Supervising postgraduate Chinese students

This workshop draws on research conducted as part of the OLT Collaborating for Success project that involves a number of universities in Australia and China. Collaborative research has identified and explored the difficulties experienced by Chinese postgraduate students as they endeavor to adjust to the Australian university context, and successfully engage in academic life. Out of this research comes acknowled gement of the need for the explicit negotiation of difference if Chinese students are to be supported, and successful, in their study in Australia. The session will focus particularly on how some of the difficulties and differences, identified in the research, impact postgraduate supervision. Differences in expectations, understandings and experiences will be examined. In addition, a number of strat egies and approaches will be explored in order to support students and supervisors as they try to understand the complexity of their relationship, roles and responsibilities