Experiences of Chinese Students in Russian Higher Education Institutions with High Chinese Enrollment

The survey was distributed in Chinese. The beginning of it included an introduction section followed by data processing agreement where the willing participants could indicate if they agree that the data is going to be processed in accordance with the Federal Law № 152-FZ “On Personal Data” from 27.07.2006. The content of the survey included 3 parts: qualitative open questions, followed by quantitative surveys, and at the end participants needed to report their demographics. They could choose not to reply to any of the scientific questions, but the demographics data was obligatory to report if the participants wanted to submit their answers. They were free to quit at any time. The qualitative part was created by the first author and discussed with her supervisor at that time. The list of questions included the following: Q1: Please think and describe the difficulties and problems of studying at a Russian university. Q2: Please list what problems that were particularly difficult for you to cope with in the first six months of studying at a Russian university. Q3: Please think and write what helps you cope with these difficulties. Q4: Who helps you overcome difficulties (your classmates, teachers, dorm friends, etc.)? Please list. Q5: What advice could you give to a student just planning to come to study in Russia? Q6: What do you think would especially help him? Q7: Who could help him? In this study, we used replies to questions Q1, Q2 and Q3. A more detailed description of some validated scales’ psychometric properties can be found in the published Supplements in (Muzychenko & Morozova, 2025). In this study, the scales (excluding education satisfaction and cross-cultural adjustment) weren’t focal, thus, we didn’t use CFA and rather computed average scores to give a brief idea about possible differences in personality quality between the clusters. To measure the level of cross-cultural adaptation (CCA) in this study, we used the Sociocultural Adaptation Scale developed by J. Black and G. Stephens (Black & Stephens, 1989) and adapted by (Ang et al., 2007). Respondents were asked to express their level of agreement with statements using a 7-point Likert scale. Students were not time-restricted when completing the scale; they were asked to review each item and select the response that best matched their self-perception. The items on the scale were as follows: "How well have you adjusted to your current situation in term of socializing with people?", "How well have you adjusted to interacting with people on day-to-day basis?", "How well have you adjusted to getting along with people?" (1 – unadjusted, 7 – adjusted). In this study, we used this scale in Chinese, which was translated by a native speaker using back-translation procedures. To measure psychological adaptation, this study assessed education satisfaction (EdS) as an aspect of psychological well-being related to the primary activity at the host location. The study utilized a scale adapted from the Job Satisfaction Survey by J. Hackman and G. Oldham (Hackman & Oldham, 1976), where respondents indicated their level of agreement with statements on a 5-point Likert scale. In this study, the scale was translated into Chinese using back-translation procedures by a native speaker: the original items were rephrased to pertain to the current academic setting abroad rather than to work (e.g., " Generally speaking, I am very satisfied with my assignment."). Students were not time-restricted when completing the scale; they were asked to review each item and select the response that best matched their self-perception. The items on the scale were as follows: " Generally speaking, I am very satisfied with my assignment", " I frequently think of quitting my assignment.", " I am generally satisfied with the kinds of work I am doing." (1 – strongly disagree, 5 – strongly agree). To measure perceived stress during the last month, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) (Cohen & Williamson, 1988) was used. Chinese version, or Chinese Perceived Stress Scale, CPSS - 10 (新华书店北美网, 2017) was utilized. It includes 4 questions about self-efficacy and 6 about helplessness. To measure emotional stability (ES), the author utilized the IPIP-50 scale (Goldberg, 1992), where respondents rated their agreement with statements on a 5-point Likert scale. This instrument was adapted into Chinese by R.-H. Li and Y.-C. Chen (Goldberg, 1992). Students were not time-restricted when completing the scale; they were asked to review each item and select the response that most accurately reflected their self-perception. The statements in the scale were as follows: “I have frequent mood swings”, “I change my mood a lot”, “I worry about things”, “I often feel blue”, “I seldom feel blue”, “I am easily disturbed”, “I get irritated easily”, “I get upset easily”, “I get stressed out easily”, “I am relaxed most of the time” (1 - strongly disagree, 5 - strongly agree). To measure sense of coherence (SOC), this study utilized the validated scale developed by A. Antonovsky (Antonovsky, 1993), consisting of 13 items (responses rated from 1 to 7 on a semantic differential scale), adapted into Chinese by L.-P. Bao and J.-S. Liu (Bao & Liu, 2005). Students were not time-restricted when completing the scale; they were asked to review each item and select the response that most accurately reflected their self-perception. Reverse coding was applied to items one, two, three, seven, and ten. The statements in the scale were as follows: "Do you have the feeling that you really don't care about what is going on around you?" (1 - very seldom or never, 7 - very often), "Has it happened in the past that you were surprised by the behavior of people whom you thought you knew well? " (1 - never happened, 7 - always happened), "Has it happened that people whom you counted on disappointed you?" (1 - never happened, 7 - always happened), "Until now your life has had:" (1 - no clear goals, 7 - very clear goals and purpose), "Do you have the feeling that you are being treated unfairly?" (1 - very often, 7 - very seldom or never), "Do you have the feeling that you are in an unfamiliar situation and don't know what to do?" (1 - very often, 7 - very seldom or never), "Doing the things you do every day:" (1 - a source of deep pleasure and satisfaction, 7 - a source of pain and boredom), "Do you have very mixed-up feelings and ideas?" (1 - very often, 7 - very seldom or never), "Does it happen that you experience feelings that you would rather not have to endure?" (1 - very often, 7 - very seldom or never), "Many people, even with a strong character, sometimes feel 'lost.' I experience this state" (1 - never, 7 - very often), "When certain events occurred, have you generally found that?" (1 - you overestimated or underestimated their importance, 7 - you assessed the situation correctly), "How often do you have the feeling that there is little meaning in the things you do in your daily life?" (1 - very often, 7 - very seldom or never), "How often do you have feelings that you are not sure you can control?" (1 - very often, 7 - very seldom or never). The translation version used in this dissertation has a good history of use in Chinese literature. It was initially adapted by Sun Yat-sen University and published in a book on quality of life measurement methods in 2000 by Peking University Medical Press. The cross-cultural motivation (CCM) scale was adapted from (Ang et al., 2007), where respondents indicated their level of agreement with statements on a 7-point Likert scale. The Chinese adaptation of the scale is freely available in (Long, 2018). Students were not time-restricted when completing the scale; they were asked to review each item and select the response that best matched their self-perception. The items on the scale were as follows: "I enjoy interacting with people from different cultures.", "I am confident that I can socialize with locals in a culture that is unfamiliar to me.", "I am sure I can deal with the stress of adjusting to a culture that is new to me.", "I enjoy living in cultures that are unfamiliar to me.", " I am confident I can get accustomed to the shopping conditions in a different country" (1 – very strongly disagree, 7 – very strongly agree). The subjective socioeconomic status scale was recorded via "MacArthur Ladder" (Adler et al., 2000) (Adler et al., 2000), adapted to Chinese by D.-Q. Ding and colleagues (Ding et al., 2021). Additionally, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale was used to measure Russian language proficiency (Council of Europe, 2001). These items were treated as continuous since they had more than 5 levels, and therefore could be seen as continuous variables, taken into account the recent simulation studies (Rhemtulla et al., 2012). The students were also asked to report their biological gender, age in years, level of education, marital status, time spent enrolled in an educational program in Russia, the fact of attending cross-cultural trainings prior to the arrival, the fact of participating in academic exchange programs prior to studies in Russia. To measure overall quality of life, the 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36) (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992) was used. The Department of Social Medicine at Zhejiang University School of Medicine translated the SF-36 into Chinese in 1991, the translated content is freely available on the psychspace website (Psychspace, 2011). SF-36 has different types of scales from 2-item (yes/no) to 6-item scales and the questions focus of the health and wellbeing during the last month, and this year in comparison to the previous year. During the data collection, some of the data was not stored due to technical issue, the amount still allows to run the analysis using multiple imputation, but for the purposes of this analysis, we treated them as separate items. To measure altruism, Organizational Citizenship Behavior’s subscale called “Altruism towards colleagues” (A) was used (Farh et al., 2004). The scale was translated to Chinese (刘家国 et al., 2017). The version used in this study was back translated by a native speaker with a PhD degree in organizational behavior prior to the release of this publication with back-translation procedures. Social desirability scale was also utilized, but not used in any analyses, because later in 2024 the first author found a meta-analysis on uselessness of this scale to measure social desirability, what was captured by experimental studies (Lanz et al., 2022). The scale used was the Short form of the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS) translated into Chinese (Tao et al., 2009). The base set of scales (ES, SOC, EdS, CCA, CCM, A and demographics) underwent check along with a back-translation procedure following Brislin's guidelines (Brislin, 1970). First, the first author modified the original items of the job satisfaction scale (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) to pertain to the current academic setting abroad rather than to work (e.g., " Generally speaking, I am very satisfied with my assignment."). Next, an independent bilingual expert educated in business management translated the original English scales into Chinese (excl. A). Piloting of the subscales present in this study happened in 2019 on another sample of Chinese students at BMSTU(Muzychenko, 2022a, 2022b; Muzychenko et al., 2019, 2022). The first author additionally distributed the new set of scales (the base set, PSS-10, SF-36, SDS, MacArthur Ladder) among four native speakers before the research in 2024 to identify discrepancies and ensure cultural appropriateness, focusing on maintaining conceptual equivalence rather than literal translation. Later on, another bilingual expert, a specialist in Chinese hieroglyphics and a PhD student at the Department of Chinese Philology, was also invited to cross-validate the translation.