Intercultural engagement and relatedness: Examining mediation effects

Most research on student sojourners has studied students coming from the Majority World to Western countries, especially the United States, for undergraduate and graduate education. Though increasing greatly in numbers, shorter sojourn has not been the focus of attention. With regard to the adjustment of sojourners, research has tended to stress situational factors rather than personality. This study is different in terms of focusing on short term educational sojourn of Western students in a Majority World country and examining the effect of personal characteristics and cultural evaluation of the sojourners on their experience. Relatedness and country of origin were found to influence the cultural experience of exchange students through their cultural evaluation at baseline. Students with higher relatedness orientation had more positive cultural evaluations at baseline which then led to a more positive cultural experience in the receiving country.