Mobility Analysis of Chinese Students with Different Educational Levels in Japan: Based on the Push-pull Theory

Most previous research on international student mobility has focused on English-speaking countries. Few studies have focused on student mobility among non-English-speaking countries, and especially fewer comparative studies have been conducted on groups of international students with different educational levels. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether Chinese international students in Japan with different academic qualifications place different emphasis on push and pull factors based on push and pull theories, and to conduct a comparative study. It also complements existing studies by describing changes in the focus of attention of students at different levels of education and summarizing trends. The study used a mixed research method from the beginning to the end: a quantitative method to analyze the different groups' focus on push and pull factors by distributing questionnaires; and a qualitative method to conduct semi-structured interviews with representatives of representative student groups, which ultimately complemented each other to analyze the results. The results found that the three educational groups have different levels of concern for push and pull factors, and even show a certain trend of change with the increase in education, that is, with the increase in education, the concerns of Chinese students in Japan tend to shift from push and pull factors at the social level to push and pull factors at the individual level. These results not only supplement the shortcomings of existing studies, but also lay the foundation for future in-depth research.