike the culture. You may feel frustrated with the unknown and disappointed with your new environment and yourself. You may also feel confused and anxious about who you are and how you behave. You may feel lonely, homesick and question your decision about coming to study in Australia. All these feelings and symptoms are a result of culture shock.

In third stage you begin to know people and the culture better. You start making more sense of the culture and feel more comfortable in living in your new environment. This is also a stage when you notice that right and wrong are subjective to different cultures. In time you adopt certain behaviors and may even prefer certain aspects of the new culture to your home culture.

There are different symptoms of cultural shock (Macionis & Linda, 2010).   As mentioned by the past literature on the topic, it includes social withdrawal, loss of identity and importance, cultural isolation, lack of motivation, panic, and frustration with the unfamiliar, lack of motivation and most importantly loss of identity and importance (Pedersen, 1995), (Barna, 2009), (Oberg, 2009), (Mavrides, 2009) and (Martin, 2009).

Some of the factors that can help in adjusting to new norms include learning about Australian social norms and customs. A lot more you know the easier it will likely be to understand the way people behave and their particular expectations (Huff, 2009), (Christofi & Charles, 2009) and (Shock, nd).

Just don’t idealize home, nor criticize everything in the new culture.  Be prepared for the ups and downs of the adjustment period and keep in mind that it is a process every student goes through.  Be proactive and initiate conversations with people. Be flexible and adaptable – Remember that there is not necessarily only one way of doing things.  Eat a well balanced diet, exercise regularly and get enough sleep. Remember that too much alcohol consumption can contribute to depression and too much caffeine can increase your level of anxiety.  Join social clubs, participate in social activities and events in and off campus, try to meet different people from different cultures and share your culture and life with others.  Keep in touch with fellow students from your own culture. It is often very comforting to be able to talk in your mother tongue.  Share your feelings with friends who are exactly in the same position.  Watch signs of culture shock which may lead to depression, and immediately seek help from a counselor.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Research Hypotheses

After doing the primary research from secondary sources, research questions were made for the current study. These questions are the major focus of this study from which hypotheses are deduced. Following are the research questions around which this study revolves. There are three hypotheses in this study.

H10: There is no relationship between how conservativeness of people about their own customs and the difficulty that they face with other customs.

H1a: People who are more conservative about their own customs will have greater difficulties with other customs.

H2: There is no relationship between making friends in Australian and missing social life in Saudi Arabia.

H2a: The easier it is to make Australian friends the less they will miss social life in Saudi Arabia.

H3: There is no relationship between friends from many nationalities and missing friends from Saudi Arabia.

H3a: People who have friends from many nationalities will miss their friends from Saudi Arabia less than people who have friends from only Saudi or Australia.

METHODOLOGY

The research paper is based on both secondary and primary information. For secondary research, 15 past research papers were chosen similar to subject and all of them were studied for literature review. As a result a lot of information on all the variables was gathered.  Moreover the paper is based on two broad approaches; the qualitative approach and the quantitative approach. These two approaches have some advantages and some disadvantages however together they are used to get accurate results. Secondary research was qualitative after which quantitative research was carried out.

Study design

The study was conducted in natural settings with no interface because it aims at finding out true relationship between variables in natural environment. Hence, the study did not manipulate any setting for conducting the research. For this study, the data collection procedure used was cross sectional because data was collected once from the questionnaires. Then it was analysed by coding the data and with the help of data analysis software.

Participants and sampling

For primary data collection and to be sure about the true relationship a questionnaire was filled by a sample of 30 people, from the target market. As mentioned sample size was 30 and hence a total of 30 Saudi participants completed the questionnaire. There are more males than females in the sample as 20 out of total 30 were males and remaining 10 were females (males 66.7% and females 33.3%).

The majority of participants were aged between 21-30 (n=66.7%) followed by 30% of the age group 31-35 and 3.3% in the 18-20 years old.

Overall, 80% of the sample was married and 20% were single. In addition, all participant been on scholarship for different years in this survey the majority was for the participant been in scholarship in Australia more than three years by 36.7%, followed by 26.7% for the student been two years then 23.3% for three years, after that the newest Saudi scholarship student was 10% and 3.3% for student who been one year.

Data collection

 Type of research was hypothesis testing, as the study was intended to explain nature of relationship. Type of investigation was causal study. Study Setting used was non contrived environment or the normal setting. Field experiment was conducted, and there was minimum interference and all other external factors were not controlled to get the actual data.  Since data was collected at one point in time, time horizon was cross-sectional design. 

For questionnaire coding quantitative approach were used. Questionnaire data was pre-coded (codes were assigned to expected answers on designed questionnaire).

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Data analysis

Afterwards those questionnaires were filled by remaining sample. As convenience sampling was used because of limitations of time and respondents, data reliability may be affected and hence there can be results that do not truly depict population. Descriptive statistics was used as statement of analytical approach; it provides simple summaries about the sample and about the observations that have been made. Once all questionnaires were filled, coding was done in excel, all response were recorded there for further analysis. Then analytical software SPSS was used for conducting analysis. Further graphs were made for effective explanation of the results.

RESULT & ANALYSIS

All participants were asked three scale questions from 5 as best and 1 as low. The survey shows that most of the students were excited by mean of 1.69 (SD=1.2). Also, this survey shows that the mean 2.3 (Std. deviation 1.1) find Australia is moderate exciting. Also, participants were chose Australian community is friendly by the mean of 2.5 (std. deviation 1.1).

This research explored whether there were any differences between participants who had friends from many nationalities or mainly Saudi friends. Overall, 16 of participants (53.3%) have friends from many nationalities, and number of 14 participants (46.7%) has friends from Saudi and Australian. Table 1 displays the means (and standard deviations) for each of these groups on a range of questions related to participant’s experiences in Australia.

Refer to table 1; it reports the results of statements by participants. The participants were shown making a friends with other nationality by the mean of 3.5 (SD. deviation1.1) is more likely than to have Australians by mean of 3.5 (SD 1.14). The most of the participants shows that their family’s feeling ease socially in Australia by the mean of 2.9 (SD 0.9), while having different and difficulty to live with customs and traditional by the mean of 2.8 (SD 1). On the same time, participants still keep their conservative about their customs and traditions by mean of 3.1 (SD 1.12). On the other hand, mean of 2.4 (SD 1) shows that it is hard as a Saudi student to adaptation in another community. Most of the participant finds that they miss their social life in Saudi Arabia by the mean of 4 (SD 1.30). Also, they miss their family and friends by the mean of 4 (SD 1.14). in the end of this survey, participants answered that  they wish to bring all their family and friends to live in Australia by the mean of 3.23 (SD 1.41).