Basic Need Satisfaction Intervention for Mainland Chinese International Students’ Adjustment to College

Abstract

With an increasing number of students pursuing their tertiary studies overseas, ways to improve their adaptation into a new environment become of the utmost importance. By applying self-determination theory, the current research investigated the extent that a basic psychological need intervention can increase need-satisfying experiences and promote the adjustment of Mainland Chinese international students to college. In total, 55 participants were randomly assigned to an intervention or control condition. They completed questionnaires on basic need satisfaction and college adjustment before the start of the study, right after the completion of the intervention, and after a 5-week follow-up. Participants who received the intervention had significantly higher need satisfaction and adjustment to college than those in the control condition. The intervention effect was maintained after a 5-week delay. In addition, the results showed that the increases in psychological need satisfaction after the intervention predicted higher levels of students’ adjustment to college. Theoretical implications for the universality of basic need satisfaction to students’ well-being and practical implications for international education are discussed.

Keywords

college adjustment well-being self-determination theory basic psychological need satisfaction international student

In recent years, the globalization of higher education has increased the opportunities for students to seek tertiary education beyond their hometowns. According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (2018), there is a growing trend of outbound internationally mobile students in the world from approximately 3,900,000 in 2011 to over 5,000,000 in 2016. While studying abroad provides many exciting opportunities, international students often face substantial challenges in foreign countries. Some major challenges include language barriers, academic difficulties, loneliness, discrimination, and practical problems associated with changing environments (Smith & Khawaja, 2011). The problems of adapting to a new culture could in turn negatively influence students’ academic performance, attitudes towards locals, and more importantly, their mental health and well-being (Wan et al., 1992; Zhou et al., 2011). Although most universities offer orientation sessions to international students to introduce them to university life and language courses to help them overcome the language barriers, few interventions target their psychological needs, which is often insufficient (Gu, 2011). The current study aimed to examine a brief and simple psychological need intervention based on self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000), a theory that concerns the support or thwarting of people's basic psychological needs and the consequences of it.

The current study was conducted in Hong Kong and the participants were first-year students from mainland China. In recent years, China had the world's largest number of students studying abroad, which sent over 847,000 students to study abroad (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2018). Because of its geographical and socio-cultural relationship, Hong Kong is one of the destinations that attract a growing number of Chinese students. Mainland Chinese students are considered as “non-local” students in the University system and require a student visa to study in Hong Kong (Bodycott & Lai, 2012). Although Hong Kong and China are both considered part of Chinese Confucian society, there are still some key differences in aspects such as the use of language, historical and contextual factors, leading to acculturation stress for mainland Chinese students. For instance, Cantonese is the native language in Hong Kong and English is the medium of instruction whereas Chinese living in China use Mandarin as their official language and medium of instruction (Bray & Koo, 2004). Different contextual factors, for example, economic and political backgrounds and education systems, create different cultural ideologies (Chow & Ding, 2002). Given that Hong Kong was under British rule for over 100 years and only reunified with Mainland China in 1997, Hong Kong emphasizes more on capitalistic and democratic values and engages more in a Westernized lifestyle, whereas China stresses more on utilitarian and socialist orientations (Tse et al., 1989; Yu & Zhang, 2016). These diversities suggested that Chinese students might encounter adaptation problems in Hong Kong just like other foreign students. Research also supported the idea that mainland Chinese students would also have adjustment issues because of linguistic adaptation, social interaction, political ideology, and discrimination in Hong Kong (Yu et al., 2019a, 2019b; Yu & Zhang, 2016).

Psychological Need Satisfaction

According to SDT (Ryan & Deci, 2000), the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness are essential for people's mental health and optimal development. Besides SDT, other theories such as Consistency Theory (Grawe, 2007) also showed that these three needs are crucial in neuropsychotherapy and satisfaction of these needs would obtain optimal psychotherapeutic outcomes. To further elaborate the three needs, the need for competence concerns people's need to feel efficacious and mastery in their environment. The need for autonomy refers to the desire to experience ownership and the volition of their behaviors (Deci, 1980). The need for relatedness is the need to develop a sense of belonging and connectedness with others that signifies mutual caring and support (Ryan, 1993). Previous studies on SDT clearly showed that people thrive in needs-supportive environments, and they suffer maladjustment and mental health problems when they are deprived of the satisfaction of any of these psychological needs (Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013).

College Adjustment for International Students

College adjustment can be classified into four categories, including academic, social, personal-emotional, and institutional adjustments (Baker & Siryk, 1984; Gerdes & Mallinckrodt, 1994). Academic adjustment reflects the way that students deal with the academic demands of college, and it accounts for attitude and effort. Social adjustment refers to the degree that students cope with interpersonal and social demands, such as residential life, friendship, and social activities. Personal-emotional adjustment involves the psychological state (e.g., stress and anxiety) and physical functioning (e.g., sleeplessness) of students. Institutional adjustment refers to the level of attachment to college and the acceptance of the goals and mission of the college. We expected that needs-thwarting experiences from studying in a new culture would affect all four categories of adjustment.

According to SDT, basic psychological needs are closely related to adjustment. Studies have shown that psychological needs satisfaction is positively related to academic adjustment such as having higher intrinsic motivation, classroom engagement, and achievement (Jang et al., 2012). In addition, needs satisfaction is tied to emotional adjustment such as well-being or psychopathologies (Véronneau et al., 2005). A psychological need-supportive environment is associated with a better social adjustment such as having more secure attachments, better relationship quality, and less conflict (Knee et al., 2005; Patrick et al., 2007). In sum, we could expect that higher need satisfaction would result in better adjustment. However, to date, most research regarding SDT and college adaptation was limited to the study of autonomous (e.g., self-development) versus preservation (e.g., avoiding a disadvantageous situation in home country) motives of studying abroad and their subsequent adaptation outcomes (Chirkov et al., 2007; Chirkov et al., 2008). Hence, there is a lack of experimental evidence to show that basic need satisfaction is crucial to the adaptation of international students.

The experience of studying abroad can be potentially need-thwarting, particularly for first-year students. Studying abroad forces students to separate from their original family and friends. Moreover, students can have trouble making new friends with local people, students, or professors because of language barriers and cultural differences (Chen, 1999; Khawaja & Dempsey, 2008). The separation from their parents, weakened friendship quality, and difficulties establishing new and supportive connections could undermine students’ relatedness needs. Being in a new culture might also prevent people from expressing their true selves if they find their own culture and the host culture incompatible. Furthermore, for some students, their choices of studying abroad, destination, and the program of study are determined by their parents and are not completely autonomous (Bodycott, 2009). International students might have difficulties finding the meaning of studying abroad, especially when they are merely following the wishes of their parents. When the rationale behind studying abroad is not be fully explained, this might prevent the internalization of the decision to study abroad. As a result, their need for autonomy could be undermined. Differences also exist in learning patterns, instructional methods, assessment criteria, and value systems between the origin country and the host country (Liu et al., 2010; Marambe et al., 2012). For example, in Marambe et al.'s (2012) study, students in Indonesia used more rote learning and memorization than their Dutch counterparts who used more self-regulation and critical processing. Cultural differences also exist in other competence-related areas such as extracurricular activities and work preferences (McDermott, 2002). In this way, international students might find it hard to adapt and excel in different competence domains, which lead to the thwarting of their competence needs.

Despite the fact that international students could face many difficulties, there are limited psychological aids and interventions for them (for an overview of existing interventions, please see Smith & Khawaja, 2014). In addition, the provision of psychological services to distressed international students could be expensive and limited. Even when psychological services are available, not many students are willing to seek help (Hwang et al., 2014; Nilsson et al., 2004; Yakushko et al., 2008). For example, Chen and Mak (2008) found that students, particularly in Chinese culture, were less likely to seek professional help with their mental health issues. This suggests the importance of developing interventions that are more preventive, cost-efficient, and more approachable for students.

Current Study

There were two goals for the current study. First, we aimed to establish the connection between psychological needs satisfaction and different college adjustments, including those in academic, social, emotional, and institutional domains. Second, we suggested that reviving some psychological need satisfaction experiences and providing some resources and suggestions to overcome the barriers to need satisfaction experiences may enhance college adjustment. A theoretical and motivational-based intervention targeted at directing students to more need-fulfilling experiences and psycho-education about the importance of basic psychological needs would help international students to better adapt. The current intervention was informed from Weinstein et al.'s (2016) intervention with Syrian refugees. Although Chinese students’ adjustment to college life in a new culture will be very different from the adjustment of Syrian refugees, in terms of the types of adjustment and severity, the underlying psychological processes and elements of adaptive functioning would be similar. The current approach not only enhances need satisfaction and promotes adjustment, but also builds up greater resilience to face further stressful experiences (Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013).

This study utilized an experimental design to examine the effects of a 5-week basic need intervention. The outcomes of needs satisfaction and adjustment were assessed at preintervention (T1), postintervention (T2), and a 5-week follow-up (T3). This design allowed us to test the following hypotheses.

H₁: Participants will report higher levels of basic need satisfaction after the intervention (for both the intervention group and control group)

H₂: Participants will report higher levels of adjustment after the intervention (for both the intervention group and control group)

Nondirectional H₃: Participants will report the same or higher levels of basic need satisfaction and adjustment 1 month after the intervention.

In support of increasing the transparency of research procedures (Tackett et al., 2019), the present research employed an open science methodology. The consent form, analysis plan, all measures, and experimental materials are available on the Open Science Framework at: https://osf.io/7mnx5/?view_only=e344febc86ed4fa8bbe94ec73ae44b5f

Method

Participants

Sixty first-year Chinese mainland international students (10 males and 50 females) from a local university, who just moved to Hong Kong to pursue their tertiary studies within the past 6 months, enrolled in this study. Their mean age was 18.20 years (SD = .40).

Participants who completed the procedure would receive $100 Hong Kong dollars (approximately US$17) as compensation. Researchers attempted to recruit the maximum possible number of participants and stopped recruiting when the sample size reached 60 based on an a priori power analysis (d = .40, α = 0.05, power = 0.80). The estimated effect size was based on Weinstein et al.'s study (2016). Because the intervention was conducted repeatedly over a month, some students had scheduling conflicts and dropped out of the research before its completion. Finally, a sample of 55 students completed all five sessions of the intervention and three sets of questionnaires and was retained for data analysis.

Study Design and Procedures

Before the start of the study, all participants attended a briefing session to learn about the procedures, time commitment, benefits, and costs of participating in the study. This study utilized an experimental design and consisted of two conditions: an intervention group and a control group. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: the intervention group (n = 27) or the control group (n = 28). To prepare for the intervention, student counselor staff received training from a registered educational/school psychologist to become familiar with the concepts of SDT and basic counseling skills such as active listening. For the intervention group, participants started right after a briefing session and met with the trained student counselor once a week for 15–20 min for five consecutive weeks. Participants who were assigned to the control group would receive the treatment at a later time starting after T2. They would be free to join other regular activities organized by the university student affairs office such as campus orientation. However, their involvement in orientation activities during this period was not recorded.

The participants were recruited through online chat groups that were commonly used by Chinese mainland students. Figure 1 shows the flowchart of the study procedure. Enrolled students completed the preintervention questionnaire (T1) and the demographic questions. The questionnaire that assessed their perceived satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs and the adjustment level of college students was administered at three time points. After T1, the participants were randomly assigned to the intervention group or control group. After the participants in the intervention group completed the intervention (about a month), all the participants were asked to complete the postintervention questionnaire at T2. After that, the participants in the control group would start the five-session intervention. Finally, all the participants were contacted to complete a follow-up questionnaire at T3, which was about one month after T2. The student counselor provided a debriefing for all participants at the end of their respective intervention to review it and consolidate the importance of the fulfillment of the three basic psychological needs in their daily lives. The rationale of a delayed intervention for the control group was because of ethical reasons such that those participants would also receive potentially beneficial treatment. In addition, such a design would allow us to test the effectiveness of the intervention for a second time, further validating our results. The research was approved by the research ethics committee at the institute of the authors.

Figure 1.
Flowchart of study procedures and participant number at each stage.

Measures

Since the native language of mainland students is Chinese, all measures were translated into Chinese and back-translated by independent translators. Participants completed the questionnaire at T1, T2, and T3.

Criterion Variables – Basic Need Satisfaction and Adjustment

Basic Need Satisfaction

The basic need satisfaction scale has 21items addressing the need satisfaction in one's life (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The scale was used to measure the satisfaction of participants’ basic needs for autonomy (e.g., “I feel like I am free to decide for myself how to live my life”; 7 items), competence (e.g., “I have been able to learn interesting new skills recently”; 6 items), and relatedness (e.g., “People in my life care about me”; 8 items). Items were rated on 7-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). Cronbach's alpha ranged from .52 to .60 for competence, from .56 to .61 for autonomy, from .70 to .73 for relatedness across the time points. The overall basic need satisfaction index was calculated by averaging the three subscales.

College Adjustment

The Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ; Baker & Siryk, 1984) is a 67-item assessment composed of four subscales to measure the following: academic adjustment, which refers to the ability to cope with several academic demands of college (e.g., “I have been keeping up to date with my academic work”; 24 items); social adjustment, which refers to the perceptions of different relationships and social activities (e.g., “I am very involved with social activities in college”; 20 items); personal-emotional adjustment, which refers to the psychological status of students, including depression, stress, and self-esteem (e.g., “I have been feeling tense or nervous lately”, reverse scored; 15 items); and institutional adjustment, which refers to the level of attachment and belonging to the institution (e.g., “I am pleased now about my decision to attend this college in particular”; 15 items). Scores are rated on 7-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (Does not apply to me at all) to 7 (Applies very much to me). The Cronbach's alpha ranged from .845 to .850 for academic adjustment, .74 to .82 for social adjustment, .78 to .82 for personal-emotional adjustment, and .75 to .83 for institutional adjustment.

Explanatory Variable – Basic Need Satisfaction Intervention

The current intervention included 5 weekly one-on-one 15–20 min sessions. The intervention had 12 discussion topics that focused on exploring need-fulfilling experiences which were adapted from Weinstein et al. (2016). Examples of these topics included the following: “Today, think about something you could do, that would help you to feel like you can express yourself honestly” (satisfying autonomy), “Today, think about something you could do, that would help you to feel like a challenge, but one you feel you can be effective in doing” (satisfying competence), and “Today, think about something you could do, that would help you to feel connected and close to someone important to you in your life” (satisfying relatedness). Participants would choose 2 to 3 topics from the list to discuss in each session. To begin, the student counselor would inquire about the participants’ experiences obtaining one of the basic psychological needs based on the topic that they chose. Then, they would identify the obstacles that need fulfillment, brainstorm possible solutions, develop an action plan, and subsequently review the needs-striving activities and experiences in the next session, where the student counselor would also guide the participants to reflect on how the basic psychological needs would connect to their well-being. In the last session, the student counselor would review the whole intervention experience and encourage the students to continue to pursue need-satisfying activities afterwards.

Intervention Evaluation

As an intervention evaluation to see whether participants could apply what they learned from the intervention to their daily lives, participants were asked to report how much they agreed on three statements using a 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) Likert scale at the end of their intervention. A sample item was “I can apply what is discussed in the session in my daily life”. Cronbach's alpha was .71. The intervention evaluation index was calculated by averaging the response of the three items.

Results

Descriptive statistics are included in Table 1. Correlational analyses were conducted to test whether demographic variables were associated with basic need satisfaction or college adjustment performance. Neither age (ps > .08) nor sex (ps .10) were related to adjustment level. These factors were not included in later analyses.

Table 1.
Means and Standard Deviations of Basic Need Satisfaction and College Adjustment at Each Time Point.

Variable Time 1 Time 2 Time 3

Intervention Control Intervention Control Intervention Control

BNS 4.77(.70) 5.02(.48) 5.07(.54) 4.91(.48) 5.13(.43) 5.54(.53)

OA 4.71(.62) 4.96(.56) 4.98(.44) 4.86(.61) 5.02(.41) 5.46(.51)

AA 4.39(.60) 4.66(.73) 4.64(.67) 4.40(.72) 4.69(.57) 5.22(.60)

SA 4.89(.68) 5.12(.48) 5.20(.51) 5.19(.63) 5.28(.51) 5.70(.43)

PEA 4.59(.85) 4.79(.81) 4.85(.59) 4.70(1.03) 4.82(.67) 5.26(.75)

IA 5.02(.89) 5.45(.61) 5.41(.51) 5.41(.67) 5.41(.53) 5.74(.48)

Note. Means and standard deviations for basic need satisfaction and college adjustment at Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3. BNS = basic need satisfaction; OA = overall college adjustment; AA = academic adjustment; SA = social adjustment; PEA = personal-emotional adjustment; IA = institutional adjustment.

To examine whether needs satisfaction (BNS) is related to the adjustment to college, correlation analyses were conducted to examine the association between basic need satisfaction and adjustment scores at each time point. Largely consistent with our expectation, students with higher basic need satisfaction showed better overall adjustment score and sub-domains of adjustment, rs = .33–.69, ps < .05 at T1, rs = .42–.65, ps < .01 at T2 except basic need satisfaction was not significantly associated with personal-emotional adjustment (r = .23, p = .095), and rs = .65–.86, p < .001 at T3. Correlations of key variables were available at the OSF link.

Preliminary Analyses

Independent sample t-tests were conducted to examine whether there were any existing differences in the variable of interests between the intervention and control groups. Except for institutional adjustment (t (53) = −2.048, p = .046), other variables did not show significant differences between the two groups (ps > .112). The two groups did not differ in gender composition and age (ps > .354).

Intervention Evaluation

The student's average rating of the intervention effectiveness was 4.47 (SD .48). It was significantly different from the mid-point of the rating scale, t(54) = 22.74, p < .001. The results showed that the students agreed that their daily lives were inspired by the intervention and the intervention content could be applied to their daily lives. There was no significant difference in evaluation across the two groups, t(53) = −1.092, p = .28.

Effects of Intervention on Basic Needs and College Adjustment

To test the hypothesis that people who received the intervention would have significantly higher basic need satisfaction (H1) and adjustment to college (H2) than participants who were in the control group, repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to examine the T1 and T2 outcomes as a function of the time-by-condition interaction. The results indicated that there was no effect of time on needs satisfaction, F (1,53) = 3.26, p = .077, but there was an interaction of time with the condition, F (1,53) = 15.99, p < .001, partial η² = .23. Simple effects analysis showed that basic need satisfaction over time in the intervention group, F (1,26) = 11.63, p < .001, was significantly higher, but no significant difference was found for the control group, F (1,27) = 4.13, p = .052.

The overall adjustment level did not change significantly across the time points, F (1,53) = 2.07, p = .156, but an interaction of time with the condition was found, F (1,53) = 9.29, p = .004, partial η² = .15. The intervention group showed a significantly better adjustment after the intervention, F (1,26) = 9.61, p = .005, but the control group did not, F (1,27) = 1.36, p = .255. The basic need satisfaction and overall adjustment increased from T1 to T2 in the intervention group, compared to the control group.

Similar analyses were conducted for the four subscales of college adjustment. Results showed that academic adjustment and institutional adjustment both have significant change across time points as a function of condition, F (1,53) = 11.90, p = .001, partial η² = .18. and F (1,53) = 6.27, p = .005, partial η² = .14, respectively. Further simple effect analyses showed that participants in the intervention group experienced an increase in academic adjustment, F (1,26) = 6.37, p = .018, while participants in the control group experienced a decrease in F (1,27) = 5.71, p = .024. For institutional adjustment, simple effect analyses showed that participants in the intervention group experienced an increase of institutional adjustment, F (1,26) = 9.74, p = .004, while participants in the control group showed no change, F (1,27) = .22, p = .647. Social adjustment increased over time F (1,53) = 9.52, p = .003, partial η² = .152, but this change was not significantly different across groups, F (1,53) = 3.61, p = .063, partial η² = .06. Simple effect analysis showed that participants in the intervention group experienced a significant increase in social adjustment, F (1, 26) = 11.57, p = .002, while participants in the control group showed no change, F (1,27) = .757, p = .392. Personal-emotional adjustment did not change over time F (1,53) = .66, p = .419. Although the direction of the results was as expected, the time and group interaction did not reach the significant level, F (1,53) = 2.84, p = .098. Simple effect analysis did not yield a significant result.

Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine whether the participants in the control group also experienced changes in basic need satisfaction and adjustment across the three time points. Results showed that there were significant differences in basic need satisfaction between the timepoints, F (2,54) = 28.00, p < .001, partial η² = .51. Simple effects analyses after Bonferroni correction showed that T3 basic need satisfaction was significantly higher than T1 (p < .001) and T2 (p < .001). Participants in the control group experienced higher basic need satisfaction after the intervention comparing to their scores at T1 and T2. Similar results were also obtained for overall adjustment as there were significant differences across timepoints, F (2,54) = 23.56, p < .001, partial η² = .47. Simple effects analysis after Bonferroni correction showed that T3 overall adjustment was significantly higher than T1 (p < .001) and T2 (p < .001). Further analyses of the subscales of college adjustment showed that there were significant differences across timepoints, Fs (2,54) > 4.90, ps < .011, partial η² > .15. Simple effects analyses after Bonferroni correction showed that T3 adjustment scores were significantly higher than T1 (ps < .007) and T2 (ps < .001) for academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment, except for institutional adjustment. At T3, basic need satisfaction, academic and social adjustment scores were higher for the control group than the intervention group, t > −2.16, ps < .36.

Maintenance of Effects (H3)

27 participants in the intervention group who completed the intervention also completed the 5-week follow-up questionnaire. Paired sample t-tests were used to evaluate whether there were significant differences before (T2) and after the 5-week follow-up (T3). No significant change was found for basic need satisfaction, overall adjustment, and the four subscales of college adjustment five weeks after the intervention (ps > .312).

Discussion

The current project aimed to understand how to improve mainland Chinese international students’ adjustment to college. Results showed that the satisfaction of needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence would predict better academic, social, personal-emotional, and institutional adjustment. In addition, consistent with our hypotheses, first-year international students experienced higher basic need satisfaction and overall college adjustment after a brief psychological intervention that directs them to needs-satisfying experiences. We examined the delayed impact of the intervention in an exploratory manner and found that the impact of the intervention did not have a significant change five weeks after the intervention. The intervention required minimal training on counseling skills and knowledge of SDT from a counselor. Through the person-centered intervention, international students were able to utilize their own capabilities, strengths, and resources to satisfy their basic psychological needs. Overall, the current research confirms the utility of the basic need satisfaction intervention and its importance to international students’ college adjustment.

This study applied SDT to test the effects of a 5-week intervention on the adjustment of international students. The results are encouraging in that the intervention not only improved the adjustment level but also showed some signs of a lasting effect. The current research is one of the first few projects to systematically develop and test an intervention that is theoretical-based and focuses on the psychological needs of international students. Our study further explored how basic need satisfaction can impact different types of adjustment. Consistent with previous SDT research in educational settings (Cox et al., 2008; Véronneau et al., 2005), the current study supported that need satisfaction is positively related to the mental health of international students. Our findings also provided a theoretical contribution to the SDT literature by showing that need satisfaction is related to academic engagement, forming interpersonal relationships, identifying with the university, and integrating into the host culture, which are all important outcomes in higher education.

This study contributed to the emerging field of the development of basic need satisfaction intervention. The current study was informed by the intervention from Weinstein et al.'s (2016) study with Syrian refugees. Similarly, both studies have para-professionals who were familiar with SDT and had basic listening skills as counselors. Both interventions focused on directing participants to needs-satisfying experiences in their daily lives. The current intervention deviated from Weinstein et al.'s mainly in terms of the lower frequency of sessions and the longer time lag between sessions. Specifically, our intervention was five sessions and the counselor and client would meet weekly, while Weinstein et al.'s (2016) intervention was 7 sessions and the counselor and client would meet daily over a week. The current design has two advantages because of a lower frequency: it is more cost-effective and less time-consuming for both the counselors and participants. In addition, we speculate that with the longer time lag, participants might have more chances to integrate needs-satisfying activities throughout the week. Since the need deprivation for international students will be less urgent and severe compared to Syrian refugees, a less intensive intervention might be more suitable for the current study. Nonetheless, Weinstein et al.'s (2016) and the current research project showed that the study of basic need satisfaction intervention is a promising avenue. We encourage future research on need satisfaction intervention to examine how the frequency, duration, and time lag between sessions can affect the effectiveness of such an intervention for different populations.

The current results provided additional evidence on the importance of basic need satisfaction to human functioning in various cultures. Although previous research already identified the robust relationship between psychological needs and mental health in educational settings (Deci et al., 1981; Ryan & Grolnick, 1986), and across cultures (Chen et al., 2015; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013), little research has been devoted to designing and testing an intervention for need satisfaction, particularly in Asian culture or a traditionally collectivistic culture. Our results also demonstrated the importance of basic need satisfaction to first-year students’ adaptation to a new culture in the Chinese context, which further support the universality of the link between basic need satisfaction and well-being. Therefore, the current results could be relevant to education settings in other cultures.

The overall adjustment had shown improvement after the intervention program for both the intervention and control groups but the sub-domains of adjustment showed less consistent results. Namely, significant changes were detected for academic and social adjustment for both groups. Significant changes in personal-emotional and institutional adjustments appeared in either group although the direction of all results was in accordance with prediction. We believe one reason is that some adjustments might require more time, effort, and intervention to see significant changes. Past studies have shown that different students with different backgrounds might experience different adjustment problems and require different coping strategies (Ahmadi, 2016; Páramo et al., 2017). Future studies can look into the content of the discussion of the intervention sessions in order to further understand what are the specific difficulties that Chinese mainland students are facing in a new culture and whether certain needs or outcomes are harder to achieve through the current basic need satisfaction intervention. In addition, we could look into what kind of services or support they would seek outside of the intervention sessions to fully understand how to support the needs of the students.

There was an unexpected result when comparing basic need satisfaction, academic, and social adjustment at T3; participants in the control group displayed significantly higher scores than their counterparts in the intervention group. There are two possible factors that could explain these results. First, the counselors were more experienced in running the intervention when it was the turn of the participants in the control group. Therefore, those interventions might have been conducted more effectively. Second, the control group might have a slightly higher baseline to work with. Therefore, they also have a higher score at the end of the study. However, such differences should not affect our conclusion that the intervention would increase participants’ basic needs and adjustment.

Practical Implications

The current results support the increasing role of SDT in the application of counseling psychology (Lynch, 2010; Markland et al., 2005) and have practical implications for mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong. Psychoeducation can be provided for these students to get themselves familiar with the concept of basic psychological needs and SDT. Given the current results, they can learn that many adaptiveness problems or mental health issues in international education might be rooted in a need-frustration or a need-depriving environment. Therefore, when students experience adaptation problems, they can examine their levels of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Afterwards, they can explore ways to incorporate activities that can give them meaning and choices, engage them in meaningful relationships, or provide optimal challenges in their daily lives.

At the school level, the present study can provide new ideas on how to increase the adaptiveness of international students. Efforts to create a supportive environment that includes faculty, counselors, and students are critical (Arthur, 2017). The current intervention could be a helpful resource in counseling settings for campus mental health professionals. For colleges that have limited counseling services, this approach provides a low-cost and effective way to guide students to help themselves. The counseling office can also train student para-professionals to conduct such interventions as preventive measures to avoid overwhelming professional psychologists or clinicians. Outside of the counseling office, when designing students’ activities and classroom learning, faculty members and student leaders can consider how to enhance international students’ needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence in order to achieve better outcomes.

Limitations and Future Research

Despite the contribution of the current research, there are several limitations in this study that need to be acknowledged. First, the sample consisted only of mainland Chinese participants, which could limit the generalization of our study. However, Chinese students are one of the largest international student groups around the world (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2018) who makes the current results relevant and valuable across higher education in different countries/regions, where a high percentage of Chinese international students are admitted. Second, only self-reported positive outcomes were assessed. More indicators can be included in future studies, such as both negative and positive indicators using multi-methods such as physiological and neurological methods (Grawe, 2007). Finally, the follow-up assessment was conducted only 5 weeks after the end of the intervention. The maintenance of the effects needs to be tested with more time points and with a longer follow-up. Future studies could recruit students across different ethnic and cultural groups in other host cultures. Based on the universality of the three basic psychological needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000), we predict similar basic need satisfaction intervention programs might be applicable to other groups.

Closing Words

In recent years, higher education has witnessed an increase in international students, which brings a lot of benefits and challenges. Because of the difficulties in adapting to new environments, more cases of stress and depression among students who moved to a new country have been reported. Based on the significant improvement of international students’ adaptiveness indicated in the current research, we hope our research can instigate universities worldwide to consider basic psychological needs-oriented interventions for facilitating international students’ college adjustment.

Ethics Approval

Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of The Education University of Hong Kong. Informed consent was obtained from the participants prior to participation.

Variable	Time 1	Time 2	Time 3
BNS	4.77(.70)	5.02(.48)	5.07(.54)	4.91(.48)	5.13(.43)	5.54(.53)
OA	4.71(.62)	4.96(.56)	4.98(.44)	4.86(.61)	5.02(.41)	5.46(.51)
AA	4.39(.60)	4.66(.73)	4.64(.67)	4.40(.72)	4.69(.57)	5.22(.60)
SA	4.89(.68)	5.12(.48)	5.20(.51)	5.19(.63)	5.28(.51)	5.70(.43)
PEA	4.59(.85)	4.79(.81)	4.85(.59)	4.70(1.03)	4.82(.67)	5.26(.75)
IA	5.02(.89)	5.45(.61)	5.41(.51)	5.41(.67)	5.41(.53)	5.74(.48)

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The study got support from students learning grants FEHD/SLF17-18/07 of the Faculty of Education and Human Development of The Education University of Hong Kong. The preparation of this article was supported by Research Grant EDUHK 28611118 awarded to Wilbert Law by the Research Grant Council, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.

Availability of Data and Material

Yes, data and material are uploaded to Open Science Framework.

Code Availability

SPSS syntax for the analyses is uploaded to Open Science Framework.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee (Research Grant EDUHK 28611118) and The Faculty of Education and Human Development of The Education University of Hong Kong (FEHD/SLF17-18/07).

ORCID iD

Wilbert Law

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Variable	Time 1		Time 2		Time 3
Variable	Intervention	Control	Intervention	Control	Intervention	Control
BNS	4.77(.70)	5.02(.48)	5.07(.54)	4.91(.48)	5.13(.43)	5.54(.53)
OA	4.71(.62)	4.96(.56)	4.98(.44)	4.86(.61)	5.02(.41)	5.46(.51)
AA	4.39(.60)	4.66(.73)	4.64(.67)	4.40(.72)	4.69(.57)	5.22(.60)
SA	4.89(.68)	5.12(.48)	5.20(.51)	5.19(.63)	5.28(.51)	5.70(.43)
PEA	4.59(.85)	4.79(.81)	4.85(.59)	4.70(1.03)	4.82(.67)	5.26(.75)
IA	5.02(.89)	5.45(.61)	5.41(.51)	5.41(.67)	5.41(.53)	5.74(.48)