Factors affecting the cultural adaptation of Chinese students in Uppsala University

With the increasing number of Chinese students choosing to study abroad, Sweden is a good choice without a doubt. Chinese students face many challenges in the adaptation process, e.g. managing group projects with Swedish students, dealing with interpresonal relationships, solving academic problems, etc. This thesis investigates psychological adaptaion, socio-cultural adaptation and academic adaptation, based on Ward’s model, and generated nine propositions to explore the Chinese students’ adaptation in Sweden. Students from both China and Sweden, as well as teachers, were interviewed to gather the research material, and analysed with the qualitative tool Nvivo to develop the propositions. The main finding is that the influence of academic and psychological aspects on Chinese students' cultural adaptation is relatively large, especially the language ability, personality, and communication. In addition to this, there are some other related factors that we do not mention, e.g. self-confidence, ambitious motivation, value, etc. The purpose of our study is to provide effective and practical advice for Chinese students in the adaptation to Swedish culture.