The impact of cultural intelligence in the cultural adjustment of foreign students

In recent years, it has been observed that foreign student exchange is increasing both in the world and in Turkey. Students who go to abroad in order to get better educational opportunities and develop themselves in terms of socio-cultural aspects, face various integration problems. Studies show that in Turkey foreign students are not able to learn Turkish language effectively in a short time, and they have difficulties in adapting to social life, on the other hand they do not get effective support in the integration process. Besides these external conditions that make the adjustment process easier or harder, one of the important determinants of cultural adjustment is the individual skills and abilities of the students, Cultural intelligence is an individual capacity that facilitates adjustment to different cultures. Cognitive, motivational and behavioral dimensions influence one's speed to adjust to a foreign culture. People with strong cultural intelligence are able to adapt more quickly to the systems and the social life of the foreign country, this situation is an important advantage for academic success. The aim of this study is to be able to reveal the relationship between cultural adjustments and cultural intelligence levels of foreign students who come to Turkey. A hundred foreign students studying at Ege and Akdeniz Universities participated in the research. Findings show that as the level of cultural intelligence of foreign students increases, it strengthens their cultural adjustment. The students' cultural adjustment values for social interaction were found to be lower than other adjustment values. The strongest cultural adjustment scores are for the transport system, food and university education. While the motivational intelligence values of the students were found to be higher than the other cultural intelligence sub-dimensions, the cognitive cultural intelligence values were found to be weaker than the motivational, behavioral and metacognitive values. Keywords: Cultural Adjustment, Cultural Intelligence, Foreign Students in Turkey.