The following chapter is comprised of seven sections that propose the procedures to be taken in order to achieve the purpose of the study; research framework, research method and instrument development, participants, research procedure, data collection process, data analysis and, reliability and validity.
Research Framework
The theories explained in the section above give different views of how the communication process influences the adaptation steps that might be taken for the undergraduate TaiwanICDF students in order to communicate with the Taiwanese population.
Based on “Six negative aspects of culture shock theory,” by K. Oberg (1960);
“Psychological and sociocultural adaptation theory,” by Searle and Ward (1990); “Steps to overcome culture shock,” by Zapf (1991) and Wilson et al. (1995); “language shock theory,”
by Smalley (1963); and “7 Cs of communication,” by S.M. Cutlip and A.H. Center (1952), the following theoretical or conceptual framework was developed in order to explain the communication process and adaptation steps of the different cultures of TaiwanICDF students while interacting with Taiwanese population within Taiwan, see Figure 3.1.
The cross-cultural environment in Taiwan involves national population and foreign population, and it should be a way that both populations interact with each other; therefore culture and the communication affect that interaction. The interaction between these two cultures must follow the process of communication for them to create a network that helps to understand the demands of each other. Each culture has their own characteristics, and when different cultures interact, several problems might be encounter for non-native speakers and native speakers while coding and decoding messages.
Culture A, being TaiwanICDF undergraduate students, has a different cultural background, and to get in contact with the local population first they have to get adapted.
However, before acculturate to Taiwanese culture, Culture A has to deal with different aspects, such as psychological aspects (depression, the feeling of being lost, etc.), socio-cultural aspects (interaction with locals, accept the socio-cultural differences, etc.), culture shock (traditions, food, dressing way, etc.), and language shock issues (anxiety or fear while talking the local language).
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As those students are dealing with these issues by their own, they are developing certain steps in order to get adapted or acculturated to the Taiwanese culture. Hence, once these students accept and understand more and more the host culture, communication for them with the locals will be easier, because they can understand how to express themselves effectively following the structure of Taiwanese communication. As the communication process is two ways and the Culture A adapts to the local culture, Culture B will be able to answer or give feedback. In consequence, cross-cultural communication can be achieved.
Figure 3.1.Conceptual framework of adaptation steps and communication between different cultures.
Research Method and Instrument Development
For fulfilling the purpose of this study, the method adapted a qualitative approach to collect, analyze, and finalize the data. So for the study, a series of questions were developed and comprised an interview schedule. An interview schedule is used for doing a structured interview, which is comprised of questions in a structured order and has its own specific instructions for delivering the interview questions (Fowler, 2004).
This instrument, which is asking for qualitative information from the students, had 12 questions based on the research questions and the theoretical framework; see Table 3.1 followed by the Table 3.2. The content of the interview schedule was developed following the research questions and the theories or practices used within this study, and with the supervision of three experts; an expert on the developing of interview schedule and two
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experts on cross-cultural issues. The instrument, after being approved from the experts mentioned, was validated by four TaiwanICDF managers for undergraduate programs. The reliability for the interview schedule was obtained by the suggestions and revision of the experts. The expert was chosen because of the “highly technical knowledge” (Slocum, 2005, p. 121). On the other hand, the validity of the developed instrument was established through an interview with TaiwanICDF managers who discussed each question in depth, because of their experiences with international TaiwanICDF students. After the discussion, the TaiwanICDF managers gave the researcher some recommendations and approved the content; and gave the consent to do the interview to the undergraduate students.
Table 3.1.
Research Questions based on Theories/Practices
Research Questions Theories or Practices 1. How undergraduate students of
TaiwanICDF do perceive they deal with the culture shock issues?
The six negative aspects of culture shock of Oberg (1960).
2. What steps do they perceived they took to adapt themselves to the new culture?
Psychological and sociocultural adaptation from Searle and Ward (1990).
Steps to overcome culture shock by Zapf (1991) and Wilson et al. (1995).
3. Is language perceived by them to be a problem for living or studying in Taiwan?
Scott M. Cutlip and Allen H. Center (effective public relations, 1952): 7 Cs of communication.
4. How do they perceived they handle communication problems?
Language shock theory developed by Smalley (1963).
28 Table 3.2.
Interview Questions based on Research Questions (Based on Interview Schedule Order)
Interview Questions Research Questions
1. When you came to Taiwan, what problems did you encounter in adjusting?
2. Do these problems affect you personally and in what way? homesickness, or any other feeling of sadness?
2. What steps do they perceived they took to adapt themselves to the new culture?
5. How did you handle daily communication problems when you first came to Taiwan? For example, ordering food or drinks, taking a taxi, going to hospitals or clinics, the feeling of being lost. so you can communicate with the population?
8. Are you taking any Chinese course in your university?
9. Do you like Chinese language?
10. How many hours per week do you take those classes and how many hours do you practice by yourself?
11. Do you practice your Chinese speaking skill with your native language speakers’ friends?
4. Is communication perceived by them to be a problem for living or studying in Taiwan? undergraduate TaiwanICDF students about their living experiences while communicating and what they have done or still doing to get adapted to a new country like Taiwan. The target group for this study was students of the undergraduate level, who came in the year 2012 and 2013 to study for their first, second or third degree in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. The 2013 students had lived at least six months, continuously, within Taiwan. Black and Mendenhall (1991) suggested a time line in months that individuals faced in the U-Curve, in which they proposed the stage and approximately the time a person might take to overcome it. Since getting adapted to a new culture varies from person to person (Berkeley International Office,
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paragraph 2), six month is a good period of time to ask them how they are feeling about the culture and communication problems in their daily life (Black & Mendenhall, 1991).
A lot of diverse students come to Taiwan to study; however, the target of those students for this study was focused on students that came from African, Latin American, and the Caribbean countries. Latin American students came especially from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Costa Rica was not part of the students chosen for this study since TaiwanICDF have no governmental relationship with the Costa Rican government. The whole sample was 20 students in total for this study; five students from Africa, eight students from Latin America, and seven students from the Caribbean; as shown in Table 3.3. For some personal reason and unconformity of being part of the study one of the participants, after the interview and the member check validation, asked the researcher not to be included in the study, because the student was feeling insecure about the participation. Consequently, based on the time limitation, the researcher included 19 students for finishing the study.
Table 3.3.
Participants Codification and Information
Participants Code* Gender Country Year of
Arrival
TC-2 Female Saint Vincent and The Grenadines 2013 TC-3 Female Saint Vincent and The Grenadines 2012
TC-4 Female Belize 2012
TC-5 Female Saint Lucia 2012
TC-6 Male Saint Kitts and Nevis 2012
TC-7 Male Belize 2012
*Note: AF, CA, TC refers to the area they came from, AF refers to African countries, CA to Central American countries, and TC to The Caribbean countries. The Number after the dash refers to the number of the interviewee.
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Research Procedure
There are many ways for getting a research topic, such as observation, by the request of companies, or even by personal experiences. The researcher, as a TaiwanICDF student, was selected and sponsored to study a master in Taiwan. As well as some of the interviewee students, the researcher came from a Central American country encountering many cultural differences and communication barriers. Therefore, the researcher was interested on how people in their youth and needed to live in a foreign country for several years was coping to a host culture and how they were dealing with communication issues.
First, the research topic on cross cultural communication and adaptation steps of undergraduate TaiwanICDF students was identified. After identifying the research topic, literature was reviewed for a better understanding of the concept of the main variables and the relationship among them.
From the literature review was identified many theories and practices from different authors that support the relation among the involved variables of this study, so according to the found information, a conceptual framework was developed for a graphical understanding of the involved terms within the study.
The researcher decided to utilize qualitative approach. Consequently, an interview schedule was developed following the research questions and theories or practices, which were identified and explained in the literature review. For collecting the data, the interview schedule was probed to undergraduate TaiwanICDF students in order to collect their opinions and feelings regarding the main topic.
The data analysis of the collected data was done in several steps; at first the recordings of the audio were transcribed. Secondly, those transcripts were sent to the students in order to valid the information. After obtaining the approval of the students, each transcript was analyzed and categorized by subtopics and main topics. Thirdly, and as a part of answering the research questions, the transcripts were used to support what was found in the literature review.
The findings and conclusions/recommendations were developed based on the analysis of the data. The Figure 3.2 was developed for a graphical understanding of the research procedure followed during this study.
31 Figure 3.2. Research procedure.
Data Collection Process Interview Procedure
The interview procedure is explained in the following paragraphs. The first step to collect the data was to build up the questions for the interview schedule based on the research questions and the theories or practices of cross-cultural communication and adaptation explained in the literature review section. After comprising the interview schedule, it was revised by three experts and validated by TaiwanICDF managers.
With the interview schedule ready, the criteria for choosing the undergraduate students was settled, as described in the section of the participants, and was decided the way to look for the participants. In most qualitative studies chain referral sampling, also known as snowball sampling, is well used, because of its facility in getting participants according to the research purpose. Referral sampling, or snowball sampling, is a method by which one participant might refer one or more participants, who also meets the research criteria settled by the researcher (Morgan, 2008).
Because of the diversity of the students and the number of universities around Taipei, referral sampling was primarily used in order to find those students who met the criteria explained in the participants section. The researcher asked to friends regarding the research
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topic, and they referred some of their friends or classmates, who were interested on the topic and to be part of the study. After the referral, the researcher talked to referred sample in order to confirm if they were suitable for the study, based on the criteria settled in the participants section, and their willingness to participate during the process.
The execution of the interview schedule involved one-to-one interview, which is a technique, generally used in social and health sciences, which collects data about the perceptions, understandings and experiences regarding a particular issue of the interviewee (Ryan et al., 2009). The on-to-one interview was chosen because it gives people the confidence to express him/her-self about a certain issue, because it just involves the interviewer and the interviewee. However, practical problems with a one-to-one interview were faced, such as the scheduled time for the meeting, got a quiet space to perform the interview, among other minor problems. On the other hand, this kind of interview made the researcher get constructive information about the research topic of this study, because of the facility to interact with a single person about their perceptions, feelings, experiences, and problems from their daily life situation since they came to Taiwan.
Several interviews were done for the Caribbean, for the African, and for the Central American students. A convenient place and time for each student was scheduled. The number of students interviewed during a day varied, and each session lasted between 15 to 25 minutes. At the day of the interview the proceeding for the process of the interview was explained to the each student, and a request of their confirmation about their willingness to participate was re-asked to each of them; additionally the researcher also asked for their permission to record their participation for its analysis. As well during the interview the help of an assistant was needed to handle with minor problems, such as receiving the coming student and taking notes during the interviews. The taken notes helped the researcher to make a cross-checking with the transcripts.
The assistant employed in this study, studies mass communication and journalism at Ming Chuang University. He was picked because he has been studying in Taiwan since four years ago. As he is also a scholarship recipient, he understands the situation and the problem statement of this study.
All of the participations were audio recorded, and were analyzed in depth according to the interview schedule. For the cross-checking process the transcripts were compared with the notes taken by the assistant during each session. After that first validation with the assistant,
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the transcripts were sent to each student for their validation of their participation. The students returned their file. Some of them included more information and other approved the file.
Data Analysis
The analysis of qualitative data depends on the purpose of the researcher. For this study, the researcher used interview as a method for obtaining the data; therefore several steps were taken in order to analyze the obtained data. Taylor-Powell and Renner (2003) suggest different steps in order to analyze qualitative data. The first step they suggested is to get familiar with the data. After, they suggested categorizing the data obtained from the interview schedule by research question or topic, time period or event, which will lead to have a solid understanding of the similarities or differences on the responses. The last step they suggested is to make a holistic interpretation of all the findings within the process.
For the analysis of the data the steps suggested by Taylor-Powell and Renner were used.
Therefore the researcher listened to the recordings many times and made the transcripts that were useful for the purpose of the study. After writing the transcripts, the transcripts were sent to the students and validated by them.
With their approval of the transcript, the researcher started to analyze the data finding the similarities that were organized into categories. These similarities corresponded to each variable on the developed conceptual framework. For example, excitement, depression, feeling lost, etc., were put into psychological variables category. As each variable respond to a research question and a theory or practice, the categories were arranged into a main topic.
For example, psychological experiences were put into first adaptation perception; see Table 3.4 as an example.
Table 3.4.
Example of Categorization of Variables, Categories, Subcategories and Key Points
Theme Category Subcategory Key Concepts
1. Adaptation
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For a holistic view and to give an answer to each research question, the answers of the participants were used to support the literature review. The opinions of the participants were used in order to exemplify the findings for each research question, and their relation with the theories described in the literature review.
To maintain the privacy of the participant, for each of them a code was developed and given. The code contained the following components: initials from the area they come from (AF – Africa, CA – Central America, and TC – The Caribbean), and the number of the participant; for example: CA-1, refer to Table 3.3 in page 29.
Reliability and Validity
Each process of this study was reliable and valid; in consequence the whole process is reliable and valid, see Figure 3.2. Identify the topic, review literature regarding the topic, and developing the framework for this study is reliable because of the ability of the researcher by searching papers related to the identified topic in scholar databases; while the validity is measured because the reviewed paper on those database are already validated; however the review of different expert was used in order to make the content consistent and precise.
The instrument development was developed under the supervision of three experts. These experts followed the same process to check the interview schedule. At first they had to review the research questions and the theories or practices used to develop the interview questions.
After having the suggestions and validation of the panel of expert, the instrument was validated again by TaiwanICDF managers in order to proceed with the collection of data stage.
For the data collection, each interview was held in a public place and the same interview schedule was used. The researcher used the same interview schedule to interview the sample included within this study. The reason for using the same questions for all the participants is that the researcher attached to the expert review and not take the risk on asking different questions that would not match to the purpose and the research questions of the study. The interview schedule and its guideline were presented before starting the interview to each participant. At the same time, to make the study reliable, which means credible, neutral or confirmable, consistent or dependable, and applicable and transferable (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), the assistant was taking notes about what each student was saying during the interview.
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After collecting the data, the analysis of data was held. In consequence, to make it reliable, each interview was transcribed following the response to each questions and grouped by region, see Table 3.3 in page 29. On the other hand, its validity was due to the member check, which is a way to enhance credibility to the study, since the researcher asked the interviewees to revise their own participation (Mertens, 2005). Each participant was given a code in order to use their data for discussing the findings.
For the whole process reliability and validity was due to the ability of the researcher on following the same process to find literature review and the review of the research content with the supervision of experts.
For the whole process reliability and validity was due to the ability of the researcher on following the same process to find literature review and the review of the research content with the supervision of experts.