Academic Adaptation of International Students in Lithuanian Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

he global mobility of people and globalization contribute to a more intensive migration of international students in pursuit of learning in a foreign country. Since the number of international students continues to grow worldwide, it is critical to develop an understanding of their adaptation issues. One of the major concerns of international students is their adaptation to the reality and specifics of a new host society. Hence, the focus of the present article is to analyse international students’ academic adaptation issues in the Lithuanian system of higher education, highlighting the potential challenges and opportunities as viewed by full-time international students. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with ten international students, who assumed full-time studies in one of the Lithuanian universities. A thematic analysis was employed for data analysis, which yielded two major themes: concerns expressed by international students regarding their academic adaptation to the Lithuanian system of higher education, and barriers that they encountered in the process of their adaptation at university. The first theme was concretized in the following sub-themes: academic threats and bureaucratic restrictions that the interviewees had to encounter during the process of their adjustment process, whereas the second theme was exemplified by three sub-themes, namely assimilation into the study process, linguistic adaptation to the study process, and interaction with people in the academic environment.