Page 48 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

that a one-factor solution for SPS-10 fits the data well (χ2(30) = 78.20; χ2/df = 2.60; RMSEA = .06; CFI = .97; TLI = .95; SRMR = .04).
Depressive symptoms. We used the validated 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10) derived by Andressen, Malmgreen, Carter, and Patrick (1994) from Radloff’s (1977) 20-item original version. Participants rated each item (e.g., “I was bothered by things that usually don’t bother me”) in terms of the frequency that each mood or symptom occurred “during the past two weeks” on a four-point scale (1 = Rarely/none of the time; 4 = Most/all of the time). We used the CES-D-10 unidimensionally in our subsequent model testing (αt1 = .82; αt2 = .85; αt3 = .84). Using CFA with Time 1 data, we found that a one-factor solution for CES-D-10 fits the data well (χ2(29) = 44.52.; χ2/df = 1.54; RMSEA = .04; CFI = .99; TLI = .98; SRMR = .03).
Control variables. We controlled for gender and length of stay in the host country. In their systematic review, Zhang and Goodson (2011) mentioned that gender and length of stay are among the most frequently reported predictors of psychosocial adjustment of international undergraduate and graduate students.
Results
Panel attrition
The participants who were retained until T3 did not differ significantly from those who dropped out after T1 in terms of gender (χ2(1, N = 414) = .42, p = .515, φ = .032). However, those who were retained had a significantly shorter stay in the host-country during T1 compared to those who dropped out (Mretained = 13.69, SD = 15.76; Mdropped = 19.17, SD = 20.18; t(204.36) = −2.80, p = .006, Cohen’s d = .30). It is possible that some of those who dropped out had already completed their studies at T2 or T3, which made them ineligible for the succeeding surveys. There were no significant differences between the retained and dropouts with regard to the mean levels of the main study variables. We also examined the pattern of missing data for the main variables using Little’s missing completely at random (MCAR) test. The results indicated that the missing data can be regarded as completely at random, χ2(69, N = 414) = 84.22, p = .103. Thus, we assumed that the retained participants and the dropouts were comparable and that there were no serious selection problems due to attrition.
46 Chapter 2