Factors promoting or hindering the academic adjustment of Chinese visiting scholars in an American university.

摘要

This qualitative case study explored the experiences of Chinese visiting scholars at an American university as a means of identifying, describing, and seeking an understanding of the factors affecting their academic adjustment experience in order to achieve their academic goals in an unfamiliar academic environment of a new country. Twenty-seven volunteers were selected for the study, of which twenty-four were Chinese visiting scholars, one sponsor and two administrators. The disciplines of the visiting scholar respondents included education, engineering, finance, law, language and culture, political science, psychology, literature, history, and performing arts. The central research questions were what motivated them to become a visiting scholar, what obstacles they encountered, how they dealt with these obstacles and what were the contextual factors that affected their sojourn experience.;The primary source of data was: a pre-interview inventory questionnaire; semi-structured in-depth interview with the Chinese visiting scholars, their sponsor, and administrators of international students and scholars; and case documents. Data were coded in and analyzed with NVivo, a qualitative research program.;The study's findings confirm that motivation is at the very heart of learning. It not only gives visiting scholars direction for action but also gives them courage to overcome difficulties and sustain their efforts in the course of reaching their goals. Language proficiency and communicative competence are critically important for visiting scholars to conduct in-depth academic discussion with host professionals. The personal strength of being proactive, persistent, and resourceful serves as an inner resource for them to work toward developing competence.;The study's major contribution to the literature is to reveal how the internal and external factors specific to visiting scholars might affect their academic adjustment experience. The study finds that visiting scholars' maturity is a strong positive factor in helping them fitting in a new academic and social environment. Culture differences are not found to have an influencing effect on Chinese visiting scholars' academic experience. The study offers recommendations to visiting scholars, sponsors and host administrators to facilitate a positive academic experience of visiting scholars as well as recommendations for further research.