Life satisfaction and acculturation of European students in the Chinese context

Abstract

Life satisfaction is a crucial aspect of psychological well-being for international students during the process of acculturation. Among international students in China, European students constitute a significant demographic, making it imperative to examine their life satisfaction. However, existing research has primarily focused on theoretical literature reviews regarding the factors that impact European students’ life satisfaction and acculturation, with few empirical investigations conducted. This study aims to explore European students’ perceptions of life satisfaction in acculturation to China and the factors affecting their life satisfaction in acculturation. Through three rounds of semi-structured interviews involving 27 European students, this study employed NVivo 12 software to conduct sentiment analysis on interview materials to investigate European students’ perceptions of life satisfaction. Additionally, a coding analysis was conducted to identify the factors affecting their life satisfaction in acculturation. The results from the sentiment analysis reveal that European students generally experience a relatively high level of life satisfaction while acculturating to China. The coding analysis highlights several factors that affect their life satisfaction during this process, including social activity, social support, academic performance, language proficiency, consumption, diet, transportation, and safety. These findings offer researchers and scholars a theoretical understanding of acculturation and life satisfaction research on European students in China and could be referential for international education administrators.