The state of functional stress of foreign students studying in an intermediary language (English) at a medical university in Russia

the aim of this study was to investigate the functional stress characteristics of international medical students studying in a secondary language (English). Sixty second-year international students of both sexes at Omsk Medical University participated in the study. We assessed the time (in astronomical hours) spent preparing for classes, the need for visual textual and illustrative support during classes (on a ten-point scale), and personal and state anxiety (using the C.D. Spielberger method; the control group consisted of Russian-speaking students). It was found that most females and males spend approximately three astronomical hours on independent preparation and require constant textual and illustrative visual support during classes. They also exhibited elevated levels of both personal and state anxiety, which can be interpreted as a physiological characteristic of higher nervous activity when mastering subjects in a secondary language.

foreign students, functional tension, personality anxiety, situational anxiety