ISSN: 2222-6990
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Logotherapy theory of Frankl suggests that the fundamental drive of human existence is to constantly seek the meaning and purpose of life to satisfy psychological needs, and the meaning in life is the basic element for an individual to experience happiness in life. Some scholars have verified that meaning in life has a positive effect on college students’ life satisfaction and well-being. However, there are a lot of studies on college students, while there are few studies on international students. Moreover, compared with local college students, international students need to leave the familiar environment to adapt to different cultures and study with unfamiliar people, so their mental health needs to be paid more attention. Meaning in life among international university student has a significant purpose in life and mental health impact. Chinese students make up the largest group of international students in Malaysia. This study aimed to present an integrative model of factors that contribute to variability in meaning in life among international Chinese university student, including background demographic (gender, education background, religion), and the relationship of purpose in life and meaning in life. Participants responded to a questionnaire online via Google form. There are two instruments used in this study, Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) (Cronbach’s Alpha=0.926) is for investigating the level of meaning in life and the Purpose in Life Test (PLT) (Cronbach’s Alpha=0.933) is for investigating the level of purpose in life among international Chinese students. As for validity analysis, the test results showed that the KMO test values of these two variables in the survey data were 0.847 (MLQ)and 0.822(PLT). In Pearson correlation test, the results showed that MLQ and PLT were significantly correlated with each other, with p-values less than 0.01 and correlation coefficients greater than 0, showing a significant positive relationship. The study highlights the importance of enhancing the meaning of life among international university students.
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