Multiple qualitative procedures to elicit reverse culture shock experience

Walanchalee Wattanacharoensil,Suwadee Talawanich,Laddawan Jianvittayakit

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2019.12.007

Abstract

This study elaborates the research design and methodology to investigate the reverse culture shock (RCS) experience of young Thai tourists in the tourism field. Taking the worldview position of relative ontology and interpretivist/constructivist paradigms, this paper employs qualitative design using multiple research methods, namely, essay writing, graph plotting and semi-structured interview. Essay writing and graph plotting are initially used as pre-interview activities as part of the memory recall procedures. This stage is important because it helps curtail memory distortion and enrich insight into the participant’s past RCS experience. The semi-structured interview with young Thai tourists is subsequently conducted to elicit individual perceptual and emotional experiences and coping mechanism after they returned home. The three research methods complement one another to draw out rich travellers’ experience in the tourism study and can be beneficial to the extended disciplines of social science and psychology.Advantages of this article include:•Practical and feasible processes for a qualitative study in social science and psychology, particularly when recall of memory is involved.•The ability to gain enriched information of experience.•The ability to elicit emotional aspects from the study of experience through graph plotting.

Highlights

Background of the studyA growing number of Thai youths assuming the role of tourists through exchange student and working holiday programmes have recently been investigated
The reverse culture shock (RCS) phenomenon is widely proven in numerous countries, the insights into the RCS amongst youth tourists who participate in exchange student and working holiday programmes have been rare and remain underexplored
Most diverse RCS studies in youth focus on full-time students and short-term expeditionary programmes. To address this limited knowledge, this study firstly aims to investigate RCS among Thai youth tourists by exploring the perceptual and emotional stages and the coping strategies that occur after their return to their home countries

Summary

Introduction

Background of the studyA growing number of Thai youths assuming the role of tourists through exchange student and working holiday programmes have recently been investigated. Most diverse RCS studies in youth focus on full-time students (see, for example, [3,5,7,8]) and short-term expeditionary programmes (see [1,2]). To address this limited knowledge, this study firstly aims to investigate RCS among Thai youth tourists by exploring the perceptual and emotional stages and the coping strategies that occur after their return to their home countries. Gullahorn and Gullahorn [4] introduced the W-curve proposition (extended U-curve adjustment theory of culture shock by Lysgaard [9]) to elucidate the RCS phenomenon among American youths/students.

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Conclusion