Adapting to a new learning environment: Mainland Chinese students studying in master’s degree programmes in Hong Kong

Introduction

Internationalization is perceived to be a major way to enhance the competitiveness and educational quality of higher education in Hong Kong. Consequently, Hong Kong universities have been eager to admit non-local students in recent years. The manner in which Chinese students achieve (or fail to achieve) academic and social adaptation to other societies remains one of the most tension-ridden issues in higher education. This article investigates the learning journey of mainland Chinese students studying master’s degree programmes in Hong Kong by examining their formal teaching and learning experiences, their informal experiences of campus life, and the development of their intercultural competence. Using a qualitative method, and with reference to the above questions, we interviewed 20 mainland Chinese students in four master’s degree programmes in Hong Kong. The interviews helped to provide an in-depth understanding of their perceived learning experiences in master’s degree programmes in Hong Kong.

Major issues regarding the learning experiences of non-local students

Internationalization is defined as the process of integrating an international and intercultural dimension into an institution’s teaching, research and service functions (Knight, 2004; Söderqvist, 2002). Studies have identified major issues encountered by Chinese students in the formal teaching and learning processes in Western societies. First, some students encountered problems regarding taking an active role in learning without any formal guidance from the teacher. Classes in China are mainly text-based, with the teacher adopting an authoritarian stance in the classroom, in contrast to the learner-centred teaching in a Western classroom, where the teacher seldom uses a textbook and requires a lot of participation from students themselves (Parris-Kidd and Barnett, 2011). The difficulty has been found to be not entirely related to the culture of learning, but also has to do with personal factors. Preparing faculty members with culturally responsive pedagogies can enhance the non-local student experience (Heng, 2018). Second, some Chinese students reported struggling to find an appropriate role in classroom participation (Parris-Kidd and Barnett, 2011). However, Wu (2015) found that, during class discussions, mainland Chinese students’ quietness does not indicate a lack of interest, rather it is in keeping with the Chinese cultural values of harmony and respect for authority. Yin and Wang (2016) indicated that mainland Chinese students do engage personally in learning, but they seldom actively participate in open discussion. Teachers should understand more about Chinese students’ unique ways of classroom engagement. Third, Chinese students took time to adapt to the teaching and learning approaches in foreign countries (Heng, 2018). Chinese students are very focused on test achievement, which is in contrast to Western systems that emphasize ability to work independently, think critically and find alternative solutions (Parris-Kidd and Barnett, 2011). Chinese students have been found to struggle with new academic expectations that demand self-directed learning (Tran, 2008), cede epistemic authority to learners (Wu, 2015) and emphasize argumentative writing (Heng, 2018). Guo and Chase (2011) found that a special programme that included understanding of the foreign academic environment, cross-cultural communication and learning effectiveness across cultures could help non-local students grasp new teaching and learning approaches. Fourth, Chinese students tended to be silent participants in group work (Wang, 2012). Most students had a strong tendency toward conformity and were predisposed to depend upon the stronger members of the group (Wu, 2015). Turner (2009) suggested that group work that enabled all to demonstrate competence, that did not implicitly privilege local insider cultures and that challenged cultural stereotyping and embedded intercultural elements could help to alleviate participative inequalities.

During the initial struggle and frustration when adjusting to a foreign academic environment, some students experienced academic distance from Western teaching and learning styles in the adaptation process (Parris-Kidd and Barnett, 2011). However, Gu (2011) showed that many Chinese students experienced positive adaptation to their academic studies over time. They developed self-confidence, became involved in class activities and gained a strong sense of independence in learning. Wu (2015) found that Chinese students’ behaviour and beliefs about learning evolved as a result of contextual influences. When given sufficient time, and the freedom to take risks in experimenting with new and unfamiliar learning methods, they integrated new learning skills and developed more effective learning techniques. Expectations within each new context they encountered not only contributed to tensions they experienced, but also to changes they underwent as they adapted to different expectations. Their abilities, attitudes, behaviours and values changed in response to different contexts. Chinese students did make deliberate efforts to overcome the challenges (Heng, 2018), even though their experiences diverged according to year of study and field of study. Heng (2019) showed that students in humanities and social sciences needed to grapple with unfamiliar sociocultural, economic and political references, while mathematics used a more universal language. Academic fields requiring structured team learning, such as business, enhanced students’ interactions with host peers. Given these varied findings, it is evident that there is a need to investigate mainland Chinese students’ learning experiences in Hong Kong to enhance our understanding of their adaptation process.

Leask (2013) described internationalization in education as the incorporation of an international and intercultural dimension into formal and informal educational activities. Internationalization in formal education should focus on ‘what is taught and learned’ and ‘how it is taught and learned’. Informal education includes the various extra-curricular activities that take place on campus. Intercultural learning through formal and informal education encourages people of different cultures to engage with each other and learn from each other, and emphasizes the importance of the direct exchange of ideas, principles and behaviour (Portera, 2011).

On the social front, Gu (2011) found that culture continued to function as a source of stress and struggle, and most students employed emotion-coping strategies such as endurance (Yan and Berliner, 2011). Students reported difficulties navigating the host culture (Moores and Popadiuk, 2011) and found it hard to integrate into the local community (Guo and Guo, 2017). Students’ social integration was not only influenced by social-level acculturation factors (for example, society and culture), but also by individual-level factors (for example, gender, major subject, expectations, pre-departure knowledge and skills) (Yan and Berliner, 2011). Concerning cultural adaptation, scholars have also emphasized the acquisition of broad competencies (for example, intercultural competencies), rather than competencies narrowly defined as profession-specific needs and requirements (Haigh, 2009). Intercultural competence refers to the process of acquiring the culture-specific and general cultural knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures (Paige et al., 1999). Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven (2001) initiated five dimensions to investigate students’ intercultural competency: (1) cultural empathy; (2) open-mindedness; (3) emotional stability; (4) social initiative; and (5) flexibility. Cultural empathy refers to the capacity to clearly project an interest in others, and to obtain and reflect a reasonably complete and accurate sense of another person’s thoughts, feelings and experiences. Open-mindedness refers to an open and unprejudiced attitude towards the members of other groups and different cultural norms and values. Emotional stability is defined as a tendency to remain calm in stressful situations. Flexibility refers to the ability to learn from new experiences, and social initiative refers to a tendency to approach social situations in an active way and to take initiative (Van Oudenhoven and Van de Zee, 2002). Chinese students reported that it was more difficult for them to socialize with people from different countries than other nationalities. They pointed out that cultural distance played a major role, but also mentioned the impact of individual factors (such as personality, preference for an easy option and emotional satisfaction from mixing with people with a similar background) (Spencer-Oatey et al., 2017). At the surface level, every Chinese student needs to make some adjustments to conform with educational standards in Western countries, but also at a deeper level where some fundamental beliefs and values exist. Yuan (2011) found that Chinese students differed from each other on whether they attempted to adapt or not. Their level of satisfaction and attitudes towards cultural assimilation varied depending on their majors, personalities and previous experiences. Relatively speaking, students majoring in science and technology felt more satisfied than those from the social science disciplines.

The manner in which Chinese students’ academic and social adaptation plays out remains one of the most tension-ridden issues in higher education. This article puts the academic discussion above into the specific context of Hong Kong to investigate mainland Chinese students’ perceptions of their learning experiences. Based on the reviews of previous research, we investigate the learning experiences of mainland Chinese students studying master’s programmes in Hong Kong, mainly through the following three dimensions: (1) the formal teaching and learning experiences; (2) the informal experiences of campus life; and (3) the development of intercultural competence.

Enhancing internationalization of higher education in Hong Kong

In mainland China, studying in Hong Kong is perceived as studying outside the territory of China (jingwai jiaoyu) because Hong Kong’s cross-cultural sophistication has permitted it to provide broad perspectives in higher education. Studies indicated that there were no significant differences in teaching approaches between Hong Kong, Australia and Canada. The continuum that included imparting information, transmitting structured knowledge, student–teacher interaction, and facilitating intellectual development in Australia and Canada could also apply to Hong Kong (Leung et al., 2008). However, the proportion of front-of-class lecturing may be larger in Hong Kong than in Western societies. Generally, non-local students have regarded greater international exposure as an invaluable advantage of studying in Hong Kong (Lei, 2018). However, mainland Chinese students have also noted that they encountered difficulties when trying to adapt to the teaching, learning and social life in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Ideas Centre, 2013).

The 2010 policy address in Hong Kong stated that developing the city into an education hub and enhancing internationalization were the main focuses of higher education policy (HKSAR Government, 2010). Specifically, such a policy aims to attract more non-local students to study in degree and postgraduate programmes in Hong Kong. The major objectives of the policy are to attract talented students from other countries and to create an international environment on campuses so that Hong Kong students can broaden their horizons. It is hoped that Hong Kong could be developed as an education hub in Asia (HKSAR Government, 2010). In the 2017/18 academic year, the number of non-local students in Hong Kong reached 17,050, not including those in self-financed programmes. Of the non-local undergraduate students, 63.7 per cent came from mainland China, while of the non- local postgraduate research degree students, 83.5 per cent came from mainland China (University Grants Committee, 2019).

To facilitate this increase in non-local enrolment, the quotas for undergraduate, non-local student admissions at University Grants Committee-funded institutions were increased by 20 per cent. At the graduate level, no quota exists for non-local student admission to enter postgraduate programmes on a self-financed basis. Given the lack of a quota, the postgraduate programmes are seen as a potential area to recruit even more non-local students. Mainland Chinese students are perceived as non-local students in Hong Kong, as there are differences in the use of language (Cantonese in Hong Kong and Putonghua in mainland China), historical background (Hong Kong was a British Colony for over one hundred years) and teaching and learning approaches in university between Hong Kong and mainland China. Further investigation of the learning experiences of mainland Chinese students would help to inform Hong Kong universities on how to help mainland Chinese students’ adaptation in Hong Kong.

Research methods

In this article, we employed a qualitative research approach. Qualitative research involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter, attempting to make sense of or interpret a phenomenon in terms of the meaning people bring to it (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). As this article seeks to investigate mainland Chinese students’ perceptions of their learning experiences in Hong Kong, a qualitative approach was deemed the most suitable.

With reference to our conceptual framework, which aims to investigate mainland Chinese students’ learning experiences in the formal teaching and learning process, and their informal learning through campus activities, as well as the development of their intercultural competence, this article is guided by three major research questions:

1. How do mainland Chinese students perceive their learning experiences through formal teaching and learning in our sample university?

2. How do mainland Chinese students perceive their learning experiences regarding participating in campus activities?

3. How do mainland Chinese students develop intercultural competence in a master’s degree programme in Hong Kong?

The selection of University C for our case study was based on purposive sampling. University C is a first-tier university in Hong Kong that, in 2017, has eight faculties with 20,608 students and 1,697 members of teaching staff. As a first-tier university, University C is a comprehensive research university with a mission to combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West. It aims to nurture students with specialized knowledge and multiculturalism, but it has seldom addressed a mission on national integration. Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee provides preferential grant funding to the local tertiary institutions to conduct research into 21 selected Areas of Excellence (AoEs). Eight of these AoEs are being led by researchers from University C. As a first-tier university, University C admits the best mainland Chinese students, who obtain the highest marks and have the best attitudes to academic and social adaptation in Hong Kong.

In our study, four major academic areas of University C were selected: arts, social sciences, science and engineering, and business. Due to the various epistemic bases of the four areas, the mainland Chinese students we interviewed were exposed to different learning contexts and teaching and learning approaches. A total of 20 informants from four areas were interviewed (see Table 1). The selection of interviewees was based on areas of study, so as to ensure the most relevant and richest data. All interviews were recorded, and verbatim transcripts were made for data analysis. Please refer to Box 1 for further explanation on data analysis and selection of quotations.

Findings

Discussion

First, most of our informants perceived that the formal teaching and learning programme enlarged their vision. They particularly appreciated that lecturers shared diverse perspectives and cutting-edge professional knowledge. Informants from science and social science also emphasized the importance of case studies from various countries to help them gain in-depth understanding of academic theories. In the meantime, many students stressed that they learned analytical approaches through the lecturing. There were no significant differences between male and female students’ observations. However, some who studied science did think that, even though they understood that teachers were eager to introduce various analytical approaches, their critical thinking was constrained by past learning experiences in mainland China. This may be related to their studying practice, in which they mainly work in the lab individually. Further, although most of the mainland Chinese students in master’s degree programmes in Hong Kong agreed that the discussion process with groupmates exposed them to diverse perspectives, some still considered their previous learning experiences hindered their active involvement in discussions. Most of our informants reflected that expressing their own views was the greatest challenge they encountered studying in Hong Kong. These observations are similar to Parris-Kidd and Barnett’s (2011) observations that some Chinese students struggled to find an appropriate role in classroom participation. Our informants further elaborated that they worried about giving the wrong answers, and about others perceiving them as showing off, as well as expressing different views from other students. All these factors contributed to their hesitation to participate in classroom discussion. Our observations are also similar to Heng’s (2018) observations that students struggled with the new academic expectations that emphasize argumentative writing. Informants further explained that they found it very difficult to write the term assignments, which stressed expressing their own views, as they were used to restating or integrating scholars’ views in their past learning experiences. However, most informants appreciated the teaching and learning approaches used in Hong Kong, even if it took time for them to adapt. Previous learning experiences affected their participation in the discussion process, but their learning perceptions evolved as they participated in authentic situations (Wu, 2015). When mainland Chinese students gained confidence from teachers’ and classmates’ reactions in the process of adapting to the new learning approaches, their perceptions of the new learning challenges evolved with time. Compared to science students, social science students took less time to adapt to the new mode of teaching and learning, a finding that is different from Yuan’s (2011) observation. Because teachers in social science strongly encouraged students to learn more about the Hong Kong social context, that facilitated discussions among mainland Chinese and local students. Students also reflected that the one-year master’s programme allowed insufficient time for adjustment and adaptation, which is somewhat different from Wu’s (2015) observations. Besides the personal motivation indicated by Gu et al. (2010), most informants shared that, as their parents spent a lot of resources to support their study in Hong Kong, they should adapt to the teaching and learning approaches in Hong Kong to get high marks as soon as possible. The heavy financial support from parents and parental expectations were also some of the prominent incentives for our informants to study very hard and to try their best to adapt in Hong Kong.

Second, due to their previous learning experiences, the very short study period, and the over-emphasis on final marks, the mainland Chinese students, no matter whether they studied science or social science, were seldom involved in informal learning through campus activities. Our study observed that receiving high marks was the greatest concern of our informants. They tended to ignore the most precious learning experiences, which were those that occur through informal learning in various campus activities, because they did not directly lead to receiving a high final grade. However, the activities they ignored may have been the most valuable opportunities to encounter different work norms and approaches in problem solving, which would help them develop generic skills. Generic skills are also very important for students’ career development, apart from the professional knowledge they learn from their majors.

Third, limited interaction with local and foreign students hindered the mainland Chinese students’ development of intercultural competence. Mainland Chinese students in both science and social science chose to stay in small circles that hindered their development of cultural empathy and stifled any tendency to approach social situations in an active way. Instead, they enjoyed the emotional stability of staying with a mainland friend circle, which is similar to Spencer-Oatey et al.’s observation (2017). This could reflect that most students’ open-mindedness and flexibility were not sufficiently developed to reach out in Hong Kong society for new experiences (Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven, 2001). The exception was the social science students, particularly the ones who studied social policy and journalism. They were keen to have contact with the local community, as their teachers were very keen to develop students’ attitude to learning more about Hong Kong society. Some teachers even required students to write term assignments using local cases. However, most mainland Chinese students’ limited interaction with the local community led them to have superficial views of Hong Kong society.

Conclusions

With their confined perceptions of learning, it was easy for the mainland Chinese students to ignore the varied aspects of learning, such as informal learning through campus activities and the development of intercultural competence, available in Hong Kong universities. It is important that Hong Kong universities arrange welcoming seminars for non-local students, particularly for mainland Chinese students, in order to clearly explain to them the teaching and learning approaches, and the significance of engaging in campus activities, as well as the advantages of developing intercultural competence in Hong Kong. Active exchange between local students, international students and mainland Chinese students does not emerge automatically. It requires universities to design purposive activities, such as increasing opportunities to promote propinquity, encouraging multicultural dialogue, developing local buddy programmes, and incorporating non-local students as members of student associations, to engage the non-local students. Concerted effort should be made to enhance cultural exchanges between local and non-local students so as to offer sufficient opportunities for mainland Chinese students to develop generic skills and intercultural competence.

Notes on the contributors

Manhong Lai is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include higher education, internationalization, governance in higher education, and academics’ work life.

Genshu Lu is Professor and Director of the Institute of Higher Education Research in Xian Jiaotong University, China. His research interests include higher education, student learning in higher education, teaching quality assessment in higher education, and world-class university.