Annotated Bibliography and Reflection

International Students' Proactive Behaviors in the United States: Effects of Information- Seeking Behaviors on School Life

Cho, Jaehee ;  Lee, Seungjo . Journal of College Student Development ; Baltimore  Vol. 57, Iss. 5,   (Jul 2016): 590-603.

Considering the continuous increase of international students, the main goal of this study was to examine how international students' proactive behaviors, particularly information-seeking behaviors, would impact key emotional outcomes including communication satisfaction with instructors and school-life satisfaction. For this investigation, we developed and tested a systematic model composed of those key factors. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) supported most of the proposed hypotheses, It was particularly notable that the inquiry of information as a proactive form of communication was positively related to international students' communication satisfaction with instructors, which ultimately predicts school satisfaction.

As society has become more globalized, the portion of international students in the United States has gradually increased (Campbell, 2012; Glass, 2012). The Institute of International Education (2012a) has reported the steady increase of international graduate students in the United States in 2012. Particularly, compared to 2011, there was the notable increase of undergraduate international students (18.5% increase of freshmen and 12.5% increase of seniors). Considering this significant portion of international students, scholars in various academic disciplines have come to study the diverse issues relevant to this population of students, such as cultural adjustment (Andrade, 2006; Ye, 2006), intercultural friendship (Gareis, Merkin, & Goldman, 2011), and social support (Mortenson, 2006; Ye, 2006).

These studies have often shown the various obstacles that hinder international students' successful acculturation as well as their enjoyment of satisfactory life in the host countries; those barriers are of linguistic, social, political, and cultural nature. It needs to be considered that these obstacles often come from various uncertainties. As Gudykunst (2005) argued, international students are sojourners who are strangers in a host society. Thus, international students as sojourners often have a lack of knowledge about how to behave in appropriate ways in a host society. For instance, at the beginning stage of settlement, international students often experience cultural shock because they have limited knowledge of a host society's main culture (Martin & Nakayama, 2010).

According to uncertainty reduction theory (URT), individuals tend to actively seek more information in order to overcome given uncertainties (Bradac, 2001; Kramer, 1993, 1999). Thus, it is quite understandable that international students actively seek information from diverse resources (e.g., instructors, friends). Moreover, previous studies have provided much evidence supporting positive roles of information-seeking behaviors in various settings (Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 2002). For example, informationseeking behaviors significantly and positively influence role clarity, finally increasing job performance (VandeWalle, 2003; Whitaker, Dahling, & Levy, 2007). Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that proactive behaviors of actively seeking information should improve international students' school lives.

Nevertheless, we have limited knowledge of communicative behaviors (Urban & Orbe, 2007) and little understanding of specific roles of information-seeking behaviors among international students' lives. Thus, mainly relying on the theory of motivated information management (TMIM; Afifi & Weiner, 2004), this study aimed to develop and empirically test a systematic model that explains how international students' proactive behaviors of seeking course-related information mainly from instructors would impact their communication satisfaction with instructors and ultimately school-life satisfaction.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Theory of Motivated Information Management and InformationSeeking Behaviors

To comprehend information-seeking behaviors, TMIM (Afifi & Weiner 2004) is very helpful. The main theoretical frame of this theory relies primarily on Brashers's uncertainty management theory (UM; 2001). Brashers (2001), Brashers, Goldsmith, and Hsieh (2002), and Brashers et al. (2000) argued the value of uncertainty and ways of managing uncertainty, rather than the traditional view of uncertainty as a negative product of complex and ambiguous alternative predictions that needs to be reduced. However, uncertainty per se is not necessarily negative. Rather, the value of uncertainty varies and is determined by different individual and contingent factors. The authors further suggested that it is necessary to address questions about "(a) the variability in uncertainty experiences and meanings, (b) the functions of appraisal and emotion in uncertainty management, and (c) the range of behavioral and psychological responses to uncertainty" (Brashers et al., 2000, p. 478). Based on this theory, it is very possible that an actor intentionally keeps oneself uncertain, not actively reducing uncertainty. For example, a study of patients with HIV/AIDS (Brashers et al., 2000) showed that patients maintain passive attitudes toward reducing uncertainty in order to keep themselves more optimistic. UM theory places emphasis on the necessity to "manage" rather than simply "reduce" uncertainty.

Following UM theory, Afifi and Weiner (2004) asserted the behaviors of managing information even in uncertain and ambiguous situations. Afifi and Weiner's TMIM is composed of three phases: interpretation, evaluation, and decision. In the interpretation phase, people try to understand the extent of uncertainties in a given situation. That is, people compare the information that they currently have to the information that is necessary for predicting potential future outcomes. Any information discrepancies from this integral comparison trigger people to evaluate potential outcomes from seeking further information. In this phase, people evaluate whether they have enough ability to seek further information and whether potential outcomes would be positive. Then, in the final phase, based on the evaluation results, people make a final decision to seek or avoid relevant information. Moreover, corresponding to potential outcomes, people also select appropriate modes through which they seek further information. This process of selecting suitable modes of seeking information depends highly on given contexts.

In regards to modes of informationseeking behaviors, most previous studies have mostly based their investigations on two types of information-seeking behaviors: inquiry and monitoring (Ashford, 1986; Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 2002). Inquiry is considered to be a more active behavior of seeking information, while monitoring is regarded to be less active. An actor directly asking information-sources to provide necessary information is a form of inquiry behavior. In the case of monitoring, an information-seeker makes observations about the conversational and contextual information of a given situation.

The selection of one of these two different information-seeking modes is determined mainly by the social cost of seeking further information (Morrison, Chen, & Salgado, 2004). When information-seekers expect to incur higher costs from directly inquiring information, they tend to choose less active modes of seeking information. For example, veteran workers often hesitate to inquire directly about job-related information from their supervisors (Miller & Jablin, 1991). This is mainly because the inquiry of information may damage their public images as experienced workers, possibly resulting in negative evaluations from their supervisors regarding their job performance. This potential cognitive damage can be understood as a high social cost.

In regards to international students' information-seeking behaviors, their limited linguistic skills will be significantly relevant to social cost. That is, international students who have limited linguistic skills often experience loss of face when they engage in direct communication with native speakers (Holmes, 2005). Furthermore, in regards to communication with instructors, international students are often afraid that even their wellmeaning intentions may be misunderstood because of their limited English skills. This is primarily because such misunderstandings will negatively impact their public image, possibly leading to instructors' underestimation of these students' true academic qualities. Based on this claim regarding hesitation of direct communication with instructors, the following hypothesis was formulated:

Hypothesis 1: International students will prefer monitoring to inquiry of courserelated information from instructors.

Furthermore, when researchers study international students, we need to consider that these students have unique cultural backgrounds. In other words, although international students share many common experiences in terms of personal, social, and school lives, their experiences tend to be bounded by their cultural backgrounds. In particular, when international students are of significantly different cultures from the host culture, they are more likely to feel difficulty in terms of cultural adjustment. This can be explained through the concepts of cultural distance (Kogut & Singh, 1988) and cultural proximity (Straubhaar, 1991), signifying distance and closeness between two different cultures, respectively. In regards to cultural distance, it is understandable that, for people who immigrate to a country characterized by a culture similar to their own (e.g., Canadian students in the US), cultural adjustment will be much easier compared to the cultural adjustment for people immigrating from a country of a distinctly different culture (e.g., Chinese students in the US). Considering the unique cultural backgrounds of international students, we explored the cultural variations in information-seeking patterns. For this exploration of cultural variations, the methodological approach of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used, because HLM is a useful statistical tool for detecting the potential effects of collectivelevel factors, such as groups, organizations, and countries (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002).

Research Question 1: How will information-seeking behaviors be influenced by international students' cultural backgrounds?

Communication Satisfaction, School-Life Satisfaction

According to information-seeking models (Morrison, 2002), information-seeking behaviors significantly influence various cognitive and emotional outcomes such as role clarity (Whitaker et al., 2007) and job satisfaction (Anseel, Lievens, & Levy, 2007). Particularly, the provision of sufficient and clear information significantly contributes to communication satisfaction (Gray & Laidlaw, 2004). According to Redding (1977), communication satisfaction can be conceptualized as "overall degree of satisfaction [a person] perceived in his total communication environment" (p. 429). Moreover, one of the axioms of uncertainty reduction theory is that, as uncertainties are reduced, people feel higher communication satisfaction (Berger & Calabrese, 1975). This implies that information-seeking behaviors are positively related to communication satisfaction. In classroom settings, a significant portion of communication satisfaction is largely dependent on students' active interactions with instructors. Thus, it is reasonable that an increase of student-instructor interactions through information-seeking behaviors will positively influence international students' communication satisfaction with American instructors. Thus, the following hypothesis could be established:

Hypothesis 2: Information-seeking behaviors will positively predict international students' communication satisfaction with American instructors.

Moreover, according to media naturalness theory, individuals have a preference toward more natural modes of communication (Kock, 2005). Thus, compared to communication through written documents, people are more likely to feel satisfaction from face-to-face communication. Although this theory is mainly used for understanding adoption of certain media, the basic assumption of naturalness is still important for examining modes of seeking information. In other words, considering that communication is fundamentally a two-way interaction, inquiry of information through mutual interactions will be more natural than monitoring of information. This is because while inquiry takes place through actual interactions between an information-giver and seeker, monitoring is solely reliant on an information-seeker's collection of contextual information without mutual interactions. This implies that communication satisfaction with instructors should be more closely related to direct modes of communication than indirect observation of instructors' behaviors. Thus, the following hypothesis could be established:

Hypothesis 3: The effect of inquiry of information on communication satisfaction will be stronger than the effect of monitoring of information on communication satisfaction.

Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that communication satisfaction is a considerable emotional outcome from information-seeking behaviors. Moreover, to more thoroughly scrutinize the effects of those proactive behaviors, it is necessary to examine potential ultimate psychological outcomes from communication satisfaction. Because inter- national students experience various barriers that interfere with their school lives, scholars have often focused on those students' satisfaction with school lives (Cetinkaya-Yildiz, Cakir, & Kondakci, 2011; Sam, 2001) as well as stress (Misra & Castillo, 2004; Wan, Chapman, & Biggs, 1992). Students' satisfaction with schools plays a crucial role in creating positive outcomes such as academic success (Samdal, Wold, & Bronis, 1999). Furthermore, students' school satisfaction is closely associated with their perceptions of support originated from active interactions with school members, especially teachers (Danielsen, Samdal, Hetland, & Wold, 2009). This implies the necessity to scrutinize specific functions of communication satisfaction with instructors for improving international students' school-life satisfaction.

Thus, this study aimed at examining the potential effect of communication satisfaction on an ultimate psychological outcome: school-life satisfaction. It is quite clear that a satisfactory communication with a target is likely to improve a communicator's general life satisfaction (Bindah & Othman, 2012). In addition, international students experience much difficulty in developing personal relationships with instructors (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Thus, when international students feel more satisfaction with communicating with their instructors, they may ultimately experience significant heightening of their school-life satisfaction. Thus, regarding the close relationships between communication satisfaction and life satisf action, the following hypothesis was established:

Hypothesis 4: Communication satisfaction with instructors will positively affect international students' school-life satisfaction.

METHOD

Participants and Procedure

In order to test the multiple hypotheses, international students from a large public university located in North Carolina were invited to complete an online survey. This online survey was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the university with which the primary investigator was affiliated. Survey invitations were distributed to international students through the university's International Office. At the time of data collection, 984 international students were registered, and the survey invitation letter was sent to all of them. The students were informed that their participation in the online survey was completely voluntary. A total of 131 international students completed the survey, a response rate of 13.3%. After removal of surveys with missing data, a total of 119 surveys remained for analyses. Among the participants, 57.1% were male, and 42.9% female. The majority of participants were graduate students (76.5%). The average age was 27.8 years. The participants came from 33 countries; among those countries, the two dominant countries were China (28.3%) and India (23.0%). This nationality composition was similar to that found in a 2012 report from the Institute of International Education (2012b), implying that this study's sample reached an acceptable level of representativeness. The average length of residence in the US was 3.12 years.

Instrumentation

Information-Seeking Behaviors. This study examined two different modes of informationseeking behaviors-inquiry and monitoring. The items used to measure these two modes were measured through a revised version of Callister, Kramer, and Turban's (1999) feedback-seeking scale. In order to measure inquiry of information from instructors, the study considered face-to-face communication and e-mail as the two major channels used for instructor-student communication. This was because a pilot study for this main study showed that other forms of communication channels-phone calls, text messaging, instant messaging, and memos-were minimally used for seeking course-related information. Finally, incorporating the two different channels with the two different modes of seeking information, the following items were created: (a) directly asking your instructors during the classes, (b) directly asking your instructors right before/after the classes, (c) visiting and directly asking your instructors during their office hours, and (d) directly asking your instructors through e-mail. Monitoring of information from instructors was also measured through two items from Ashford's (1986) feedback-seeking behaviors. The following items were used: (a) paying attention to instructor's responses to other students' questions, and (b) observing how my instructor reacts to other students' behaviors.

The following prompt was given in order for the participants to respond to those items for inquiry and monitoring: "Before answering the following questions, please recall your communication activities for 2-3 typical courses that you are now taking. To more clearly understand and better perform class assignments (e.g., individual term papers, team papers) and exams, how frequently, in general, have you done each of the following?" The reliability scores for the two measurements were acceptable: inquiry (M = 3.47, SD = .86, α = .76) and monitoring (M = 4.06, SD = .84, α = .79).

Communication Satisfaction. Four items from Downs's (1988) Communication Audit were used to measure international students' general communication satisfaction with instructors. Those items were: (a) I am generally satisfied with my communication encounters with faculty/instructors; (b) I enjoy my interactions with faculty/instructors; (c) I feel good about my conversations with faculty/ instructors; and (d) I am generally pleased with my interactions with faculty/instructors. The reliability test showed an acceptable reliability score (M = 4.03, SD = .75, α = .90).

School-Life Satisfaction. To measure school-life satisfaction, this study reworded three items from the scale of satisfaction with work devised by Scott et al. (1999). The following items were used to measure school-life satisfaction: (a) My current school life at [name of university] gives me a sense of accomplishment; (b) My current school life at [name of university] is fascinating; and (c) I am satisfied with my current school life at [name of university]. The reliability for this measurement was acceptable (M = 3.51, SD = .88, α = .90).

Control Variables . To detect the true effects of the main predictors, this study controlled for the effects of the following variables. First, considering the fact that two of the most influential factors for international students' success in the US are English speaking and listening abilities (Sawir, Marginson, ForbesMewett, Nyland, & Ramia, 2012), this study controlled for the effects of English language skills. To measure English skills, we used two items: one to measure for speaking and the other for listening. Participants were asked to rate both their English speaking and listening abilities, individually, on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). Compared to more objective, standardized scores, such as those for TOEFL, this subjective rating is more suitable for understanding the cognitive and behavioral relationships among information-seeking behaviors and emotional outcomes. For example, it is highly plausible that an international student who has a low TOEFL score may perceive his/her English skills to be of high quality and actively interacts with native English speakers. Therefore, a composite measurement based on a subjective evaluation of English skills was created by averaging the two scores for speaking and listening. The measurement gained an acceptable reliability score (M = 3.94, SD = .83, α = .80). In addition to English skills, because communication activities are deeply related to the length of residence in the host society and the length of registration with the host university, the effects of these two variables on the main study variables were also controlled. Lastly, compared to undergraduate students, graduate students are likely to have more opportunities to personally and closely communicate with faculty members. Therefore, academic status was also included in the model as a control variable.

RESULTS

Hypotheses Tests

Hypothesis 1 posited that international students would more likely monitor than inquire information from instructors. To test this hypothesis, a paired samples t test was conducted. The result showed that Hypothesis 1 was fully supported (t = 5.54, p < .001), indicating that international students preferred monitoring (M = 3.96) to inquiry (M = 3.30) of information from instructors.

The remaining hypotheses were focused on the direct effects of information-seeking behaviors on communication satisfaction (Hypothesis 2) that affects school-life satisfaction (Hypothesis 4). As Lee and Lim (2007) argue, structural equation modeling allows researchers to simultaneously test multiple linear effects in a systematic manner. Thus, this study tested a structural equation model composed of all main study variables. Following the guidelines from Hu and Bentler (1999), we examined the absolute (RMSEA) as well as comparative (CFI, IFI) goodness of fit for the path model. For this SEM, the effects of four variables-length of residence in the US, length of registration with the university, academic degree (dummy coded: 1 = undergraduate students, 0 = graduate students), and English skills-were controlled for by adding them into the model. Particularly, the relationships between the four control variables and information-seeking behaviors were controlled for by creating links among them.

The results showed acceptable goodness of fit scores, χ2(df = 103) = 175.4, CFI = .92, IFI = .93 RMSEA = .08. The model indicated a significant direct effect of inquiry of information (standardized β = .38, p = .001) and a nonsignificant effect of monitoring of information (standardized = .17, p = .09) on communication satisfaction, partially supporting Hypothesis 2. The addition of these two independent variables into the regression equation significantly explained the variance of communication satisfaction with instructors (R 2 = .21). Moreover, as hypothesized, the standardized regression weight for inquiry was slightly larger than that for monitoring, supporting Hypothesis 3. For this comparison, standardized regression coefficients were used because these statistical indicators are more adequate for comparing two variables (Leohlin, 2004). Furthermore, the results also showed a strong and positive effect of communication satisfaction on school-life satisfaction (standardized β = .48, p < .001, R 2 = .24), supporting Hypothesis 4. In addition to those direct effects, as Table 2 shows, the SEM results indicated a considerable indirect effect of inquiry on school satisfaction (standardized β = .18)

Guided by Research Question 1, we explored how information-seeking behaviors would be influenced by cultural backgrounds. In order to explore RQ1, we checked for multilevel variations in the two modes of informat ionseeking behaviors. More specifically, using HLM, we tested the invariance in each of the two variables across the samples by country of origin. The test checked how significantly the variance in each level 1 variable would be explained by level 2 factors. Corresponding to the two main level 1 variables-two modes of informationseeking behaviors-two HLM analyses were conducted. The HLM results showed that the intraclass correlations for both inquiry (intraclass correlation = .017) and monitoring (intraclass correlation = .026) were too low to examine the effects of level 2 variables and that none of the level 1 variables was significantly explained by group effects (see Table 3). This implies that, in spite of unique cultural backgrounds, international students showed similar patterns of information-seeking behaviors.

DISCUSSION

Considering the continuous increase of international students, the main goal of this study was to investigate how international students' information-seeking behaviors directly and indirectly impacted communication satisfact ion with instructors and school-life satisfaction. For this investigation, we developed a systematic model mainly regarding communication satisfaction as a mediating factor. This study analyzed data from international students from 33 different countries mainly through structural equation modeling (SEM). Statistical results supported most of the proposed hypotheses and presented meaningful findings.

First, mainly based on TMIM (Afifi & Weiner, 2004), this study hypothesized international students' preference of monitoring to inquiring information from instructors. The result of a paired-samples t test fully supported this hypothesis. This may not be just because of limited English speaking and listening abilities but because of differences in power distance. Interestingly, a significant portion of research participants were from countries of relatively higher power distance cultures (e.g., China, India, Middle-Eastern countries). As Hofstede (2001) presented, power distance indicates the extent to which individuals accept unbalanced power relationships. In high power distance cultures, people tend to accept strong hierarchy and obey their superiors' orders. Moreover, people are likely to save face in order to protect their own reputation (Morrison et al., 2004). To save their own faces, people from high power distance cultures tend to prefer passive modes of seeking information than directly inquiring for necessary information. Moreover, in educational contexts, students from high power distance cultures are more likely to be silent, giving more value to listening (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Thus, this particular finding may be explained not only by limited language skills but also by cultural backgrounds.

Next, the SEM results confirmed that information-seeking behaviors positively and significantly affected communication satisfaction. An interesting finding was the larger effect of inquiry of information on communication satisfaction than that of monitoring of information. This finding can be explained from two different aspects. First, as elaborated above, because direct and two-way communication can be perceived to be more natural, inquiry of communication through direct interactions might have a larger effect than monitoring of information. Media naturalness theory is useful for explaining this finding. Next, as Park, Lee, Yun, and Kim (2009) argued, the violation of international students' initial expectancy about communication with instructors might positively affect their communication satisfaction. Based on findings of previous studies regarding teacher-student relationships, in their home countries, international students-especially from high power distance cultures, such as Far East Asian countries-often experience uneasiness in speaking with their instructors (Myers, Zhong, & Guan, 1998; Park et al., 2009). Therefore, it is very plausible that those students might have expected communicative distance from their instructors. However, American instructors often tend to have high immediacy-low social distance-and active communication with their students (Myers et al., 1998; Neuliep, 1997; Park et al., 2009; Roach & Byrne, 2001). This means that international students might have experienced a violation of their initial expectation towards instructorstudent relationships in positive ways. Based on expectancy violation theory (Burgoon & Le Poire, 1993), this positively violated expectation would predict high communication satisfaction for international students.

Third, mainly based on the concept of cultural distance and cultural proximity, this study explored how international students' information-seeking behaviors are bounded by their cultural backgrounds. However, HLM results showed that there was no significant variance in either of two modes of information-seeking behaviors across the different countries. To explain this finding, it is useful to take into account the countries that send international students. According to the Institute of International Education (2012b), the top three places of origin for international students in 2012 were China (25.4%), India (13.1%), and South Korea (9.5%). Interestingly, among the top 25 places of origin for international students, the portion of students from either European countries (including Germany, UK, France, and Spain) or English-speaking countries (including Canada) was only 7.6%. This implies that a large portion of international students in the US come from countries with generally high cultural distance and low cultural proximity. The same pattern was found in this study, showing that only about 4.0% of the sample for this study came from European countries. Thus, because of the dominance of international students from relatively higher cultural distance, the effects of cultural backgrounds on individual-level informationseeking patterns would be diminished.

Lastly, this study found that while English skills did not significantly moderate the effects of information-seeking behaviors on communication satisfaction with instructors, it slightly significantly moderated the influence of communication satisfaction on school-life satisfaction. First, the former result indicates that regardless of English skills, internationals students' proactive behaviors positively influenced communication satisfaction with instructors. Through such proactive behaviors, international students may be able to more actively cope with the given situations, maintaining positive, optimistic, and active attitudes (Holmes, 2005; Lipson, 2008). This finding reconfirms the significance of proactive behaviors for improving personal emotional outcomes (Miller & Jablin, 1991).

Although communication satisfaction with instructors generally increased international students' school-life satisfaction, its effect was moderated by English skills in a unique way. This finding contributes to widening our knowledge about roles of international students' communication. Although many scholars have intensively investigated wide ranges of issues regarding international students' communication, we still know little about the micromechanisms of how international students' proactive communicative behaviors influence their school-life satisfaction. Indeed, there exist very diverse factors (e.g., limited social networks, cultural distance, limited friendship) that influence international students' school- life satisfaction. However, as findings from this study show, communication-oriented factors play critical roles of ultimately determining school-life satisfaction. Therefore, this study provides scholars with the opportunity to more thoroughly analyze various issues related to international students.

Practical Implications for Academic Practitioners

The findings of this study address the importance of international students' proactive behaviors of seeking information from instructors for improving the affective outcomes of communication satisfaction and, finally, school-life satisfaction. In spite of abundant research on the intimate relationships between international students and instructors, there has been little research on the specific forms of information-seeking behaviors between the two groups of people. Because of this lack of research, host universities have paid even less attention to the communicative activities between international students and instructors, compared to international students' communication with domestic students. Accordingly, we can find various university programs that support international students' relationships with domestic students. Those programs include buddy programs, international tea time, international festivals, and so forth. These programs increase domestic students' opportunities of exposure to other cultures, encouraging multicultural communication.

Likewise, based on the main findings from this research, it is recommended that host universities develop programs that can strengthen personal connections between faculty members and international students. These programs will be helpful for attenuating the communicative barriers between the students and instructors. A further recommendation is to organize departmental advisory committees that are committed to the well-being of international students. These specialized committees, unlike other general academic advisory committees, need to invest their resources toward improving their cultural understanding of international students through regular, open communication with the students. In addition, the main findings from this research need to be reflected in the organization of university orientations for international students. That is, during orientations, international students will benefit by learning about the importance of proactively communicating with their instructors in leading successful lives in the host university. Typically, these orientations are information-oriented; they primarily provide international students with critical information concerning their academic lives, including financial information (e.g., teaching assistantships), visa information, and so on. Due to the information-oriented characteristics of orientations, international students are limited in opportunities to hear the real voices of domestic instructors. Therefore, it will be effective to develop and strengthen sessions that allow faculty members to directly interact with international students.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Although this study holds significant theoretical implications, it does have the following limitations. First, as Morrison (2002) addressed, there exist diverse sources of information. In organizational settings, those sources are supervisors, colleagues, third parties, as well as documents (e.g., organizational handbook). In educational settings, sources of information for international students are instructors, other students, and online/off-line documents from the university. Although this study focused solely on instructors as the main source of information, it is recommended that future studies further analyze international students' use of other sources for seeking academic information. In particular, future research is strongly recommended to thoroughly investigate the roles of co-ethnic groups among international students for seeking various types of information, such as educational, social, cultural information.

Next, the relationships between information-seeking behaviors and communication satisfaction might have possibly been influenced by the synchronicity of communication. Previous studies (e.g., Carlson & George, 2004) have confirmed the effects of media synchronicity on various communication variables (e.g., information overload). However, because this study focused more on modes of seeking information, it did not differentiate among the communication channels' effects on information-seeking behaviors and communication satisfaction. Rather, it aggregated different channels into one factor. For future research, it is strongly recommended to further investigate how different communication channels in regards to synchronicity will affect students' behaviors and attitudes of seeking information.

A third point to consider is that this study collected survey data from a single university. Although the sample well represented the actual portion of international students in the university, the findings from this study were limited to that particular context. In other words, the educational environments that shape international students' experience vary from one university to another. For example, universities located in California (e.g., Los Angeles, San Diego) have larger numbers of international students and may have more open policies in regards to that population compared to universities in traditionally more conservative states such as Mississippi, Kentucky, or Oklahoma. Moreover, as Martin and Nakayama (2010) argue, intercultural communication is challenged by limited exposure to international interactions. That is, people in small cities have far fewer opportunities to engage in international and intercultural interactions compared to those in large cities (e.g., New York, Chicago). This implies that there is geographical variation among international students. Therefore, future research needs to consider such contextual factors that may influence the general attitudes toward international students.

Fourth, future research needs to pay more attention to the cultural variations of communication types and norms, especially related to communication satisfaction. Corresponding to cultural norms, people show different patterns of feeling comfort while communicating with others (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). For example, while Western countries (e.g., USA, UK, France) mainly emphasize speaking, Eastern countries (e.g., Korea, Japan, China) give more value to silence and listening. Thus, it is well known that, unlike Western countries' emphasis on interactions between instructors and students, Eastern countries mainly depend on instructors' one-way transition of knowledge to students. Thus, for future research, it will be valuable to scrutinize how such culturally bounded communicative norms and styles would impact international students' communication satisfaction with instructors.

Lastly, it is recommended that future research scrutinize the moderating effects of academic majors of international students on information-seeking behaviors. According to the Institute of International Education (2012c), compared to other academic fields, such as the humanities (2.1%) and education (2.2%), engineering (18.5%) and business and management (21.8%) have notably larger numbers of international students. This implies that, corresponding to academic fields, international students may have different experiences in regards to cultural adjustment, communicative challenges, educational performances, and so forth. For instance, in general, Chinese students in communication studies may experience more challenges in their school lives, compared to Chinese engineering students who work with many other Chinese students in their department. This is mainly because the faculty and staff of engineering departments can be more familiar with working with Chinese students and because new Chinese students have more resources by which to obtain crucial information for their school lives. Thus, future research needs to analyze the unique patterns of international students' information-seeking behaviors, corresponding to their academic majors.

CONCLUSION

Students' communicative behaviors have received much attention by scholars in various academic areas including, but not limited to, education, communication, and psychology. Nevertheless, there have been a limited number of studies that have investigated students' proactive behaviors of actively seeking information. Especially in regards to international students, there has been little research scrutinizing such proactive behaviors, even though these behaviors must play critical roles in determining their school-life satisfaction. Calling attention to this understudied topic, this study was able to highlight the significant roles of information-seeking behaviors for improving communication satisfaction, and ultimately school-life satisfaction. Those findings make significant theoretical contributions to the literature of international students' communicative behaviors and their emotional outcomes.

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AuthorAffiliation

Jaehee Cho is Assistant Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Chung-Ang University, Korea. Seungjo Lee is Associate Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Chung-Ang University, Korea.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Seungjo Lee, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-Ro, Faculty Office Building #711, DongjakGu, Seoul, Korea; [email protected]

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Copyright Johns Hopkins University Press Jul 2016