Intercultural Experience of University International Students Based on Their Length of Stay in Korea: Analyzing Learners’W riting Samples with LIWC

Given the increasing numbers of international students in Korea and the lack of attention to them in existing research on intercultural relations in higher education, this current study was conducted in a Korean university to explore international students’ attitudinal or psychological changes by analyzing their writing task samples using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). The study focused on the international students’ construction of cultural difference within the educational context. The participants ranged in age from 20 to 25 years and came from over eight different countries. The results of the one-way ANOVA analysis indicated that the two groups divided by the length of stay in Korea have shown significant mean differences in Words per Sentence, First-person I, Cognitive Process words, and Achievement words. Specifically, the group of participants who stayed more than one and half years in Korea more generated Word per Sentence, First-person I, and Cognitive Process words than those who stayed less than one and half years in Korea. Meanwhile, those who stayed less in Korea more produced Achievement words in their writing samples. Implications and further research directions are discussed.