Chinese Students Study Abroad

Proceedings of 23rd International Business Research Conference

18 - 20 November, 2013, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-36-8

Comparing Research on Chinese Students Study Abroad

Decision-making: China-based versus Overseas-based

Perspectives

Xuemei Liu, Frank Elston, and Peng Zhou

With its strong economic growth over the past 40 years, China has

become a major source of students for international education

providers. Previous research has identified some push and pull

factors that influence Chinese students’ overseas study destination

choice. Nevertheless, scholars hold different viewpoints on those

factors. Furthermore, those findings may be limited because most

research is carried out by overseas-based researchers and, due to

the language barrier and/or cultural differences; they may overlook

some most recent findings from the Chinese research literature. The

aim of this paper is to identify differences between overseas-based

and China-based research outcomes, in order to develop a more

comprehensive view of factors that may impact on mainland Chinese

students’ overseas destination choice.

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Fields of Research: Marketing and International Consumers

1. Introduction

The tendency for students to study outside of their native country has increased as a

result of the worldwide trend to globalisation particularly for tertiary education,

impacting international higher education in both sourcing and destination countries.

Researchers predict that the number of international students might rise to

approximately 7 million by year 2020 (Altbach et al. 2009).

The dominant flow of international students is from developing countries to Western

developed countries. In particular, out of every ten tertiary students studying

overseas, four are Asians (Wang 2007), and China is among the largest sourcing

countries for international students, this trend will become more significant in the

near future (Liu et al. 2007). In 2011, there were 339,700 Chinese students studying

abroad, among whom 12,800 had been sent and paid for by the Chinese

government, 12,100 had been sent and paid by other organisations, and 314,800 of

whom financed their own expenses (Chinese Students Abroad - 2011 Figures

Released 2012).

Some studies have examined factors influencing Chinese students‟ decision on

1

Xuemei Liu，Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts, Univeristy of Southern Queensland,

Australia, Email: @

2

Dr Frank Elston, Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts, Univeristy of Southern Queensland,

Australia, Email: @

3

Dr Peng Zhou, Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts, Univeristy of Southern Queensland,

Australia, Email: ng@

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Proceedings of 23rd International Business Research Conference

18 - 20 November, 2013, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-36-8

overseas studying destinations. Nevertheless, those findings may be limited because

most research work published in the English literature was carried out by overseas

researchers rather than Chinese domestic researchers who may have deeper

insights into Chinese students‟ needs and wants. Due to the language barrier and

cultural differences, those overseas-based researchers may not be able to fully

understand the Chinese changing cultural, social and economic environments‟

impact on potential Chinese students‟ motivation to pursue higher degree studies

overseas, because they do not have access to much of the Chinese research

literature which is more relevant to Chinese students‟ realities. In order to better

understand which factors may impact Chinese students overseas study decision

making process, it is necessary to explore all the factors which may exert influence

on Chinese students‟ choice of their studying abroad destinations from both

overseas-based and China-based research.

In light of the above discussion, the remainder of the article is organised as follows.

First, we reviewed some key publications from both the English and the Chinese

literature to identify a collection of factors which have been found significantly

influencing Chinese students studying abroad destination choices. Then, we

compared the factors found by overseas researchers with those found by China-

based researchers. Finally, we summarised the findings and discussed implications

of this study for the host country and its institutions.

2. Key Factors Influencing Chinese Students’ Overseas Study

Destination Choices

Considering the importance of recruiting international students, many studies have

identified factors which may influence international students study abroad decisions.

Those factors can be categorised into two groups, push and pull factors (Mazzarol &

Soutar 2002). Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) defined the push factors as the factors

which operate within the source country and initiate a student‟s decision to undertake

international study. In contrast, the pull factors operate within a host country to make

that country relatively attractive to international students. These two kinds of factors

relate to a two stage decision: whether to go and where to go (Klenosky 2002).

To better understand Chinese students‟ choice of their overseas study destinations,

we researched into both the overseas-based research published in the English

literature and the China-based research published in the Chinese literature, in an

effort to identify keys factors in terms of push and pull forces following Mazzarol and

Soutar‟s (2002) above outlined framework. Findings of the overseas-based research

will be presented first, then our attention will be shifted to findings from the China-

based research.

Overseas-based research

Much of the research found in the English literature focuses on identifying factors

affecting international students‟ choice of overseas study destination, containing

analysis for the Chinese students. One characteristic of these studies is that the

researchers designed their research instruments in English initially instead of

Chinese due to the language barrier. Then for data collection purposes, either the

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