Understanding international students’ motivations to pursue higher education in mainland China

ABSTRACT

In the international education market, much attention has been paid to China, as it is the world’s largest source country in sending students abroad. The other side of the story, that is, China, as the world’s third most popular destination, is considerably less known and researched. This study seizes this research opportunity and focuses on exploring why international students choose to do their higher education in mainland China. International students from five Chinese coastal universities are the research respondents. Focus group discussions were first conducted and elicited 31 motivating items. They were later evaluated through a questionnaire-based survey. The push-pull model was critically reviewed and then used to organise the results. A questionnaire-based survey (n = 462) was later undertaken. Seven motivation factors were identified and a hierarchical relationship among the motivations was observed. The most influential push factor is the students’ desire for learning, novelty and challenge seeking, while the strongest pull factor is their expectation for China’s prosperous future. The motivations with medium priority were self-understanding, quality of education, and value for money. Also, stimulating factors and admission issues were important, but significantly less important than other factors. Demographic factors were found to be influential to motivations. Focusing on “reverse” international student mobility, this research enriches knowledge about international students’ destination choice. It also offers practical implications to universities and institutes in China and other emerging countries, who are interested in offering better programmes and attracting more international students.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• international students
• studying in China
• motivation
• push-pull model

Acknowledgment

We thank the anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments and suggestions have greatly improved this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Zhejiang Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences Circles (ZJFHSSC) – 17NDJC197YB.