Master of Arts (Applied Psychology)

There has been a growing number of foreign students studying in Singapore schools in the light of the government’s commitment to establish Singapore as a global education hub. However, there appears to be a current lack of local research carried out on the characteristics and experiences of these foreign students in Singapore.

The intention of this study, therefore, was to find out as to how these foreign students cope when they are faced with academic and inter-personal relationship problems as well as their preferred sources of help that they will seek when dealing with these challenges. It is hoped that the insights gained will facilitate the customisation of programmes and services to ensure the well-being of these foreign students so that their educational experience in Singapore will truly be a memorable one.

This study found that the adolescents’ coping behaviour may be more likely to be dispositional rather than situational with no significant effect due to gender differences. It was also revealed that adolescents of the three nationalities, namely Singaporeans, PRC Chinese and Malaysians, exhibited significant differences in their emotion-focused coping behaviour when dealing with academic and inter-personal difficulties.

The results of this study further indicated that, across the genders, age groups and nationalities, the adolescents’ preference to seek help from informal sources such as from friends, parents or family members is significantly higher than seeking help from professionals for both schoolwork and interpersonal relationship problems. Such low utilization of professional resources by adolescents was consistent with past research.

Implications of the study and recommendations for further research are also discussed with a view to better meet the needs of the international foreign students in Singapore in the near future.