Evaluation of Preventive, Supportive and Awareness Building Measures among International Students in China in Response to COVID-19: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

Background: Public awareness campaigns and behavioral change campaigns are a necessary basis to facilitate and motivate the use of preventive measures. During this COVID-19 pandemic, how the Chinese government handled this vulnerable situation through enhancing behavior change communication among international students is a research interest. The objective of this current study is to evaluate the preventive, supportive and awareness building measures adopted among international students in China in response to this deadly pandemic. Method and methodology: In this study, we have evaluated how the level of awareness, satisfaction, and trust in authorities (i.e., government, local authorities, and institutions) shapes the behavior and close interconnection each other. Simple bivariate statistics was used to describe the background characteristics of the respondents along with adoption of the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) as the final model to show the association between the variables. Results: Our study findings showed the great impact of preventive and supportive measures in the development of students’ satisfaction. The satisfied students possessed a strong influence which eventually helped in building sufficient trust on their institutions. Moreover, present study provides insight views of the selected latent variables by counteracting the interaction among them. Conclusions: The worldwide student group is one of the most affected and vulnerable communities in this situation. So there is a profound ground of research on how different states or authorities handle such situation. In this study we have depicted the types and magnitude of care taken by Chinese government and educational institutions towards international students to relieve the panic of pandemic situation. Further research and such initiatives should be taken in to consideration for future emerging conditions.