Examination of Psychological Needs of University Foreign Students Studying in Konya in Terms of Some Variables

Main objective of this study is to examine main psychological needs of foreign student residing in Konya and study in Universities in terms of variables of gender, age, class, mother education and father education. Needs are impulses which are unique to human such as motive, motivation demand, will, requirement, hope and ambition to succeed people tned to demand depending on infinite and unlimited needs. As the needs of people are mei an increase on their demand ofouses. Human behaviors’ are towards an objective dispelling a situation which has a potential to cause strained environment. Needs change based on time and environmental factors. Therefore two different people can behave in a different way based on environment they are present. True environment of main needs and their effect on behaviors make us think that needs are theoric terms.This can be commented as change occurs ofthen in organism, energy or an ailment damaging homeostatic balance. This physiologic situation or stimulant makes up source of impulse which triggers behaviors’ until it is supported with an appropriate motive. All pscho-social needs and especially all human needs are called as main needs. (Eysenck and collegues, 1972). While some of the needs triggering behaviors’ are psychological-rooted, other behaviours are resulted from psychological needs. Psychologic needs called as autonomy sufficiency and being connective ensure an individual to manage this or her ambitions to function properly and to increase his or her well-being level while there are social environments supporting satisfaction of main needs and individual differences, it causes autonomy, sufficiency being connective to fall down. It also affects performance, level of well-being and motivation level. (Deci and Ryan, 2000;11(4)-227-269) Autonomy theory claims that behaviors’ are driven by three main needs. 1. Autonomic need meaning that preference of an individual on subjects regarding himself or herself. 2. Sufficiency meaning that using behaviors’ and developing them. 3. Relation needs meaning integrating other people and feeling worthy in terms of social aspect. (Sümbül and coll. 2003) It can be inferred that university and education environment will be influential in terms of their psychological needs in life period. As a result of this implication, this study tries to answer the question of what are the main psychological needs of foreign students studying in different countries and which variables effect their psychological needs. It is inevitable that studying in a culture different from the one adopted being far away from the belavings and the motherland will affect the psychological needs. As a result of this, this study tries to determine the main psychological l needs of foreign students studying in university of Turkey. While individual emigrating from different from different places in the ssome country suffer from adaptation problems, it is an unabated truth that an individual coming from a different country will suffer these problems. In addition to problems resulting from culture differences, most of the foreign students suffer from language problems adaptation problems social problems, social support problems. Thus, making such a study is important to recognize foreign students better and to obtain information’s in an effort to deal with their adaptation and connection problems for ensuring their academic success. While many studies on psychological needs have been made, there are no study examining psychological needs of foreign students by using comparison groups in this study psychological needs of foreign students studying in universities of Konya province have been examined in terms of some variables. Research has been made in accordance with general scanning model research group consist of foreign students studying in Konya province. Study group consist of 196 students (40 female, 156 male) studying in different faculties of Selcuk University and Konya University. Research group has been chosen among the foreign students studying in these universities by using random sampling method. As a tool of data collection, main psychological needs scale which was developed by Deci and Ryan (2000;11(4)-229-269) and which was customized to Turkish by Kesici, Üre and their colleagues (2003) has been used. There are 2 different expression in psychological needs scale do determine main psychological needs of an individual. Each article of this scale is related with a field required by an individual. An individual can feel strong demands about a certain situation. He or she takes action to meet this demand. Finally demand is satisfied scale consists of three sub-dimensions. Three sub dimensional scale score is obtained by adding the points an individual gets in a field related to a certain dimension. This three dimensions follow as A) Autonomy need B) Sufficiency need C) Relation need (Deci, Ryan, 2000) Because scores change theorically between 1 point and 5 point, total highest score of scale regarding autonomy sub dimension is 35 and the lowest one is 7. As the score increase an individual feels that his or her psychological needs are met more, on the other hand as the score decreases, he or she feels his or her psychological needs more often. Varyans made an analysis to determine whether main psychological needs of students undergo a change in terms of variables of gender, age, class, mother education, father education. Given the findings acquired in this research, while the education level of fathers doesn’t affect significantly the scores of psychological needs of foreign students, education level of mothers effects significantly the scores of autonomical needs of foreign students. However a difference in terms of sufficiency needs and relations needs has not been observed. It can be assumed that mothers are more influential on the education of their children than fathers. Therefore it can e said that mothers education levels are more effective in terms of development of main psychological needs of their children. Given the second finding, autonomical needs of foreign students undergo a significant change depending on their age. Especially there is a significant difference between those who are 20-21 and 22 and above ages. Another finding obtained from the research is that while there is not a significant difference in autonomical and relation needs in terms of variables of in which class the students are studying, sufficiency needs of students undergo a change depending on their current class.It has been found that there is a significant difference between those who are studying second class and third class and between those who are studying in third class and those who are studying in fourth class as well. A significant difference in terms of gender has not been found. Given the similar studies, while there are some studies concluding that gender doesn’t play an significant role in terms of effecting psychological needs of male and female students, there are some kind of studies supporting that gender plays an significant role when shaping the psychological needs of male and female students.