Abstract
Student engagement has been attracting attention in the discussion of higher education (HE) quality. Despite the rapid increase of international students in China, little understanding has been gained for quality management on these students’ engagement in learning. This paper focuses on international undergraduate students in Chinese higher education institutions, exploring the nature and characteristics of their academic engagement and the environmental factors influencing the engagement. The discussion was based on a synthesis of the findings of two studies, i.e., an exploratory qualitative study following a small group of international students at a research university and a large-scale survey involving 1428 international students at 34 Chinese universities. The analyses revealed less than satisfactory levels of international students’ engagement, with a high proportion of the participants being passively or ineffectively involved in learning. The qualitative findings highlighted pedagogical and attitudinal factors that affected international students’ engagement. The survey results indicated six environmental factors, categorized into three groups, having significant effects on the respondents’ engagement. Although located in China, the analyses bear implications for practitioners striving for the sustainable development of international education in a broader range of contexts.
Highlights
The new century is witnessing the dramatically rising phenomenon of internationalization of Chinese universities
For the purpose of this article, we sketch the participants’ comments on learning experiences, which has a strong focus on their academic engagement: 1. Participants reported that host teachers were knowledgeable but failed to adequately deliver their knowledge to students
This article focused on the academic engagement of international undergraduate students during their studies in China
Summary
The new century is witnessing the dramatically rising phenomenon of internationalization of Chinese universities. In 2018, 492,185 international students studied at 1004 higher education institutions (HEIs) in China [1], making the country the third most popular international student destination country in the world [2]. There is a lack of understanding of international students’ academic engagement during their studies in China [4]. The growing research has contributed to the understandings of international students’ choice of China for education [6,7,8], intercultural adaptation and identity [9], and levels of satisfaction [6,10], very little generalizable data have been gained for the purpose of quality management on their engagement in learning in Chinese HEIs
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