Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

Morgridge College of Education, Research Methods and Information Science, Research Methods and Statistics

First Advisor

Robyn Thomas-Pitts

Second Advisor

Kathy Green

Third Advisor

Ruth Chao

Keywords

Acculturation, Measure development, Measure validation, Qatar, White-collar Arab expatriates

Abstract

Prior research on acculturation has predominantly focused on specific immigrant and ethnic groups in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and there is a lack of publicly available scales that measure acculturation among expatriates in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The purpose of this study was to use a mixed methods research design to develop a theoretical framework of acculturation for white-collar Arab expatriates in Qatar as well as a culturally appropriate self-report acculturation measure. The acculturation stories and experiences of white-collar Arab expatriates in Qatar were qualitatively explored and analyzed, and their findings were used to construct an acculturation scale for the target population. The developed scale was tested using a relatively large sample and the psychometric evaluation results suggested that the developed measure was multidimensional and had four distinct and reliable factors. Furthermore, the measure scores exhibited good support for construct validity based on convergent validity and known group differences and reliability based on internal consistency. The developed measure, however, could greatly benefit from comprehensive validation analyses using larger and more representative samples.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Sara Ali Ahmed Zikri

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

241 pgs

Discipline

Social research

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Available for download on Saturday, September 26, 2026



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