The High Degree of Psychological Anxiety Experienced by the Female Spouses of International Students

Psychology of Female Spouses of International Students

Research Proposal: The high degree of psychological anxiety experienced by the female spouses of international students (with a focus upon Melbourne, Australia)

Abstract

The ensuing paper looks at anxiety and stress levels in the spouses of international students working and living in Melbourne, Australia. The paper shall outline the problem issue, provide some context, and delineate the general aims of the study, the major questions to be answered, and the overarching interview methodology that will be pursued. Rationale, methods and a succinct literature review will follow. The major objectives of this study are to provide some information and insight into the experiences of the spouses of international students in Australia insofar as most of the studies conducted to date have dealt with the experiences of such individuals in the context of the United States. The candidate expects to build upon existing literature by taking what has been revealed in American and Canadian studies and seeing if such conclusions are relevant in the Australian context. The final paper shall involve a close review of the attitudes and experiences of 20 women and this sample group will be chosen randomly from the local Melbourne community. All of the individuals who are contacted will be given a chance to offer their informed consent and their identity and confidentiality will be protected.

Introduction

Much attention has been paid to the plight of international students who move to a foreign land to study. There are challenges surrounding the language; there are challenges surrounding being in a world in which the student is an outsider; and there are the inevitable challenges that accompany trying to learn new at an advanced level in an educational milieu characterized by different pedagogical practices. The plight of spouses, however, is far less frequently addressed by the scholarly literature; in fact, it is rarely addressed at all. What can be said, though, is that there is a great deal of psychological anxiety that accompanies being the spouse or partner of an international student and this paper endeavours to illuminate the stress levels of international students' spouses residing in Melbourne, Australia.

Chiefly, a study emanating from the United States reports that entering the country on a dependent visa means that female spouses are placed in an auxiliary position whereby they must privilege their husbands' dreams and aspirations and place their own in the background. Pressures that build over time and which create psychic distress are the following: English fluency (particularly how quickly one picks up the language); financial concerns arising from living in a new land where the cost of living is often higher than the land of origin; overall acculturative stress; and the stress that accompanies reversals in the male spouse's academic progress. The reality is that many of these women do feel alone and do feel stress - and that the best way of moderating this stress is for the receiving educational institution to offer spousal support programs.

However, the reason why this problem is so pressing is not that spousal psychic stress occurs - we know that it does - but that so much of the literature is devoted to the experiences of spouses residing in the United States: there is no question that "cultural misfit" is a prime predictor of depression and of psychological stress in spouses accompanying partners to the United States for their studies; yet, because the matter is looked at solely within the US context, we have little means of knowing if the problems encountered in this country by the spouses of international students (chiefly, the female spouses of international students) are problems that can be generalized or extended to other lands, as well. Understanding the problem as it exists within the community of Melbourne, Australia, allows us to tackle the issue much closer to home.

Problem Background

The background of this problem presumably dates back many decades; after all, talented graduate students have been flocking to western universities for many years and Australia is certainly no exception to this phenomenon. However, the study how the spouses of international students respond psychologically to a new world, a new culture, and a new regimen is a fairly recent one: the oldest study this writer uncovered vis-a-vis the psychological anxiety endured by the female spouses of international students dates back to 1987 - but it deals with international students studying at the University of Pittsburgh and much of the study looked at the psychic stressors confronting the students themselves and not just their spouses.

Studies which look at the levels of psychological anxiety or stress amongst female spouses of international students in the Australian context are quite rare and much of the research data looks at the American experience or, in rare instances, at the experiences of spouses accompanying their male spouse to Canadian universities. What emerges from the existing American literature, however, is a general sense that strong social networks must be in place so that the spouses of international students feel they have an auxiliary system that will protect them from the struggles that can accompany being in a new milieu which places a great deal of stress upon their marriage and which can force a modification of spousal roles as well as parenting roles and practices.

The problem of psychological stress and cultural adaptation, though, is not confined to North America and it extends back quite some time; we may even argue that a country like Australia, which does have a relatively high immigration level and that is a magnet for talented foreign-born students, has a greater incentive than most to explore the issues confronting the spouses of international students so that the country can continue to attract the best and the brightest from all around the globe.

Rationale or Purpose of the Study (main objective, in short)

The purpose of this study is to illuminate the levels of stress and psychological anxiety existing within 20 spouses of international students currently enrolled at the University of Melbourne and at the Royal Melbourne Institution of Technology; this research paper, for all intents and purposes, is an effort at seeing how things are at the local level.

Research Questions

The key research question is as follows: do the female spouses of international students studying in Melbourne experience high levels of stress and anxiety? A corollary to this question shall also be explored: if they do experience high levels of anxiety, why do they experience such high levels of anxiety? What factors, in short, cause their discomfiture?

Limitations and Delimitations

There are certain limitations to this research study. For one thing, although it is a quantitative study, the sample size is admittedly small: 20 people. Additionally, a simple Likert scale will be utilized to compare the relative impact of various factors influencing the psychic state of the female spouses of international students. However, the study is redeemed by virtue of the fact that it does look at the lived experiences and struggles of international spouses in the Melbourne area - which is a first in the literature.

Review of the Current Literature

As discussed previously, much of the research on the challenges and barriers confronting the female spouses of international students focuses upon the experiences of those residing in the United States (Biggler; Fonseca; Ruetrakul). Similarly, research into what must be done to assist the spouses of international students is research penned in America which deals with counselling methods explicitly geared for the American context. Nonetheless, some of the best advice appears to be that those arriving in a new land and thrust into a new setting should not retreat from their indigenous culture but should strive to connect with their fellow countrymen or countrywomen; additionally, they should embrace counselling that offers strategies for cross-cultural communication. Regrettably, though, such research does not offer the sort of explicit, detailed and prescriptive advice that might aid either international students or their spouses in these situations; rather than giving clear guidelines, the literature confines itself to mostly offering bland generalizations about what individuals - primarily international students, not their spouses - should do to combat the challenges of acculturation.

The available literature consistently overlooks the burdens shouldered by the spouses of international students. While it is duly noted that international students attending educational institutions in Australia are relatively more likely to endure depression and anxiety than their native-born colleagues, and whilst it is acknowledged that younger international students suffer from relatively greater depressive symptoms - with the additional finding that worries about academic difficulties tend to exacerbate psychological distress - there is no mention of what happens to the spouses of international students uprooted from home. One may argue that observing the struggles of one's spouse inevitably creates mental anguish and psychological anxiety for the spouses of such international students - but this hypothesis is largely untested by the extant scholarship. As one American-based study has pointed out at length, there is a paucity of literature detailing appropriate counselling interventions for international students - and there is even less concern, or literature, about how best to treat the needs of the spouses of international students. A closer look at the literature manifests that a lot of the scholarship looks at how the family of international students, in general, cope (or do not cope) with life in an alien environment.

In any case, this study clearly aims to build upon the existing literature and shall do so by asking questions that will either corroborate or disprove previous research. For one thing, studies have argued that life stage and personality are an even greater factor in the adaptation of an international graduate student's spouse to a new culture than is the culture of origin of that spouse. Other, earlier, studies suggest that language acquisition is the principle confounding factor in whether or not international student wives adjust to the new land of which they are now a part. Via in-depth interviewing, it shall be possible to see if this is really the case for the women with spouses studying in the Melbourne area.

Research Design (Methods)

The research design of this study involves in-depth interviewing with 20 female spouses of international students enrolled at the University of Melbourne and at the Royal Melbourne Institution of Technology. I shall build up rapport with my interviewees, ascertain their chief concerns and areas of interest, and then gradually begin to probe what concerns or fears they may have as their spouses pursue their studies. I am interested in, and will pursue, this approach chiefly because it is more direct and efficient than merely observing people from a distance and my interview subjects are individuals chosen at random (for a detailed exploration of the in-depth interviewing process I will follow, please see Taylor & Bogdan, pp.88-93).

I should add that my interviewing approach will involve the avoidance of rigid interview questions - at least at the start. Instead, in keeping with the imperatives of feminist interviewing methodologies, I will embrace allowing my subjects the luxury of wide-ranging and free-ranging conversations and dialogues that will allow them to reveal their own stories at their own incremental pace; I seek to give these women a comfort level so that they can converse freely on their concerns and preoccupations as strangers in a strange land.

At this time, I am not looking at contacting women from a specific cultural or ethnic or racial group; this may change, however, as I further work on formulating my research methodology. In any case, the subjects will be women chosen randomly from a larger group of international student spouses with whom I am well-acquainted.

Assumptions

I assume that, by employing a careful in-depth interviewing approach, I will be able to elicit truthful responses from these women. I also assume that the women will be more willing to confide in a female confidante than in a male researcher. Finally, my own belief is that certain factors - chiefly, concerns about learning the language and culture, fears about the scholastic progress of spouses, concerns about social isolation, and the difficulty in balancing one's indigenous identity with the assimilative pressures of the host society - will be the chief causes of psychic strain amongst these women.

Procedures

My procedures are not intended to be complicated. I will commence by identifying particular individuals with whom I wish to work - using the broad criteria already detailed above. From there, I will proceed to gain their trust and support by assuring them of confidentiality and by gradually eliciting more and more open responses from them courtesy the use of in-depth questioning. I will, as befits an interviewer employing feminist sensibilities, also empathize with them and make plain to them my own challenges as the female spouse of an international student from abroad. As per Yin, I will offer open-ended questions, at least to start, that are non-threatening and that make it possible for my line of inquiry to be addressed satisfactorily (p.107). After a sufficient period of time, perhaps 2 or 3 conversations, I will engage with the formal interview. Although I noted earlier that I was leaning heavily towards the usage of a Likert scale model, I may eschew this in favour of simply recording and transcribing interviewee responses and then later interpreting these transcriptions without formally requesting the subjects to rank which factors appear to be the ones that give them the greatest psychological anxiety or distress.

Ethical Considerations

Clearly, there are some tricky cultural issues at work in any study of this sort. Principally, it is possible that some interviewees may not be eager to speak to another woman about their problems without their spouse present - or they may feel ill-suited to discuss such matters at all. At the same time, confidentiality is very important because the women in question may end up discussing stressors within their own relationships that could be embarrassing if these revelations were made public. Therefore, it is vital that names be changed and that the interviewer exercise extreme judiciousness in terms of evaluating what information should appear in the final paper and what material should be cut out. I shall closely adhere to the values of beneficence and justice - as well as to the imperative of informed consent - when I conduct my interviews.

References

Biggler, M, Exploratory Study of Distress among spouses of international students, Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B, The Sciences and Engineering, vol.69, no.2(B), p.1316.

Chen, LK, Negotiating identity between career and family roles: a study of international graduate students' wives in the US, International Journal of Lifelong Education, vol.28, no.2, pp.211-226.

Chittooran, MM and Sankar-Gomes A, 'The families of international students in US universities: Adjustment issues and implications for counsellors,' In HD Singaravelu and M Pope (eds.), A Handbook for counselling international students in the United States, American Counselling Association, Alexandria, VA.

Fonseca, Maria Eugenia, Factors related to parenting stress and satisfaction among international students with accompanying families and their spouses, Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, vol.56, no.9(A), p.3756.

Martens, VP and Grant, PR, A Needs Assessment of International Students' Wives, Journal of Studies in International Education, vol.12, no.1, pp.56-75.

Mori, S, Addressing the mental health concerns of international students, Journal of Counselling and Development, vol.78, pp.137-144.

National Health and Medical Research Council, National Statement in Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans, AusInfo, Canberra.

Ostler, S, An English language program for wives of international students, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green.

Pedersen, P, Counselling International Students, The Counselling Psychologist, vol.19, no.1, pp.10-58.

Reinharz, S and Davidman, L, Feminist Methods in Social Research, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Ruetrakul, P, 'A study of problems and stress of Southeast Asian students with accompanying families at the University of Pittsburgh,' paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society, Washington, DC.

Taylor, S and Bogdan R, "In-depth interviewing," in Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: A Guidebook and a Resource, 3rd edition, Wiley, New York.

Tian, PSO and Notowidjojo F, Depression and loneliness in overseas students, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, vol.36, no.2, pp.121-130.

Yellig, A, The experiences of married international graduate students and their accompanying non-student spouses in the US culture: A qualitative study, Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, vol.71, no.8(B), pp.5167.

Yin, R, Applications of Case Study Research, 2nd edition, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.