The current study attempts to describe some of the difficulties and the culture shock faced by incoming international students mainly from European countries when they started studying at a Turkish-medium university located in northwestern Turkey and will try to answer the following research questions:

 RQ1: What kind of communication and adaptation difficulties do international students have in Turkey?

RQ2: What kind of strategies do students use to facilitate communication and overcome cultural differences?

One result of increased globalisation is the internationalisation of higher education, including such features as exchanges of students and staff for short periods of study or teaching, academic cooperation between institutions and an increase in the number of students who undertake whole courses of study in another country. Such activities, of course, pose the problem of achieving intercultural communication for the individuals involved, and these people also inevitably experience culture shock to a greater or lesser extent.

It is useful to gain insights into the processes involved in culture shock in order to reach a better understanding of the differences between cultures and the relationships of individuals with these cultures (Pederson, 1995), with the ultimate aim of providing appropriate assistance or training for future participants in intercultural activities. However, Pederson also states that it is difficult to measure culture shock accurately due to its complexity.  

Along with many other countries, Turkey has experienced both growth in internationalisation of higher education in recent years, as well as the attendant difficulties of culture shock which students consequently face. However, there is a lack of research findings on the subject in Turkey, especially with regard to students studying at Turkish-medium universities, although some attention has been paid to those studying in English-medium contexts (for example, Doğruer et al., 2010). It was therefore decided to design a study with the purpose of investigating the experiences of international students undertaking Turkish-medium education in Turkey.

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