The role of spiritual lessons and creative arts for adaptation of international doctoral students: a lifelong education perspective

ABSTRACT

This article reports a study on the impact of spiritual training lessons as compared to creative arts lessons with a cohort of Indian and Sri Lankan doctoral students immigrated to the US. The aim was to examine programme effectiveness in mitigating their acculturative stress, promoting self-efficacy, and wellbeing. Spiritual training lessons were more effective (p ≤ .01, Hedges’ g = −3.59–3.22); however, creative arts lessons also mitigated acculturative stress of participants (p = .006, Hedges’ g = −0.43). Post-test acculturative stress scores were lower and self-efficacy and wellbeing scores were higher for male students, with technical degrees, Hindu and Sikh students, ever-single, living alone, studying technical subjects, and whose doctoral research was practicum/practice-based. Spiritual training lessons attended and homework lessons mediated the association between significant socio-demographic and academic predictors and changes in outcomes. Creative arts homework lessons also mediated the association between gender, previous qualifications and acculturative stress scores. Spiritual training lessons can be incorporated into induction and continued support programmes for international doctoral students at US universities. Some modifications may be needed for female students, with postgraduate degrees in humanities/social sciences, Christian and Muslim students, currently married, cohabiting with spouse/children/dependents, studying humanities/social science subjects, and doing applied research.

KEYWORDS:

• International students
• doctoral programs
• doctoral students
• acculturation stress
• self-efficacy
• wellbeing
• creative arts
• spiritual lessons

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Notes on contributors

Samta P Pandya

Samta P Pandya is a faculty member at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. Her areas of research include faith, spirituality, and interventions across the lifespan.