Critical factors which hindering or facilitating P.R.C. students psycho-socio adjustment to studying and living in Canada

This was an exploratory study which used Flanagan's Critical Incident Technique to find out the factors which hinder or facilitate the psycho-socio adjustment of students from The People's Republic of China to Canada. The 21 subjects for the sample were drawn at random from a name list provided by the Chinese Visiting Scholars and Students Association at University of British Columbia. All of the subjects were graduate students or visiting scholars and had been in Canada for 9-12 months at the time of the interviews. All subjects were able to identify incidents which hindered or facilitated their first year psycho-socio adjustment to Canada. The total of 385 incidents, 175 facilitating and 210 hindering incidents, were reported. The average number of incidents reported per student was 19.2. Ten major categories which facilitate or hinder PRC students' psycho-socio adjustment to Canada have been found through this research. Considering the number of incidents reported by the participants, Academic Study & Research was ranked the first place among 10 categories. According to the rate of participation, Language Barriers & Improvement was listed the highest among 10 categories. Considering the number of facilitating incidents reported by the participants, Initial Settlement was placed the highest. In the number of hindering incidents, category of Language Barriers & Improvement was listed the highest among the 10 categories. The explanation of the research findings and suggestions for how the findings might contribute to the understanding PRC or other Oriental international students are included in the discussion.Education, Faculty ofEducational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department ofGraduat