Communicative tolerance and socio-psychological adaptability of foreign students from Central Asia studying at St. Petersburg university: gender aspect

Background. The article presents the results of the study of socio-psychological adaptation in Russian and foreign first-year students. It is known that the constructive interaction of foreign students with the educational and professional environment, as well as their comfortable living on the territory of the Russian Federation is impossible without tolerant behavior. Aim. The paper aims to establish the features of communicative tolerance and socio-psychological adaptability of Russian and foreign students (both male and female). Materials and methods. 42 first-year students of the CIS countries and 40 Russian first-year students (the control group) were examined. The average age of students was 19.95 years. The study was based on the following methods: V.V. Boyko general communicative tolerance questionnaire, the Rogers and Dymond technique of measuring socio-psychological adaptation (modified by A. Osnitsky), the Eysenck personality questionnaire (edited by A. Rukavishnikov and L. Sosnina). Data processing was performed with the help of the Student's t-test and Pearson correlation analysis using the SPSS 22.0 statistical program package. Results. Multiple differences were found between the indicators of general communicative tolerance and socio-psychological adaptability in foreign and Russian students. Female students showed only one difference according to the scale of socio-psychological adaptation. Their social desirability is more pronounced, which can be interpreted as a higher level of communicative tolerance. There are direct and inverse correlations between communicative tolerance and socio-psychological adaptability in foreign and Russian students. Russian students have higher values of socio-psychological adaptability than foreign students. Conclusion. The features of communicative tolerance and socio-psychological adaptability of Russian and foreign students during their adaptation to the new educational and cultural environment of St. Petersburg were established.