Exploring Aspects of Culture Shock as Experienced by International Students from Thailand
Abstract
Culture shock aspect is such a common issue that experienced among students
who study abroad. The causes of culture shock aspect usually are anxiety and the
lack of intercultural communication competence. Most of studies in the previous
study tend to discuss the importance of intercultural communication competence
and only describe the kinds of culture shock. Thus, to fill this empirical void, the
aims of this study are to investigate Thai students’ perceptions of intercultural
communication competence and how Thai students handle their culture shock
during study in Indonesia. In order to understand more about culture shock
aspects, the researcher used culture shock and axiety theory by Oberg (1960) and
Dörnyei (2005). The study is employed qualitative method. Participants in this
research were two Thai students who have lived for more or less 4 years in one of
Islamic university in Yogyakarta, they are from different batch and major. The
data were obtained by in-depth interview. The researcher analyzed the data by
using thematic analysis method by Braun & Clarke (2006). The finding showed
that all respondents were experiencing the culture shock symptoms stages, such as
tension of adaptation, sense of loss and rejection from environment, rejected by
new culture, unpredictable anxiety, and feeling of helplessness at the first time
they studied in Indonesia. There was also an interesting finding that both of them
had the lack of intercultural communication competence, and also the anxiety
leads them to survive in Indonesia