Cultural adaptation of Chinese-background students in an Australian tertiary context

In recent years, due to economic development and globalization, there is a dramatic increase of international students, mainly from Asian countries, coming to Australia and attending various courses, such as language courses, professional training and university degree. Not only do they contribute in substantial financial income, but also bring a diversity of cultures into this country. International students have become an important population group in Australia. However, due to geographic and cultural transition, some students do have difficulties in adapting to the unfamiliar educational system and the cultural discourse of teaching and learning. Qualitative research method is used in this research to explore in-depth thoughts and feelings of Asian students. The data were drawn from interviews conducted at an Australian university. Thematic analysis was conducted with the use of NVivo (version 8). The final findings indicate that although Asian students certainly encounter some difficulties in their academic experiences, most of them can adopt effective coping strategies to deal with the problems.