The Role of Vision, Motivation and Willingness to Communicate in Expatriates' Cultural Adjustment: A Case of Missionary Expatriates

Yih-Lan Chen ； Hsing-Fu Cheng

《應用英語期刊》 13期 (2018/12) Pp. 1-27

摘要

In view of the need for cross cultural adjustment (CCA) by expatriates in the era of globalization, the current study aims to investigate factors contributing to such adjustment. More specifically, the concept of vision was included for investigation in the context of missionary expatriates, with the purpose of looking for the source factor for cross cultural adjustment. As a result, a model was hypothesized so that the factor of vision not only indirectly contributes to CCA through English learning motivation and then willingness to communicate, but also strongly predicts CCA directly. The structural equation modeling procedure was employed to test the model. The results indicated that the model has a goodness of fit to two sets of data, experienced expatriates (N = 200, with χ2/df =1.920, NFI = 0.876, TLI = 0.926, CFI = 0.936, RMSEA = 0.068) and a larger pool including both trainees and the experienced individuals (N = 382, χ2 = 445.196, χ2/df = 2.079, NFI = 0.914, TLI = 0.946, CFI = 0.953, RMSEA = 0.053). The study findings suggest the need for expatriate training for missionary purposes in order to enhance both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for language learning, to provide opportunities for cross-cultural communication, and to provide inspiration toward a vision of the future of missionary work.

關鍵字

Vision ； L2 motivation ； WTC ； Cross cultural adjustment ； Expatriates