Learning and teaching media and communication in China, with implications for international students and their lecturers in Australia

Despite spending three or four years of undergraduate study to develop competencies in the disciplines of media and/or communication, a high proportion of international postgraduate students struggle on arrival in Australia to adjust to the different educational and intercultural expectations of Australian host universities. Previous research has identified a range of challenges faced by students on arrival in Anglophone academic contexts, and highlighted how Chinese students, in particular, experience difficulties with academic engagement. Because little is known about practices in the Chinese tertiary sector, and even less about how media and communication are taught and learnt, our research aimed to explore the experiences of lecturers and students on courses in media, communication and the creative industries in China, and how these experiences and cultural knowledge influence Chinese students’ engagement and academic development beyond China, notably in postgraduate programs in Australia. We find that there is a wide disparity between the practical knowledge, academic expectations, pedagogical philosophies and learning strategies of Australia and China, and that lecturers in both countries need to make these explicit if students are to be successful in negotiating the differences between academic cultures and contexts. This project is funded by the OLT and is a collaboration between universities in Australia and China, led by Murdoch University