Identified needs of international students in a Philippine university: Bases for the development of a multicultural guidance manual
Background: The University of Perpetual Help System DALTA (UPHSD), Las Pinas campus needs to identify and address the needs of their many enrolled international students.
Purpose: Provide quality guidance services to UPHSD international students through a comprehensive, customized guidance program.
Participants: A random sample of 398 UPHSD international undergraduate students from Asia, Africa, Australia, and North America answered a questionnaire. Of these, 20 were purposively selected and given a group interview.
Research design: Mixed methods research design
Data collection and analysis: The questionnaire was a researcher-made instrument on the identified needs of UPHSD international students. Its validity was computed through the reliability coefficient and Cronbach’s alpha test. The analysis and interpretation of socio-demographic data utilized frequencies, percentages, weighted means, and ranking. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for significant differences in the needs of the various nationalities. The Tukey honestly significant difference method was used in conjunction with ANOVA (post-hoc analysis) to find which of these nationalities were significantly different from each other.
Findings: Personal needs (improvement of personality, maintaining good health, and work after graduation) ranked first. There is a significant difference between the needs of the African and the Asian groups in terms of family, academic support, coping mechanism, and social support needs. Africans and Australians with North Americans significantly differ in their academic support, coping mechanism, and social support needs. A significant difference exists between the family, academic, coping mechanism, and social support needs of the Asian and the Australian with North American groups. Asians, Africans, and Australians with North Americans significantly differ in their needs in terms of family, academic, academic support, coping mechanism, and social support needs. The group interview revealed the following themes: perceived quality education in UPHSD, equality in learning, career development, self-worth development, social support, and discrimination.
Conclusions and recommendation: The results of this study will be used in the development of a custom-made multicultural guidance manual that contains substantial programs that will address the academic needs, career needs, personal and social needs, and responsive services needs of international students. There should be a follow-up study to measure the effectiveness of the guidance curriculum.
Authors: Merle C. Torres
Keywords: multicultural guidance manual, guidance services, international students’ needs