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Chinese students’ groupwork practices and experiences in China

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Abstract

Chinese students constitute the most rapidly growing international cohort of students enrolled in many Western tertiary settings, and it is important to understand more about their preparation for engaging with commonly used teaching approaches such as groupwork. This study investigated their attitudes and experience of groupwork while enrolled at a large Chinese university. Semi-structured and video-stimulated recall interview data were collected from 16 third-year Finance students over a 5-week field study. Results showed that this group of Chinese students experienced more out-of-class than in-class groupwork activities. These out-of-class groupwork sessions fell into three categories: (1) student initiated, (2) student league initiated and (3) teacher initiated. Students identified both individual and collective benefits from groupwork, highlighting that Chinese students value groupwork and actively seek to engage with it in the Chinese tertiary context. This study contributes to the understanding of Chinese students’ group practices in Chinese tertiary settings.

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Notes

  1. The League in this paper refers to the Communist Youth League of China, a youth movement run by the Communist Party of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, 109 Barry St., Carlton, VIC, 3053, Australia

    Dongmei Li

  2. School of Health Science, University of Melbourne, 200 Berkeley St., Parkville, VIC, 3050, Australia

    Louisa Remedios

  3. International Centre for Classroom Research, University of Melbourne, 109 Barry St., Carlton, VIC, 3053, Australia

    David Clarke

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  1. Dongmei Li
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  2. Louisa Remedios
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  3. David Clarke
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Correspondence to Dongmei Li.

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Li, D., Remedios, L. & Clarke, D. Chinese students’ groupwork practices and experiences in China. High Educ 68, 227–241 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9704-y

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