Academic socialization of Chinese doctoral students in Germany: identification, interaction and motivation

ABSTRACT

Socialization has become a common discourse to view doctoral students' development in long-term academic training. Using this concept and the four-stage model by Stein and Weidman, the research examines the academic socialization of 53 Chinese doctoral students in Germany selected from 8 universities across 7 federal states. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods has been applied. Findings show that the academic socialization takes place in three aspects of students' life, namely the identification of their doctoral status, the interaction with supervisor and their motivation of doing research. Based on that, the clearness of identification, effectiveness of interaction and steadiness of motivation are displayed as necessary conditions for a comparatively high level of academic socialization in German academic field.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral education
• academic socialization
• Chinese students
• Germany

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Rui Wu is researcher at the Institute for Higher Education Research, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His main research concerns doctoral education, organization and policy study of higher education, comparative education.

Notes

1. Bericht der Gemeinsamen Kommission zur Exzellenzinitiative an die Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz. Bonn, 2008, 5.

2. Source: Department of Planung, Statistik und Kapazitäten, MLU (2015).

3. The cooperation between university and research institute outside the university is very common in Germany. The doctoral candidates can work for research institutes; but only the university has the right to award the doctorate.

4. This phrase comes from the Doctrine of the Mea, as a doctrine of Confucianism. It guide us how to perfect ourselves. In China prior to the twentieth century, the Doctrine of the Mean was integrated into the education system state wide. Nowadays, the Classics are revisited because of its strong influence and foundation in the educational system (Rao and Chan 2010).