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Influencing Chinese International Students ' Academic Adjustment

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Influencing Factors of Chinese International Students’ Academic Adjustment
As mentioned in the introduction, this research seeks to understand Chinese students’ academic adaptation and cross-cultural learning experiences in Canadian universities. In the previous chapter, Hofstede’s (1991) five cultural dimensions were identified as a means of explaining how Chinese students learn differently from their American counterparts, and they were offered as a theoretical framework to guide the researcher to think about the problem of practice. This chapter mainly focuses on existing literature related to the factors that affect Chinese students’ adaptation in overseas higher education institutions.
With the growing presence of Chinese students on American campuses, it becomes clear that these students who come to the United States from different cultural and social backgrounds may have different learning experiences related to discrepancies in language, teaching and learning styles, and cultural values and traditions (Sun & Chen, 1999; Upton, 1989; Zhong, 1996). Yet, the literature on the students’ perceptions of their academic adaptation at American colleges and universities is sparse, particularly at the undergraduate level.
In examining the literature related to cross-cultural academic adaptation, this review begins with a discussion of how Chinese culture influences learning. It then explores how Chinese students perceive the differences in teaching and learning between China

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