A Needs Assessment of International Students' Wives

Abstract

Despite the unique adjustment challenges facing international students' spouses, little research has focused on their adjustment experiences or their programming needs. Understanding the adjustment of these individuals is important both in itself and because spouses play a key role in the adjustment and academic success of international students. Because women make up the vast majority of accompanying spouses, two needs assessments were conducted to explore their particular adjustment experiences and gather information relevant to program development. Hypotheses regarding the impact of conational group size on adjustment were tested as well. Seventy-six wives of international graduate students at a midsized Western Canadian university completed a questionnaire. Results suggest these women are highly educated professionals who face a variety of unique cultural and situational adjustment issues. Overall, their preference is for programming with a professional development focus. Unexpectedly, few differences based on conational group size were found. Research implications for service providers and researchers are discussed.