The 7th International Self-Determination Theory Conference 2019 was held in Amsterdam on May 21-24. At the paper presentation session which had scholars from Israel, Brazil, Germany and Oman, Dr Law Wilbert, Assistant Professor of the Department of Psychology, and his former student Liu Shuang co-presented a paper titled “A randomized waitlist control study of a basic need satisfaction intervention for the adjustment of international students”.
In this study, the authors applied self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) to develop a brief psychological intervention that aimed to increase need-satisfying experiences and promote the adjustment of mainland Chinese students to college in Hong Kong. The current research was pre-registered and utilized a waitlist controlled experiment design. Results showed that the intervention enhanced the need satisfaction of the participants, and also improved their adjustment to college, as compared with the waitlist control group; and the intervention showed lasting effect on fulfilling the basic psychological needs and enhancing adjustment of mainland Chinese first year students after a 5-week delay.
