The Resilience and Willingness to Immigrate to Finland: A Mixed Methods Research Among International Higher Education Students in Lapland

Higher education (henceforth HE) institutions offer the highest level of education simultaneously caring for the well-being of students. Resilience is one of the key elements of well-being. Consistent with this view, this study aims to explore how resilience appears in international HE students in Finnish Lapland.

The theoretical background of this study focused on the internationalization of higher education and immigration among international students, specifically in the unique circumstances of Finnish Lapland. All research participants were studying in the universities of Lapland. In addition, the theoretical framework focused on the phenomenon of resilience. The concept of resilience is multidimensional, and it has been defined as a dynamic process, personality feature, contextual concept, and socio-ecological phenomenon. Research on resilience has long roots in various fields of science. This research leaned on the Social Ecological Resilience Theory (SERT).

The explanatory, sequential mixed method approach was adopted in this study to collect quantitative and qualitative data. To obtain quantitative data, International Student Resilience Scale was designed. Next, semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect qualitative data. The participants of this study are international HE students studying at The University of Lapland and Lapland University of Applied Sciences in the Lapland area, Finland. Sixty-five international HE students responded to the questionnaire, and sixteen were interviewed personally. The gathered quantitative data were analysed by using the SPSS program. Then, the mean scores belonging to each resilience subscale were calculated to see the resilience levels of the participants. In addition, cross-tabulations were applied in an attempt to understand the relationship between the resilience levels and demographic features of international HE students. The cross-tabulations were utilized to grasp the link between the willingness of international students’ immigrating to Finland and their resilience levels in addition to their demographic features. Finally, the qualitative data gathered from the interviews were subjected to thematic analysis to come to find out the common themes regarding the perceptions of the participants related to the impact of HE on their resilience and willingness to immigrate.

The findings revealed that international HE students had high resilience levels, and they had positive perceptions regarding the effect of the university on their resilience. On the other hand, some criticisms were discovered in some issues regarding developing more social activities, better health care services, and an online portal informing the international HE students about legal and academic procedures. In addition, the demographic features of the participants were found to be connected to their resilience levels besides their willingness to immigrate to Finland after completing their studies, including their gender, age, degree, length of study in Finland, university, and country of origin. The findings also suggested that although the international HE students revealed high resilience levels, there was not a positive relationship between their resilience levels and their willingness to immigrate to Finland after completing their studies. Finally, social, cultural, and economic factors were found to be playing a role in the international HE students’ willingness to immigrate to Finland after completing their studies.

This study has significance for the related literature since it is probably the first research carried out on resilience of international HE students studying at an HE institution from a social- ecological resilience framework. This research also may help to improve the policies about the internationalization of HE in Finland. In addition, it draws attention to the application of social- ecological theory to educational psychology as well as the importance of intervention programs targeting leveling up the resilience of international HE students. The findings shed light on immigration policies promoting international HE students’ willingness to immigrate to Lapland area and Finland by offering an immigration lens to investigating the impact of HE on resilience.