Short-term Overseas Study Tours by Secondary Students in China : What to Do and What to Gain?

Abstract

This work is an exploratory study that investigates the quality and outcomes of short-term overseas study tours taken by secondary school students in China. A short-term overseas study tour is defined in this study as an educational tour that takes place in foreign destinations for less than a month. Although short-term overseas study tours attracted a great number of secondary school students for the last decade in China, whether expected educational outcomes can be achieved through this short trip is questionable, because a prolonged length of stay is crucial to achieve educational purposes in educational tourism (Du, 2003; Dwyer, 2004). Previous studies on educational tourism have focused on the outcomes and benefits of long-term overseas study tours (i.e., one to two semesters) by university students and adults (Stone & Petrick, 2013). The findings from the previous studies may not be applied to short-term overseas study tours taken by secondary students, due to the distinct context (i.e., timing) and participants (i.e., younger, secondary school students). Also, short-term study tours for Chinese students have been criticized as a tour without study or even depicted as shopping tours (Tam, 2013). Furthermore, such short study tours for Chinese secondary students cost around a half of annual household income of Chinese “middle class” family. Therefore, it is critical to understand the quality and outcome of such short-term overseas study tours to leverage the high costs. To shed light on this contemporary issue in China’s education and tourism industry, this study surveyed Chinese secondary students in six major cities in China and analyzed data about their perceived quality of and satisfaction with short-term overseas study tours they have participated in, and outcome achieved through such tours. Findings of this study indicate the importance of tour guides in enhancing secondary students’ short-term overseas study tour experiences. Tour guides’ interpersonal skills were found to be the most important factor for the students’ satisfaction with the tours. It was also found that short-term overseas study tours were most effective in enhancing attitude towards various culture. Strikingly, core-study related components such as language learning programs and university visits were not as important as other culture-related activities/outcomes for students’ satisfaction with the tours, even though the tours are named a ‘study tour’ and the educational aspect of the tours are highlighted in the promotions by tour organizers. The results imply problems in the lack of efficiency in learning course design. As one of only a few studies on short-term overseas study tours by secondary school students in China, this study assists tour educators and practitioners to further understand the effects of such activities and design better tour packages.