Using emotion regulation to cope with challenges: a study of Chinese students in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

There is increasing research on the challenges that Chinese students experience during their time studying abroad, but limited studies have explored how they self-regulate their emotions to address these challenges. This paper identifies key stressors experienced by Chinese postgraduate students during their study in academic institutions in the United Kingdom as well as the emotion regulation strategies that they employed. Understanding the emotional experiences will provide important insights into Chinese students’ learning behaviour and their choice of different emotion regulation strategies when interacting with peers and academic tutors. Emotion regulation strategies believed to improve individual student experiences and their interaction with tutors and peers are discussed.

KEYWORDS :

• Chinese international students
• emotion regulation
• studying abroad
• peer interaction

Notes

1. Data are presented as excerpts from the participants’ transcripts. These excerpts are unedited from the original transcripts and might include grammatical errors as many participants were conversing in a second language.