Factors for Chinese Students Choosing Australian Higher Education and Motivation for Returning: A Systematic Review

Keyu ZHAI, Xing GAO*, Geng WANG

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Under the third wave of international student mobility, Australia has become the third largest country receiving international students. Compared with the United States and the United Kingdom, Australia can still maintain a stable increase in terms of hosting Chinese students. For Australia, attracting international students becomes an important part of Australian universities’ business and cultural diversity. This paper reports the Chinese students’ initiations of choosing Australian higher education and motivations for returning, aiming at contributing to a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of Chinese students’ international flows. By retrieving all relevant literature published from 2000 to 2017, this paper engages with a systematic review to provide an overview of what exactly motivates Chinese students choosing Australian higher education and returning. Based on the robust assessment criteria, we selected 68 articles for analysis, and according to the coding results, we developed four themes influencing Chinese students’ choice of Australia, including academic requirement and attainment, employment and future career prospects, host country environment, and social connections and three themes for returning: emotional needs, culture and integration in Australia, and career opportunities in China. The research results contribute to policy implications for Australian international higher education development.

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages11
JournalSAGE Open
Volume9
Issue number2
Early online date15 May 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 May 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding:
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-ship, and/or publication of this article.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.

Funding

Geng Wang is a PhD student in School of Education, University of Glasgow, funded by College of Social Sciences Scholarship, University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on youth transitions, skills formation and vocational education. Her recent research is on the impact of neoliberalism on the agency of vocational college students. Keyu Zhai is a PhD student in School of Education, University of Glasgow. His current PhD research funded by China Scholarship Council from 2016 to 2019, employing a mixed research approach, focuses on the experiences and success of international returnees in China. His research is interdisciplinary, traversing across sociology of education, geography of education, and urban studies.

Keywords

  • Chinese international students
  • international degree mobility
  • motivations for return
  • study abroad
  • systematic review

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