22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Facilitators and Barriers of International Research Collaboration: An Exploration of Academics’ Perspective in Iran and Turkey
Yasar Kondakci1, Mohsen Nazarzadeh Zare2, Maryam Sadat Ghoraishi Khorasgani3, Pınar Kızılhan4
1Middle East Technical University, Turkiye; 2Malayer University; 3Alzahra University; 4Ankara University
Presenting Author: Kondakci, Yasar
There is a tendency to conceptualize Internationalization in Higher Education (IHE) as a matter of student mobility. However, research in and out of the academy forms a wide space of international collaboration. Research collaboration between academics as a growing phenomenon has attracted the attention of higher education researchers and policymakers around the world (Ponds, 2009; Menash & Enu-Kwesi, 2018). The literature documents various rationales for International Research Collaboration (IRC) that are operating at the micro (individual researchers), meso (institutional/university), and macro (country/national) levels. From a micro perspective, international collaboration in research is inevitable for academics because of various reasons such as accomplishing a wider impact on their research output, improving the quality of research outputs, widening the scope of their research, soliciting funds for research, benefiting from wider research infrastructures, and joining research networks (Finkelstein, Walker, and Chen (2013; Hoekman et al., 2010; Kyvik and Larsen 1994; Ponds, 2009; Shehatta & Mahmood, 2016). From the meso (institutional/university) perspective international collaboration in research has become a strategic orientation for prominent universities around the world (Hovart, Weber & Wicki, 2000). Universities build a reputation and make themselves more visible on the international scene with the help of IRC. Finally, from the macro level (country/national) perspective non-science policy objectives such as improving national competitiveness, supporting less developed countries, tackling global challenges, and serving public diplomacy can also be aimed by IRC (Technolopolis Group, 2009). Kwiek (2018) stated that international collaboration in research is accepted as an indicator of a competitive economy. For many countries, IRC forms a critical input to building a knowledge-based economy (Horvath et al., 2000) as well as transforming higher education systems and national research policies (Calikoglu, Kondakci, & Seggie, 2023).
Although IRC has strong rationales at different levels, academics face several different challenges and barriers in their IRC. These challenges and barriers are more evident in peripheral countries, resulting in lower IRC levels in these countries. The question of why IRC is not realized at a desired level, and more importantly why peripheral countries realized it at even lower levels is an important concern. Kwiek (2018) distinguished IRC from international research orientation. International research orientation is an attitude and it is a precursor of IRC, while the IRC refers to the actual behavior of performing research collaboration (Kwiek, 2018). Evidently, the international nature of higher education and even the presence of orientation for international research does not guarantee IRC. Understanding economic, political, social, cultural, and academic barriers operating differently at micro, meso, and macro levels is important in developing policies for realizing IRC. In addition, comparative studies help to capture practices and perspectives in different country contexts. As a result, insights from policies, practices, and perspectives in a peripheral context may potentially inform policy and practices to widen IRC. Research outputs around the globe are skewed toward Western countries (Jung & Horta, 2013; Tight, 2012). Therefore, the current study aims to reveal the (1) factors leading to IRC, (2) barriers to IRC, and (3) solutions for more effective IRC at the individual, institutional and national levels.
Higher Education in Iran and Turkey
Two countries' higher education system are based on the bureaucratic system and centralization (Ghoraishi Khorasgani & Nazarzadeh Zare, 2021; Kondakci & Şenay, 2022). Both higher education systems have been under the influence of globalization and internationalization trends. As a result, academics in the two countries faced the repercussions of internationalization in their teaching and research (Hayati & Didegah, 2010; Calikoglu, Kondakci, & Seggie, 2023). Thus, the two countries form a good case of comparison to identify the facilitators and barriers and develop recommendations for effective ITC policies.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedGiven the fact that the qualitative method involves an interpretive and naturalistic approach to the world, which to allow the researchers to perceive the phenomenon based on the meanings that individuals create, and also will enable researchers to consider the differences among participants in beliefs, values, meanings, and social contexts (Mertens, 2015). Due to the fact that in the present study, the researchers sought to understand the experience of faculty members regarding the phenomenon of IRC, hence, they tried to suspend their theories, interpretations, and hypotheses regarding the phenomenon to better understand the phenomenon. Therefore, in the present study, a descriptive phenomenological method was used. The participants in the study included the faculty members of the public and private universities of Iran and Turkey in the fields of behavioral sciences and humanities, who by using the purposeful sampling method of extreme and deviant type, 23 faculty members from Iran and 25 faculty members from Turkey were selected until theoretical saturation was reached. In the study, a semi-structured interview was used to collect data. To analyze the data each transcribed interview was coded and common codes were merged in order to find out the common themes and categories. To increase the validity of research data, member checks and peer checks were used. The member checks method was done during the data collection process in this way, the participants were asked to comment on the codes and categories obtained and also discuss whether the obtained items accurately reflect their understanding and mentality or not. The peer checks method also was done after the analysis of the interviews, and two colleagues who were knowledgeable about qualitative analysis methods were asked to express their expert opinions regarding the analysis of the interviews, and they confirmed the analysis of the interviews.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings suggest that factors driving academics for IRC operate at individual, institutional, national, and transnational levels. Individual factors are related to motivations, personal attributes to IRC, membership in research groups and networks, the disciplinary field, and financial incentives. On the other hand, organizational or institutional factors were identified as added value for a university, the approach, and orientation of a university, organizational strategy, organizational culture, management and leadership of a university, and reward structure in a university. At the national level, funding schemes and reward mechanisms for the outputs of international collaboration were indicated as driving factors for IRC among academics. Finally, transnational level, transnational organizations (e.g., the EU) science and technology development policies and funding programs were stated as the driving factors for involving in IRC. It is worth noting that individual-level factors were more dominant and strongly stated as drivers of IRC. Also, barriers for IRC were categorized under organizational, institutional, and individual barriers, and finally, the solutions related to IRC were also categorized into three institutional, organizational, and individual levels. Solutions to the barriers concentrate on organizational solutions. In other words, academics expect their institutions to be supportive and facilitative of the challenges and barriers that they encounter in their IRC. The results suggest that both national-level policies and institutional-level strategies are insufficient to mobilize the potential of the academics for IRC. Considering the distinction between international research orientation and IRC, which was made by Kwiek (2018), both institutions and governments need more effective policy tools to mobilize the international research orientation of the academics into IRC.
ReferencesÇalıkoglu, A., Kondakci, Y. & Seggie, F. N. (2023). International research collaboration in Turkish higher education: the role of individual, professional, and institutional factors. Higher Education Journal, 12, 62-76: doi:10.2399/yod.22.202206
Finkelstein, M. J., Walker, E., & Chen, R. (2013). The American faculty in an age of globalization: Predictors of internationalization of research content and professional networks. Higher Education, 66, 325-340.
Ghoraishi khorasgani, M. S., Nazarzadeh zare, M. (2021). A Look at the Challenges of Boundary-Spanner Academic Leaders. Ihej, 13 (2), 72-95. (Persian).
Hayati, Z., & Didegah, F. (2010). International scientific collaboration among Iranian researchers during 1998-2007, Library Hi Tech, 28 (3), 433-446.
Hoekman, J., Frenken, K., & Tijssen, R. J. W. (2010). Research collaboration at a distance: Changing spatial patterns of scientific collaboration within Europe. Research Policy, 39, 662–673.
Horvath, F., Weber, K., & Wicki, M. (2000). International research orientation of Swiss universities: Self-regulated or politically imposed? Higher Education, 40, 389-408.
Jung, J., & Horta, H. (2013). Higher education research in Asia: A publication and co-publication analysis. Higher Education Quarterly, 67(4), 398–419.
Kondakci, Y. & Senay, H.H. (2022). Administration of Foundation Universities. In H. Simsek, Foundation Universities in Turkey: An Anatomy of a Young Sector. Seckin, Ankara (pp. 54-80).( Turkish).
Kwiek, M. (2018). International Research Collaboration and International Research Orientation: Comparative Findings About European Academics, Journal of Studies in International Education, 22 (2), 136–160.
Kyvik, S., & Larsen, I. M. (1994). International contact and research performance. Scientometrics, 29, 161-172.
Mensah, M. S. B., & Enu-Kwesi, F. (2018). Research collaboration for a knowledge-based economy: towards a conceptual framework. Triple Helix, 5(1), 1-17.
Mertens, D.M. (2015). Research and Evaluation in Educational and Psychology. Ed (4) United State of America: Sage Publication.
Ponds, R. (2009). The limits to the internationalization of scientific research collaboration. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 34(1), 76-94.
Shehatta, I., & Mahmood, K. (2016). Research collaboration in Saudi Arabia 1980–2014: Bibliometric patterns and national policy to foster research quantity and quality. Libri, 66(1), 13-29.
Technopolis Group (2009). Drivers of international collaboration in research: Final report. The University of Manchester. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kieron-Flanagan-2/publication/265205579_Drivers_of_International_collaboration_in_research/links/5515894c0cf2d70ee27078af/Drivers-of-International-collaboration-in-research.pdf
Tight, M. (2012). Higher education research 2000–2010: Changing journal publication patterns. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(5), 723–740.
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
The Geopolitics of Transnational Education
Jill Blackmore
Deakin University, Australia
Presenting Author: Blackmore, Jill
The international education (IE) market has 5.3 million students studying outside their home country (OECD 2019). The US, UK, Canada and Australia are top destination choices, contributing to student diversity. International students (IS) have benefitted provider country’s economically, socially and politically and through soft power (Byrne and Hall 2013). IE as Australia’s largest services export created 250,000 jobs for Australians in services (tourism, accommodation, transport, hospitality, entertainment and retail). Australian universities have become financially dependent on IS to fund research and domestic student expansion (30.7% of students are international and one third from China) (Marshman & Larkins 2020, Aust Gov 2020) and therefore impacted by border closures (Ziguras and Tran 2020).
Student mobility has increasingly become subject to turbulence in politics, culture, economics, natural disasters, and public health (Tran 2020, Sharma and Leung 2017). Australian universities vulnerability resulted from convergence of Covid travel restrictions, regional and global shifts in international relations, and increasing inward-looking nationalism (Blackmore 2020, Tran 2020b). IS mobility depends on multiple intersecting and unexpected factors:- rapid changes geopolitically (eg. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), China’s increased aggression in Indo-Pacific and exertion of soft power internationally (Ren 2020, He 2019) and significant global and regional reconfigurations of political alliances (e.g AUKUS) (He 2020), and post Covid recovery of nation states (Ross 2020, Mittelmeyer 2020).
The overarching three-year Australian Research Council project from which this paper is drawn investigates both inward and outward flows of IS within this complex geopolitical context (Marginson et al. 2010, Potts 2015; Tran 2020). It considers the geopolitics and perceptions of risk (political, economic and health security) of the various stakeholders (students, universities, governments). The project examines (i) Australian and foreign universities’ policy responses related to transnational student mobilities, international partnerships and global engagement, and (ii) how student perceptions of risk (health security, safety of host and home countries and geopolitical context) will inform study destination choices in the future.
This paper focuses on (i). It charts the wider geopolitical contexts over time which have shaped transnational education and focuses on current trends in student mobility with a particular focus on China, India and Vietnam as key providers of students to Australia. It considers how each of these countries have viewed internationalisation of education (He and Wilkins 2018), how international education has been weaponised and how policy responses to rising security concerns impact on universities and academic collaboration (Li 2009, Hunter 2019, Luqui and McCarthy 2019, Osborne and Gredley 2020, Bagshaw 2020).
The paper is framed by Beck’s conceptualisation of a ‘world risk society’. This allows us to examine the different scales of geo-politics of IS and the multilayered personal, familial, institutional, national and international perspectives that inform IE choices. Beck’s frame enables a nuanced understanding across all these scales from the individual risk to a particular student to the national risks of geopolitics and to institutional risk. The choice for individual students, universities and governments is between different risky alternatives (Beck 2013:7). Contrary to the technical science of risk (‘statistical mathematical identification, causal hypothesis, prognostic models, group variations in perception) which assumes an expert/ lay separation, Beck’s frame comprises ‘subjective risk’ (individual reaction, response or judgement where prejudices and fears intervene) and ‘cultural perception of risk’ informed by national politics and contexts (Beck 2013:10). The lay/expert separation is disintegrating because the less calculable the risk is, the more subjective/cultural perceptions dominate, albeit with national differences. Cultural perceptions of risk clash with technical risk in social media, although ‘cultures’ are forcibly united into shared risk (eg public health) with social media and science making the perception of risk more acute and ‘collectively visible’ (Beck, 2013:8).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe overarching project’s multi-method design from which this paper is drawn provides insights into how student mobility in the future is viewed (socially, educationally, economically and diplomatically) from multiple stakeholder perspectives: students, parents, universities, government representatives and peak professional agencies from home and host countries. It is a comprehensive study of the effects of geopolitical tensions on inbound and outbound student mobilities.
Sample of countries: China, India and Vietnam are the 1st, 2nd and 5th sending countries of IS respectively for Australia (Aus. Gov. 2020). Reciprocally, China, India and Vietnam are the 1st, 4th and 5th host destinations in the Indo-Pacific respectively for Australian outbound students (AUIDF 2019).
Approach: Following on an initial background historical analysis of the geopolitics of international education the project will combine this with the analysis of policy, IS visa statistics and media, surveys, interviews, and co-design namely: (i) 176 interviews with international and domestic students, parents, selected university and government representatives; (ii) two surveys with international and domestic students learning abroad (N= 2,000 and 1,000 respectively); and (iii) analysis of policy, media data and visa data, in order(Rong and Vu 2012, Overbey et al 2017)to (iv) co-design critical response resources. The multimethod design enriches explanations by using combined numeric and fieldwork data, addresses issues of scale and depth, and recognises the significance of policy contexts across nations.
Four analyses will be conducted to generate multi-dimensional insights (i) Conceptual clustering to generate a comparative matrix to identify individual and group patterns in the responses of peak professional bodies, government representatives, universities, staff and students; (ii) Thematic analysis to identify substantive, conceptual and temporal patterns in staff and IS narratives using Helsloot and Jong’s (2006) three Domains; (iii) Critical incident analysis to identify patterns in the categories of critical incidents across the sample and the relationships between the micro (individual) and macro (groups, institutions and countries and contexts); and (iv) Critical policy analysis to interrogate any shifts in how changing geopolitics informs Australian, Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese source country policies on student mobility. This paper focuses on (iv).
This paper draws from the literature in transnational education, international relations, policy and media studies and undertakes an historically informed critical policy analysis and approaches to international education ins India, China, Vietnam and Australian in the context of the shifting geopolitics of old/new alliances and global repositioning of each country.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis critical historical analysis of the geopolitics focuses on the policy responses in Australia, India, China and Vietnam and. the implications for IE.
• IE is re-positioned, both in terms of opportunities and costs, taking into consideration the potential return to great power politics with the potential US repositioning in the Indo-Pacific region and recent intensified regional tensions between China and Australia, India and Vietnam.
• Covid intensified Sino-Australian tensions, disputes over China/India borders, and between China and Vietnam over the South China Sea.
• India’s focus has moved from massification of higher education to developing quality but still lacks capacity to meet demand,
• Vietnam is seeking to improve the quality of teaching and research, all policy foci therefore encouraging student mobility
• UK, US and Australian universities active in IE are seeking to diversify student flows by re-focusing on India and Vietnam but each source and provider country has their own political, HE and regional agendas.
• China’s policies aim for a reverse diaspora to recall skilled international graduates
• strengthening of Australian university partnerships with Vietnam and among strategic allies in the Indo Pacific
• US weaponization of research in medical and AI, discouraging research collaboration with China
• While aware of the dangers, international student flows inward to UK, Canada, Australia have returned to 2019 numbers, with visa rules, graduate employability and migration key factors in student choice of destination. (IDP Connect 2019)
ReferencesAustralian Government (2020) International Students.
Bagshaw, E. et al. (2020). 'Chinese students will not go there': Beijing education agents warn Australia. Sydney Morning Herald, June 10
Beck, U. (2013). World risk society. USA: Polity
Byrne, C., & Hall, R. (2013). Realising Australia’s IE as public diplomacy. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 67(4), 419–38;
Blackmore, J. (2020). The carelessness of entrepreneurial universities in a world risk society: The impact of Covid 19 in Australia, HE Research & Development, 39(7), 1332-6;
He, B. (2020). Regionalism as an instrument for global power contestation: The case of China. Asian Studies Review, 44(1), 79-96;
Helsloot, I., & Jong, W. (2006). Risk management in HE and research in the Netherlands, J. of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 14(3), 142-159;
Hunter, F. (2019). Foreign influence showdown as universities decline to register China-funded Confucius Institutes. Sydney Morning Herald, March 21
IDP Connect (2019). International student and parent buyer behavior research;
Lehmann, A. (2020, Aug 10). What we have lost: IE and public diplomacy. The Interpreter;
Li, M. (2009). Soft power: China's emerging strategy in international politics, UK: Lexington;
Luqui, L., & McCarthy (2019). Confucius institutes: The successful stealth “soft power” penetration of American universities. J. of HE, 90(4), 620-643;
Marginson, S., & Yang, L. (2020). HE and public good in East and West. UK: University of Oxford;
Marshman, I., & Larkins, F. (2020). Modelling individual Australian universities resilience in managing overseas student revenue losses from the COVID-19 pandemic. Centre for HE;
Mittelmeyer, J. et al. (2020). Why IS are choosing the UK - despite coronavirus, The Conversation, Oct 6
Osborne, P., & Gredley, R. (2020,). Universities baulk at foreign deal laws. Campus Review, Oct 14
Sharma, Y., & Leung, M. (2017). Geopolitics are hitting Chinese student flows in Asia. University World News, Aug 31.
Tran, L. (2020b, Jun 20). How to secure recovery of IS mobility. University World News;
Overbey, L. et al. (2017). Linking Twitter sentiment and event data to monitor public opinion of geopolitical developments and trends. In D. Lee et al. (Ed.), Social, cultural & behavioral modelling, vol 10354, 223–229
Ziguras, C. & Tran, L. (2020). Coronavirus outbreak is the biggest crisis ever to hit IE, The Conversation. Feb 6
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Negotiating Adaptation and Transformation: A Systematic Review of Cross-Cultural Experiences of International Students in China
Jie Xu, Yuxiao Jiang
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
Presenting Author: Xu, Jie;
Jiang, Yuxiao
Student mobility has become a salient trend in higher education (HE) worldwide. Not only is the overall rate of international enrollment unprecedented, but notable is the growing complexities in the patterns of such mobility, as manifested by the increasingly diverse choices of study-abroad destinations and heterogeneous student body (including their differing dispositions, abilities, etc.). The ever-complex intercultural encounters in differing host contexts constantly call for up-to-date understandings of the intricate processes and outcomes of intercultural experiences.
However, there is limited systematic understanding on international student experiences in ‘unorthodox’ destinations such as China. This dearth of review contrasts with China’s rise to the top destination in Asia and the third in the world (following the US and UK), hosting 492,185 foreign students according to the latest statistic in 2018. Importantly, the distinctive Chinese context might lead to different patterns in cross-cultural experiences, making it an indispensable block within the global student mobility jigsaw puzzle. Specifically, compared to the neoliberal policies in countries such as UK and US, internationalization of HE in China is highly government-driven and outward-oriented with multi-faceted rationales such as enhancing cultural diplomacy, economic reciprocity especially towards neighboring and/or peripheral countries, as well as building world-class universities. These are likely to shape incoming students’ distinctive aspirations and cross-cultural experiences. As Dervin et al. (2018) warn, we need to unlearn prescribed imaginaries and representations about study-aboard when researching cross-cultural experiences in China.
Furthermore, a review of existent literature on student mobility worldwide reveals a long-lasting yet still highly relevant debate between structure and agency. On the one hand, there is a dominant stress on the tensions between individuals’ incompetence and host context’s expectations. Though recognizing the difficulties international students face, this stream of research risks assuming cross-cultural adaptation as inherently problematic and uni-directional, accentuating individual deficits. This assumption is especially evident in some South-North mobility studies where initially ‘unskilled’ students from ‘the rest of the world’ are assumed to be passively adjusted by the academic and social norms established in the North. Devoid of agency, individual students (or individual teachers) are further held accountable for intercultural outcomes, leaving the vexed individual-environment relationship unexamined. On the other hand, scholars such as Matsunaga et al. (2021) call for a shift to a students’ agency-oriented approach, arguing international students are not passive reproducers of institutional practices, but active negotiators of the incongruence between the host environments and their previous habitus. Relatedly, there have been emerging research problematizing the simplistic and passive intercultural outcome of mere fitting-in. Gill (2007) examines how Chinese international students in the UK negotiate their intercultural experience, build a ‘third space’ (Bhabha, 1994) to accommodate different views and eventually achieve distinctiveness and transformation beyond adaptation. This agency-structure debate in the wider global context informs the focuses of our review on the interactions between environmental and individual factors and their co-production of diverse cross-cultural outcomes.
Therefore, this review aims to synthesize empirical evidence on how environmental and individual factors interact and co-produce cross-cultural outcomes of international students in China, from an ecological and person-in-context perspective. While Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model deconstructs different layers of the environmental factors, Volet's (2001) person-in-context perspective enables us to address the ‘experiential interface’ connecting environment-level affordances/constraints and individual-level enablers/blockers. Though focusing on the Chinese context, this review contributes to the wider debates on student mobility globally and a deeper understanding of the complexities of such mobility.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWe conducted a comprehensive literature search in December 2022. We searched in two databases focusing on peer-reviewed English articles, Web of Science and Scopus. We searched publications from 1996 (when the China Scholarship Council was established marking a milestone in the systematic recruitment and administration of international students in China) to 2022. Informed by the ecological and person-in-context perspective, we included only empirical studies on interactions among environment and individual factors and intercultural outcomes in the Chinese context. As such, the selection criteria are: 1) peer-reviewed articles or book chapters; 2) written in English; 3) publication date is between 1996-2022; 4) empirical works on intercultural experiences of international students in China 5) specifically addressing the interactions among environment and individual factors and intercultural outcomes.
Two broad key constructs of keyworks were searched in the abstracts to identify as many relevant pieces as possible: 1) “international student*" OR "overseas student*" OR "foreign student*" OR "incoming student*" OR "mobile student*"; 2) “China” OR “Chinese universit*”. The search yielded in total 1,488 (after removing duplicates) peer-reviewed English articles and book chapters, including 938 from Web of Science, 1062 from Scopus, with 512 duplicates. We firstly reviewed the titles and abstracts of each result to remove articles that fall out of the inclusion criteria. Here, we excluded articles focusing on international students in other countries; or focusing either on environmental/individual factor rather than their interactions; and other irrelevant topics. 219 pieces were left. We further downloaded and read full texts of the 219 pieces and further excluded those that only touched on the individual-environment interaction superficially or did not report intercultural/cross-cultural outcomes. In the end, 63 empirical studies were included in this review for in-depth analysis.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis review examines the vexed relationships between environmental and individual factors by deconstructing how they influence each other and co-produce the diversified outcomes of intercultural experiences of international students in China. In particular, It reveals 1) Environmental and individual factors are mutually shaping; 2) Both individual-level and environmental-level factors are subject to constant changes requiring “time-sensitive understanding” (Boccagni, 2017, p. 4); 3) Cross-cultural outcomes are produced via the (in)congruence between individual-level and environmental-level factors; 4) Intercultural outcomes are highly diversified in China.
Referring back to the structure-agency debate, this review problematizes the structure-based approach’s assumptions of 1) linear and one-way process of cross-cultural adaptation which leaves the complex individual-environment negotiations unexamined; 2) the static measurements of factors influencing cross-cultural outcomes; 3) homogeneous cross-cultural outcomes.
Accordingly, we propose several theoretical and empirical suggestions for future research: 1) Develop a more nuanced theoretical framework recognizing the diversified outcomes and the vexed structure-agency relationships; 2) More focused studies on sub-groups of international students (such as African students versus European students) which might reveal patterns behind diversified outcomes, and thus enable targeted support and empowerment for specific groups, though caution should be taken against essentialism and culturalization; 3) Recognizing the dynamic nature of intercultural experiences, more longitudinal studies are needed. Out of the 63 reviewed pieces, only 5 employed longitudinal designs; 4) More mixed-method studies are needed to capture the complexities of cross-cultural process but also to include larger samples of international students. Only a few reviewed articles utilize mixed-method design. This review also has practical implications for international student support in China and beyond. It calls for a recognition of students’ diverse needs, and interventions that not only ease international students’ stay, but also shape students’ motivations and competences and eventually enable adjustment and transformation outcomes.
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