1Chinese Mainland Students ’ Experiences of Teaching and Learning at a Chinese University: Some Emerging Findings

Though there has been much interest in students ’ learning from the perspectives of students studying at various educational levels in dozens of countries and regions, there has been little research into the perspectives of Chinese mainland tertiary students. This paper provides an overview of some preliminary findings from an in-depth study designed to understand how Chinese mainland tertiary students in Economics go about their learning, and the ways in which this is influenced by their perceptions of different aspects of their teaching-learning environments. As is common in research into students ’ learning in higher education, quantitative instruments and semi-structured interviews were used in conjunction to provide insights into the students ’ learning. As the study is not due to finish until the end of 2005, it is only possible at this stage to concentrate on the initial findings, mainly from the quantitative data analyses. The questionnaire used in the study (CETLQ: Chinese ETLQ) is a revised version of the Experiences of Teaching & Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ), which was specifically developed for the UK-wide Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses (ETL) Project1. The questionnaire was completed by 552 Chinese Economics students across four academic years in an Economics Department of a Chinese mainland university. Analyses of the questionnaire data reported in this paper were intended to provide initial insights into Chinese students’ approaches to studying and their perceptions of their teaching-learning environments by looking in more detail at th