Chinese Graduate Students' Adaptation to Learning in America: A Cultural Perspective

Abstract

IT HAS BEEN A COMMON PHENOMENON for large numbers of foreign students to study on campus in American universities. Chinese students from the People’s Republic of China make up one of the largest groups among these foreign students. In 2004/2005, there were 62,523 students from China1 who were the second largest group among the 565,039 foreign students in the US (Institute of International Education, NY 2005). Over the last five years, the number of Chinese students in the US has grown by 15 percent. In spring 2006, there were 1,211 foreign students from 106 countries studying at the University in Midwest America where this study took place.2 Of the 248 Chinese students who made up the largest group from any single country, 233 were graduate students and 15 were undergraduate students (International Affairs Office, the University 2006). Students from different cultures have come to the US with experiences of different teaching/learning systems in their home countries. Studies that have been carried out on foreign students suggest that their adaptation to teaching and learning in a host country tends to depend on the similarity between the foreign student’s cultural background and the culture of the host country. Several crosscultural studies have indicated that American culture and Chinese culture represent two extremes in the cultural continuum, in light of the identified dimensions of culture (Hofstede 1997; Hofstede and Bond 1999). Because of considerable cultural differences, the transition from learning in the Chinese academic setting to the American academic setting may present great difficulties for newly-arrived Chinese students.