Arab Educational Information Network

Research regarding international education has been mainly quantitative, and of the few existing qualitative studies, no research has explored the perspective of students’ personal and cultural constructs. This study employs a mixed method design within a Personal Construct Theory perspective. The primary objective of this study is to examine the personal constructs of six Saudi Arabian graduate students studying at a large Canadian university, analyzing how they use those constructs to describe their experience of living and learning in Canada. This is achieved through in-depth repertory grid and self-characterization analyses. This study reveals that the participants tend to elicit common constructs in terms of their social roles in the home culture and host culture. This suggests that the participants have a collaborated system of constructs, because they experience particular difficulties in the host culture context. The results of this study imply that pairing new arrivals with Canadian peers would help students adjust successfully to their social life in Canada. Further research to corroborate these results is recommended. (Author’s abstract)