行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫 成果報告
國際學生與台灣學術環境互動之研究
研究成果報告(精簡版)
計 畫 類 別 ： 個別型 計 畫 編 號 ： NSC 100-2410-H-004-211- 執 行 期 間 ： 100 年 08 月 01 日至 101 年 07 月 31 日 執 行 單 位 ： 國立政治大學外文中心 計 畫 主 持 人 ： 陳彩虹 計畫參與人員： 碩士班研究生-兼任助理人員：曾志峰 大專生-兼任助理人員：邱沛甄 報 告 附 件 ： 出席國際會議研究心得報告及發表論文 公 開 資 訊 ： 本計畫涉及專利或其他智慧財產權，2 年後可公開查詢中 華 民 國 101 年 10 月 28 日
中 文 摘 要 ： 這項研究探討西方學生在台灣高等教育的學習經驗。研究對 象為在同一所大學就讀，三十五位來自拉丁美洲、北美洲和 歐洲的學生。研究重心放在這些學生由其成長文化所帶進台 灣環境的學習傾向與他們在台灣所碰到的教學方式兩者之間 的互動。研究結果顯示學生在母國及地主國兩種不同的教育 文化之間經驗到很大的衝擊。這份報告討論本研究的其中一 部分結果，即學生對他們在該大學所經驗到的課程內容和老 師的教學方法的敘述及看法。 中文關鍵詞： 國際學生、高等教育、學術適應、跨境教育
英 文 摘 要 ： This study explored Western students｀ learning experiences at a Taiwanese university. The
participants were 35 undergraduate and Master｀s students from Central America, North America and Europe. The study focused on the interaction
interplay between their educational dispositions and the teaching practices they encountered at the
Taiwanese university. Findings of the study indicate that the students experienced a clash in the
educational cultures of their home and host countries. This report discusses the
students｀ perceptions of the course content and teaching methods they experienced at the university. 英文關鍵詞： international students； higher education； academic
1
Negotiating a new learning culture: How international students adapt to the Taiwanese academic environment
Introduction
Internationalization has been a major catalyst for recent changes in higher education worldwide. To increase its global competitiveness, the Taiwanese government has followed this trend and has been actively seeking to internationalize its universities since 2004 (Ministry of Education, 2004). One main strategy has been to increase the population of international students (Ministry of Education, 2009). Statistics show that the number of international students in Taiwan has steadily increased over the years (Education Statistics, n.d.). It can therefore be expected that in the years to come, Taiwan will face the challenge of educating students from countries of different educational cultures. To be able to retain these students as well as to attract new ones, it is essential that Taiwan provide them with quality education. However, currently, we have little understanding of these students’ conceptions of and beliefs about learning, and also their academic adaption to Taiwanese higher education. While there are a growing number of reports about the international student market and strategies for attracting overseas students to Taiwan (e.g., Chang, 2010; Chu, Chu & Jin, 2010; Liu & Sheu, 2008), rather less attention has been paid to these students’ educational experiences in Taiwan.
Roberts, Chou and Ching’s mixed methods study (2010) investigated 88 students’ social and academic adjustment at a university in northern Taiwan. Using focus group and survey data, they outlined the ‘pull’ factors that affected foreign students’ decisions to study in Taiwan; their satisfaction with their choice of the university; and their perceived benefits and challenges of studying at the university. Findings related to students’ academic experience include students reporting choosing the university because of its reputable Mandarin Chinese study programs and “environment conductive to learning” (p.160). Unfortunately, the authors did not provide further details regarding why the particular Mandarin programs were considered by the students to be an attraction or which aspects of the environment were viewed by the students as being able to facilitate their learning. In terms of challenges, an interesting finding of the research is that the students rated “memorizing Chinese characters” as the greatest obstacle, as they were not used to learning through memorization. One limitation of this study is that the sample consisted of only students enrolled in the Mandarin Study Program. As such, the findings may not reflect the
experience of students undertaking degree programs, whose sojourn is usually longer and who may have fewer language barriers.
Jenkins and Galloway (2009) conducted a similar but larger-scale quantitative study on foreign students’ adjustment problems across 15 Taiwanese universities. They surveyed 1,174 foreign students enrolled in both degree and non-degree programs, and 189 university personnel involved in international student affairs. The majority of the student participants were from Asia. The research used modified versions of the Michigan International Student Problem Inventory (MISPI), which
2
asks respondents to rate a number of adjustment problems foreign students may encounter,
including admissions, orientation services, academic advising, student activities, financial aid, and the English and Chinese languages. Comparing students’ and the staff’s responses, Jenkins and Galloway concluded that foreign students in Taiwanese universities encountered relatively minor adaptation problems and that university personnel tended to overestimate the severity of these problems. It should be noted that in measuring the extent of adjustment problems, the study made no distinction between the experiences of degree and non degree-seeking students. This is a limitation of the study, as the purpose of sojourn may greatly influence one’s perception of the problems they encounter.
In terms of research that has focused on degree-seeking international students’ adaption, Shih’s study (2006) involved 69 undergraduate and graduate foreign students in a Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation at a university in southern Taiwan, most of whom were from Central America. The research utilized a questionnaire containing both fixed-response and open-ended questions to identify the factors that motivated the students to study in Taiwan as well as their views of a culture field trip organized by the university. Shih found that in addition to scholarships and Taiwan’s reputable economic achievements, a high quality educational system and learning environment were also the reasons why the students chose Taiwan as the host nation. However, the study did not provide explanations of these findings.
Finally, Lee’s survey study (2004) examined foreign students’ needs and adjustment problems based on the variables of gender, age, marital status, education level, length of stay in Taiwan and country of origin. The respondents were 346 degree-seeking undergraduate students across 21 universities. Findings that have relevance to the present study are: 1) students reporting more adjustment problems tended to belong to one of these categories – those who are: female, European or American, in the first two years of their study, married, or under 20 years of age; 2) first-year students had greater needs in the area of language communication, while second-year students reported more academic needs; 3) European students experienced greater communication needs, American students reported greater social and cultural needs, and Oceania students had more academic and advising needs. Again, there was no discussion of the reasons behind these findings. It would be of interest, for example, to learn why there were more barriers to European and
American students’ adaption; why second-year international students perceived greater academic needs than first-year international students; and most importantly, what kinds of academic challenges the students had experienced.
Although these studies discussed international students’ adaptation in Taiwanese higher education, academic adaptation was not their major focus. That is, these studies did not investigate how the students negotiated the pedagogic practices they experienced in academic settings. This study, therefore, aimed to bridge this gap in the literature by exploring in depth what international students, particularly Western students, encounter in the Taiwan learning environment.
3 Methodology
The study was conducted at one of the major host universities of international students in Taiwan. The following research questions were formulated to anchor the research:
1) What are the educational beliefs and values that international students bring with them to the educational context in Taiwan?
2) What are the characteristics of the pedagogic practices at the Taiwanese university they attend?
3) How do the students negotiate these pedagogic practices?
Participants for the research were 35 undergraduate and Master’s students from Central America, North America and Europe. 22 of them were degree-seeking students, and 13 were exchange students. This report only presents findings concerning degree students’ experiences. The degree-seeking participants consisted of 9 undergraduate and 13 Master’s students and the percentage of males (55%) and females (45%) were closely balanced. They were drawn from the departments of commerce (N=10), social sciences (N=7), liberal arts (N=2) and communication (N=2), with 11 of them in their first year, 5 in the second year, another 5 in the third year, and 1 in the fourth year of study. The students were from eleven countries of origin: the U.S. ( N=5), Guatemala (N=5), Nicaragua (N=3), Germany (N=2), England (N=1), the Netherlands (N=1), Russia (N=1), El Salvador (N=1), Honduras (N=1), Peru (N=1) and Colombia (N=1). More than 80% of them had studied at university back home before coming to Taiwan, which gave them a point of reference when commenting on the teaching practices they experienced in Taiwan. Finally, although one-third of the participants said they were confident in their Chinese language ability, the majority (86%) were enrolled in English-taught courses.
Each participant was interviewed once for about an hour. All interviews were semi-structured and the questions were open-ended in nature. During the student interviews, participants were asked about their educational experiences in their home countries and their learning experiences at the university. They were also asked to describe the learning activities in their courses, the perceived benefits and challenges of these activities, how they approached the tasks involved, and their evaluation of the learning outcome. All interviews were transcribed verbatim for analysis.
Data analysis was facilitated by the software tool, NVivo 9 (QSR International Pty Ltd, 2010). The analysis started with a provisional list of codes derived from the research questions and the literature review. The data was read closely to generate new codes with an inductive technique to account for emerging issues. The coding categories were be continuously modified until
overarching themes emerged.
Results
The study generated a large amount of data. This section only presents findings related to the second research question. It should be emphasized at the outset that the findings reported here represent the teaching practices as the students experienced them, rather than Taiwanese teaching
4 practices per se.
What they were taught: Student perceptions of the course content
One persistent theme running through the data was the focus of the teaching on the course text, whether it was the textbook or reading materials assigned by the teacher. Many undergraduate students found the amount of content covered overwhelming. For example, one said that the courses “take a lot of content very fast … . You just go, knowing something about something, but not deep into the content” (u03, Commerce, Guatemala). Master’s students, on the other hand, were split in their opinions of this issue.They said the amount of content varied from course to course.
Nevertheless, they shared the observation that the knowledge taught tended to be factual, as illustrated in this German student’s comment:
It is extreme amounts of facts which is nothing that German teachers would do. I think what we are being taught in Germany is to access information in a certain way. They are teaching us how to find the key for certain information, how to interpret certain information before which background, and here it is a lot about factual knowledge in a lot of cases. (m13, Social Sciences)
Unanimously, the students expressed the concern that they were not taught how to apply textbook knowledge to real-life situations in their courses. A Commerce participant stated:
The lecture is about the chapter that we read. It doesn’t give more added value, you know, like cases where the chapter was applied, companies for example that applied the things that we are discussing and how they were successful or not. Those were the things that I was expecting but basically, it’s lecture. (m02, Commerce, Guatemala)
Others also spoke of the teachers relying heavily on examples in the textbook to illustrate the theoretical knowledge being taught. An American student gave her calculus teacher as an example, noting that the teacher would use “really crazy examples for you to work out, [such as] if you’re going to design a bridge” (u07, Commerce). For this student, the example was “unrealistic” and not a “real-life application” for a business student, so she did not find it particularly effective for her learning.
Also related to the emphasis on the course text is the repeated comment that most teachers did not tend to draw on their own experiences beyond the classroom in their teaching. In fact, when discussing their favorite courses at the university, all participants highlighted the teacher’s professional practices. In business courses, this referred to the teacher’s work experience in industries. In courses that required students to conduct research, this meant the teacher’s own research experience in the field. For example,
5
So when you ask something, you know you’re gonna get the right answer, not the book answer. You’re gonna -- the field answer, the experience. (u06, Commerce)
She is living for the topic that she is teaching… . Her topic of research is her topic of teaching and you can really feel the personal involvement in the whole thing and she is teaching something that I cannot access on my own which I think is an extremely valuable thing. (m13, Social Sciences)
Admittedly, not every teacher came with a plethora of work or research experience that they could utilize. However, the following quote suggests that it was not the experience per se but the knowledge that the teacher as a more experienced practitioner in the field had developed from their life beyond the immediate teaching context that the students deemed to be most valuable:
It’s more like they know what they’re talking about because they’ve been through; they don’t have to say, ‘I’ve been through this and that,’ but when they talk, they have this conviction, they know it -- not because it’s in a book written by someone random, it’s because they know it, they’ve seen it. (u05, Commerce, Nicaragua)
Unfortunately, in the students’ experience at the university, this kind of teachers was in the minority. As one student put it, most teachers “only base their teaching on the book, and they don’t [share] any experience they had or [things] they see … to support the reading or the material in the book. They do everything literally and textually” (u03 – Commerce, Guatemala).
How they were taught: Student perceptions of the teaching approaches
The students were agreeable in the opinion that their teachers had expert disciplinary knowledge and were ready to help them solve problems when approached after class. Nevertheless, the interviews recurrently indicate that the students found the teaching methods they had experienced were lecture-oriented and not sufficiently engaging. The following quote aptly summarizes this view. In the quote, a student was comparing two Taiwanese teachers’ lecturing styles, with the first one being a more common practice:
He’ll use a PowerPoint and then just kind of read off the PowerPoint and talk a little bit about that. That teaching style for me, and I think for a lot of other international students, is really difficult to get something out of. Although it’s very clear, he has all the points written down like that, it’s kind of monotonous and it’s hard not to fall asleep. My [other] teacher is really great. He’ll move around … . And there is a lot of interaction. It’s a lecture style but he is still interacting with the class. (u07, the U.S.)
6
The lack of interaction was also highlighted in the students’ discussions of how their teachers dealt with reading materials that they assigned students to read before class. Some said they would expect the teachers to conduct interactive activities based on students’ understanding of the readings, but they found the teachers often just lectured on the readings. According to the students, this
approach differed greatly from their prior experience in their countries: “[back home] when the teachers said ‘read this’ is because … you were going to apply what you read into something else. She wasn’t going to tell you the concepts of what you read again” (m04, Nicaragua).
Several students said they noticed their teachers’ intent to interact with the class, especially the younger teachers or teachers who had experiences overseas, but the intent was often not
successfully executed. These teachers were found to adopt two techniques to encourage interaction. The first involved asking if students had questions and posing questions to them, which the
participants noted often induced few responses. One student recounted why she was unable to interact with the teacher in this kind of situation:
There is no discussion. Pretty much like when they lecture, they lecture, and then at the end of the time would be like ‘Any questions?’. Well, we just learn this; there is nothing to focus on or any questions to ask. (m07, the U.S.)
This was not an isolated comment. Others expressed the similar concern that the amount of
information received during a lecture was normally too large for them to process before the teacher posed a question. The other common technique was to reward students who contributed thoughts bonus marks. Several undergraduate students reported that in some courses, a teaching assistant would keep record of their participation. Disapproval of this method was ubiquitous among the participants. One asked, “What happens if you … understand everything that the teacher’s saying, and you have no comments?” (u03, Guatemala); another observed that this method resulted in students making meaningless comments or asking uninspiring questions, consequently wasting everyone’s time (m03, Nicaragua); still another said she refused to win marks this way because
the whole point of expressing your mind and sharing your ideas is to have the initiative to learn something from someone else, or to know if what you’re saying is right or wrong; but nobody has initiative -- they just do it because they get something afterwards, and at the end, it’s just grades, and to me, that’s just pointless. (u05, Nicaragua)
Clearly, the form of interaction the students felt was missing in the teaching was not a one-way, superficial exchange between the teacher and students but a more interactive and thought-provoking discussion. One Master’s student recalled experiencing the latter type of interaction in one of her courses:
7
cases in each group then we had to discuss them all together in a big class so it was quite a nice experience because we all got the chance to express our thoughts and discuss and debate so that we had the opportunity to be more able to say what we thought and everyone participated more. (m01, Commerce)
Most students, however, did not report this level of interaction in their courses, and it appeared to be particularly disappointing for Master’s students. For example, a fourth year Master’s student said he could not recollect having a good discussion in his classes (m10, the U.S.) and another first year student also stated, “I’ve never been in a class where a comment has really started a fascinating dialogue” (m09, the U.S.).
Discussion and conclusion
Put together, the findings concerning the course content suggest that, from the students’ perspective, the connection between what they were learning and their real life contexts was relatively weak. This weak connection was manifested in three aspects: the predominant lecturing style, which aimed at the breadth of content knowledge; a reliance on drawing examples from the textbook rather than from the real life to illustrate the content being taught; and a lack of the teacher bringing their personal knowledge (i.e., knowledge developed in the everyday life that is related to the course content) to the teaching. While such a traditional teaching approach may be, as previously stated, a product of the exam-dominated educational system, it is perplexing to identify its prevalence in this study, given that the pressure of exams is lifted off learners and hence their teachers at university. One reason that can account for this form of practice is that it may accord with the teachers’ own conception of learning.
According to Paine (1990), the learning process in Confucius-heritage cultures (CHCs) involves four key stages. The first three require the learner to learn perceptual knowledge from the text, understand the knowledge and solidifying the knowledge. Only when all this has been
achieved can one apply the knowledge. Moreover, as understanding and solidifying knowledge have to be achieved through accruing a substantial amount of content and reviewing it diligently, and the teacher is believe to be an expert in the content, teachers are expected to teach as much content as they can in a systematic and efficient manner. As for knowledge application, despite the abundant literature on CHC learners, how they are taught to apply what they learn at school
remained unknown. In fact, as Hu (2002) pointed out, the potential application of school knowledge in CHCs is rarely made transparent to learners; what is considered more important by CHC teachers is to help learners build a strong foundation on which their future application of this knowledge is possible. In other words, it is believed that real-life application takes place after one leaves school. Accordingly, knowledge beyond the educational context, including examples from the real life, and the teacher’s or learners’ personal experiences, is not regarded as significant forms of knowledge at university.
8
The students’ description of the Taiwan teaching practice, in fact, resembles that of a
traditional form of East Asian practice documented in the literature. This warrant special attention given that traditional and authoritarian pedagogies are indisputably seen as undesirable in modern East Asia and scholars have optimistically predicted the transformation of East Asian university teaching as a result of the burgeoning number of foreign-educated academics (Kember et al., 2006; Tam, Heng & Jiang, 2009). Admittedly, students in this study did observe the teacher’s intention to shun an authoritarian teaching approach by welcoming students to speak in class. Therefore, it could be said that changes were happening, albeit slowly. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether the slow change was because the teachers do not have know how to implement a less traditional approach effectively (as seen in their ways to conduct interaction) or because the Asian belief about the aforementioned learning stages is still solidly rooted in the culture. Future research exploring the views of the teaching staff in this regard will be an especially valuable contribution.
Like in many countries, university teachers in Taiwan do not receive teacher education before taking the post. This did not seem to be a major problem prior to the arrival of international students on university campuses since teachers and students held similar beliefs and expectations about education. With the growing presence of international students, particularly those from the West, East Asian universities are urged to reexamine their programs that involve Western students, and to better support these students in their study sojourn and the teachers who are teaching these students. Presently, in Taiwan, the main support for teachers include talks and workshops that intend to improve teachers’ English language skills and teaching methods. While these are useful measures, the study argues that additional, longer term action should be taken to help teachers examine their existing conceptions of learning and teaching as studies have demonstrated a correlation between academics’ conceptions of teaching and their approaches to teaching (Trigwell & Prosser, 1996). Further, more research on international students’ experiences with East Asian teaching should be conducted and results be made accessible to teachers. It should be emphasized that this study does not suggest that converting to a Western pedagogic approach is the solution since student
demographics are becoming heterogeneous and adopting such an approach may hamper other students’ learning. Rather, the study argues that by understanding the educational beliefs of their own and of their students, teachers will be more aware of the difficulties their students may be experiencing and more able to make informed pedagogic decisions appropriate to most learners. This will, in turn, not only benefit international students but local students as well.
Overall, these results point to a highly structured pedagogic approach characterized by strong teacher control, manifested in the dominant lecturing style and class interaction. As previously discussed, CHC teachers see providing a large amount of content for students as their main responsibility. This may have, in part, contributed to their mostly expository methods as in a
practical sense they may have felt lecturing through slides in a predetermined order ensured that all prepared content was taught. Their inclination to lecture in this manner may also have been made stronger by the fact that the most of them were teaching in a foreign language. Hsien (2012) found
9
that being able to present the course material clearly in English was a major concern for Chinese lecturers in the U.K. because according to the lecturers, British students tended to attribute their own inability to understand the content to nonnative English speaking lecturers’ English. The teachers in the present study may have shared the same concern, which caused them to focus on the clarity of their presentations in order to avoid such criticism from students. A third explanation is that this lecturing approach is reminiscent of the “virtuoso” teaching model described by Paine’s (1990),which portrays the relationship between the teacher and students in CHCs as one between a performer and the audience. In this model, a crucial role of a good teacher is to command the stage by virtue of their skillful performance. This does not mean the teacher is indifferent to student needs, as they are expected to adjust the pace and content of their teaching according to the progress of a particular student group. Nevertheless, this expository approach remains one that highlights the teacher demonstrating their ability to illuminate the content and learners being part of a group rather than individuals.
With regard to the strong teacher control in class interaction, the findings show that interaction in the Taiwan teaching context was orchestrated in the sense that the class time allocated to teacher and student talking was clearly demarcated and that students’ opportunities to speak were carefully planned. For example, only when the teacher finished their presentation were students invited to talk. Interruptions of lectures by students appeared to be uncommon, suggesting that spontaneous interaction initiated by students during lectures was not encouraged, which indicates a lower tolerance of disorder and the unpredictable in the teaching practice. In addition, rewarding student participation in class interaction with bonus marks, regardless of what students actually contributed to the discussion, shows that what mattered to the teaching was the effort students made to
participate rather than them trying to enhance understanding and co-construct knowledge through sharing thoughts. This raises the question of whether the teachers who adopted this method with a view to increasing class interactivity believed in the pedagogic benefits of an interactive
environment. As Kim (2002) found in her research, the Western notion of verbalizing one’s thoughts facilitating one’s thinking is not shared by East Asians, who consider silence and
introspection as essential for thinking. The teachers in this study may have held the same belief but stillcreated opportunities for students to interact (despite ineffectively in the students’ view) because they were aware of the emphasis on interaction in modern education.
In conclusion, the Western students in this study felt that the Taiwan context considered the authoritative text and the teacher’s analysis and interpretation of the text major forms of valid knowledge. They experienced frustration with this form of curriculum that is highly insulated from the real life. In contrast, they believed it to be paramount that what they were taught had immediate relevance to their life. They also viewed textbook content as knowledge that they could access on their own and therefore had less value. Hence, in terms of course content, the Taiwan teaching practices did not meet the students’ expectations. Moreover, the students in this study could not identify with these teaching methods. They expected the teachers to involve them in a different way
10
in class. Their accounts indicate that in their formative education, primacy was given to the teacher inspiring students to think independently and critically about the content being taught by using different teaching methods, rather than given to the amount of content and the teacher’s detailed elaboration on the content. Shaped by their educational experiences back home, the students were used to being able to question and challenge what was taught to them more spontaneously. They were also accustomed to the teacher challenging them to express their thoughts and debate with one another. However, while all of them expressed a strong motivation to interact with the teacher and their fellow students in class, the results show that most of them did not take the initiative to do so. This appeared to be partly due to their inability to digest the overwhelming amount of content to be able to discuss it, andpartly due to their caution about behaving properly in a new culture. In sum, the students benefited little from the pedagogic approach they had experienced at the university.
References
Chang, H.F. (2010). Universities’ strategies for recruiting foreign students. E-Soc Journal, 88. Retrieved March 7, 2011 from http://www.nhu.edu.tw/~society/e-j/88/88-10.htm
Chu, A.Z.-C., Chu, R. J.-C., & Jin, N. S.-J. (2010). International student recruiting policies in Asia Pacific countries: A comparative education study. Journal of Liberal Arts and Social
Sciences, 6, 29-62.
Education Statistics. (n.d.). Number of Foreign Students in Taiwan. Retrieved March 23, 2011 from http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/B0013/overview72.xls
Hu, G. (2002). Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 15(2), 93-105.
Hsieh, H.-h. (2011). Challenges facing Chinese academic staff in a UK university in terms of language, relationships and culture. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(4), 371-383. Jenkins, J., & Galloway, F. (2009). The adjustment problems faced by international and overseas
Chinese students studying in Taiwan universities: A comparison of student and faculty/staff perceptions. Asia Pacific Education Review, 10(2), 159–168.
Kember, D., McNaught, C., & Ma, R. (2006). Excellent university teaching. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
Kim, H. S. (2002). We talk, therefore we think? A cultural analysis of the effect of talking on thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(4), 828-842.
Lee, K.-W. (2004). A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Student Needs in Taiwan. Hsuan Chuang
Humanities Journal, 2, 19–44.
Liu, L.F., & Sheu, T.M. (2008). International students’ reasons for studying in Taiwan. The
Educator Monthly [師友], 493, 8-13.
Ministry of Education. (2004). 2005-2008 Directions of Education Policies. Retrieved March 10, 2011 from http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/B0038/940817edumain.doc
11
http://english.moe.gov.tw/public/Attachment/9111111302271.pdf
Paine, L.W. (1990). The teacher as virtuoso: A Chinese model for teaching. Teachers College
Record, 92(1), 49-81.
QSR International Pty Ltd. (2010). NVivo 9. Melbourne, Australia.
Roberts, A., Chou, P., & Ching, G. (2010). Contemporary trends in East Asian higher education: Dispositions of international students in a Taiwan university. Higher Education, 59(2), 149–166.
Shih, R.-C. (2006/7). Foreign students’ perception and learning needs toward studying in Taiwan: A case study of DTAIC at NPUST. 英語教學與文化 [English Teaching and Culture], 2,
1
國科會補助專題研究計畫項下出席國際學術會議心得報告
日期：101 年 10 月 23 日一、參加會議經過
今年度的亞太國際教育協會(APAIE)年會主辦單位及舉行地點為 Mahidol University，由於 有些指定飯店離該大學有些距離，大會安排了接駁渡輪，我發現這樣的安排有個很大的優點，每 天我會碰到固定的與會人士或學者，在渡輪上的時間我們會交換意見，討論前一天參加會議的內 容。我也因此有較多與各國大學負責招攬國際學生人員談話的機會，對各校推出的課程和方向有 了較深入的了解。對於研究者來說，這些資訊非常重要。本次會議在每一場次安排三篇文章發表， 我的 paper 被排在第一天 keynote speech 結束後發表，主題為學生流動性，我是第一位發表人，觀 眾對我的提問主要是與將學習者為中心的教學法運用在亞洲教學環境的相關議題，也有觀眾跟我 討論我所提出的分析架構。 發表完後我便專心聆聽其他學者的發表，我的場次除了我之外，還有澳洲昆士蘭大學繼續 教育和英語教學教育學院的兩位發表人從東南亞國協的經濟社群角度談論該地區的教育流動 性，他們對過去幾年來國際學生的流動方向和數據做了很仔細的分析，我受益很大；另一位同場 次韓國 Konkuk 大學的發表人則是報告他對在韓國的國際學生的研究發現，我得以比較他的研究 與我的研究之異同。其他場次中，我印象較深刻的是香港大學 Jane Jackson 教授關於短期留學生 文化敏感度發展過程的研究論文，她在報告中提到的一些研究留學生的方法給我一些啟發，若將 來遇到適合的研究情境我可能考慮使用。另一場談論歐洲區國家對東南亞區域高等教育變化的因 應策略，對我也很有啟發。此外，我也利用中間休息時間去瀏覽各國的大學在大會教育展覽區設 置的攤位，了解他們的國際化情況。 二、與會心得 APAIE 於 2004 年成立，這是我第一次參加 APAIE 的年會，我發現此會議不僅吸引來自亞 太地區的學者和教育人士，而且含有高比例的歐美國家代表。我參加此會議的主要目的是想了解 亞太地區的學者對於在該地區就學的國際學生正在做些甚麼研究(由於亞太地區直到近幾年才開 始積極招收國際學生，這方面文獻目前非常仍十分缺乏)。另外一個目的是要我的國科會計畫研 究初步成果與此領域的各國學者分享，藉此呼籲從事國際教育人士除招生之外，更應重視國際學 計畫編號 NSC 100-2410-H-004 -211 計畫名稱 國際學生與台灣學術環境互動之研究 出國人員 姓名 陳彩虹 服務機構 及職稱 政治大學外文中心助理教授 會議時間 101 年 4 月 4 日至 101 年 4 月 6 日 會議地點 泰國曼谷 會議名稱 (中文)第七屆亞太國際教育協會年會
(英文) 2012 Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE 2012) Conference and Exhibition
發表論文 題目
(中文)以社會學觀點看學生的跨境學習經驗
2 生的學習經驗。第三個目的是要藉此會議了解其他亞太地區國家在此方面可能正在面臨的議題。 我的觀察是，如文獻所顯示，亞洲的高等教育機構仍將大部分重心置於招生策略，對與國際學生 相關的教學和學習議題的研究過少。我期待亞太國際教育協會能在未來的年會中規畫一個常設專 區探討這個主題，鼓勵亞太地區學者從事此方面的研究。 三、考察參觀活動 無 四、建議 建議年會可以更學術性一些，多一些研究論文發表，或是將研究論文(research papers) 與非研究性 文章(non-research papers)做區分。 五、攜回資料名稱及內容
Conference program: "University Social Responsibility for the Benefit of Mankind"
六、其他
A sociological perspective on student experiences of cross-border learning
Rainbow T.-H. CHEN rchen@nccu.edu.tw
National Chengchi University, Taiwan
This paper uses a sociological approach to explore international students’ cross-border learning experiences in higher education. Drawing on Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory, two qualitative studies were conducted: one involved Chinese students studying in Australia (henceforth, the Australia study) and the other involved non-Asian students studying in Taiwan (henceforth, the Taiwan study). The paper focuses on the interplay between the students’ educational dispositions that they brought from their home countries and the pedagogic practices they encountered in their host learning environments. At the time of writing this abstract, the Australia study had been completed, while the Taiwan study was still in progress. The Australia study concluded that Chinese students experienced a ‘code clash’ during their adaptation to the teaching practices they encountered in Australia. This code clash was found to result in adverse educational and psychological consequences. Preliminary data from the Taiwan study also suggests a code clash, but with the roles of home/host nations, and the codes underpinning them, now being reversed. Certainly, this initial insight requires further investigation. It also remains to be seen whether the code clash (once fully identified) leads to differing consequences from those in the Australia study. A comparison of the findings from the two studies and its implications for Asia-pacific nations devoted to enlarging their international student body shall be available for report at the conference.
Dear Dr Rainbow Chen
Congratulations! Your abstract entitled A sociological perspective on student experiences of cross-border learning has been accepted for oral presentation at the APAIE Conference and Exhibition 2012.
If you have not registered to attend the conference, please click here for registration. Please confirm your
attendance to present at the APAIE 2012 Conference and Exhibition before Monday 16th January 2012. We will contact you again before the end of January 2012 for further information and instructions.
If you require any assistance with regard to registration and confirmation, please contact: gracek@apaie.org
Regards,
Grace Kim
Asia-Pacific Association for International Education
Tel: 82-2-3290-2938 Fax: 82-2-921-0684
國科會補助計畫衍生研發成果推廣資料表
日期:2012/10/23國科會補助計畫
計畫名稱: 國際學生與台灣學術環境互動之研究 計畫主持人: 陳彩虹 計畫編號: 100-2410-H-004-211- 學門領域: 課程與教學無研發成果推廣資料
100 年度專題研究計畫研究成果彙整表
計畫主持人：陳彩虹 計畫編號： 100-2410-H-004-211-計畫名稱：國際學生與台灣學術環境互動之研究 量化 成果項目 實際已達成 數（被接受 或已發表） 預期總達成 數(含實際已 達成數) 本計畫實 際貢獻百 分比 單位 備 註 （ 質 化 說 明：如 數 個 計 畫 共 同 成 果、成 果 列 為 該 期 刊 之 封 面 故 事 ... 等） 期刊論文 0 0 100% 研究報告/技術報告 1 0 100% 研討會論文 0 0 100% 篇 論文著作 專書 0 0 100% 申請中件數 0 0 100% 專利 已獲得件數 0 0 100% 件 件數 0 0 100% 件 技術移轉 權利金 0 0 100% 千元 碩士生 1 0 100% 博士生 0 0 100% 博士後研究員 0 0 100% 國內 參與計畫人力 （本國籍） 專任助理 0 0 100% 人次 期刊論文 0 2 100% 研究報告/技術報告 0 0 100% 研討會論文 2 0 100% 篇 論文著作 專書 0 0 100% 章/本 申請中件數 0 0 100% 專利 已獲得件數 0 0 100% 件 件數 0 0 100% 件 技術移轉 權利金 0 0 100% 千元 碩士生 0 0 100% 博士生 0 0 100% 博士後研究員 0 0 100% 國外 參與計畫人力 （外國籍） 專任助理 0 0 100% 人次其他成果
(
無法以量化表達之成 果如辦理學術活動、獲 得獎項、重要國際合 作、研究成果國際影響 力及其他協助產業技 術發展之具體效益事 項等，請以文字敘述填 列。) 無 成果項目 量化 名稱或內容性質簡述 測驗工具(含質性與量性) 0 課程/模組 0 電腦及網路系統或工具 0 教材 0 舉辦之活動/競賽 0 研討會/工作坊 0 電子報、網站 0 科 教 處 計 畫 加 填 項 目 計畫成果推廣之參與（閱聽）人數 0國科會補助專題研究計畫成果報告自評表
請就研究內容與原計畫相符程度、達成預期目標情況、研究成果之學術或應用價
值（簡要敘述成果所代表之意義、價值、影響或進一步發展之可能性）
、是否適
合在學術期刊發表或申請專利、主要發現或其他有關價值等，作一綜合評估。
1. 請就研究內容與原計畫相符程度、達成預期目標情況作一綜合評估
■達成目標
□未達成目標（請說明，以 100 字為限）
□實驗失敗
□因故實驗中斷
□其他原因
說明：
2. 研究成果在學術期刊發表或申請專利等情形：
論文：□已發表 □未發表之文稿 ■撰寫中 □無
專利：□已獲得 □申請中 ■無
技轉：□已技轉 □洽談中 ■無
其他：（以 100 字為限）
在本計畫下已發表兩篇國際研討會論文，分別為1. Chen, R. (2012). Western students' experiences of an Asian learning
environment. The 32nd annual conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Montreal, Canada.
2. Chen, R. (2012). A sociological perspective on student experiences of cross-border learning. 2012 Asia-Pacific Association for International Education Conference, Bangkok, Thailand.
