Annually, the Canadian economy earns more than $6.5 million from international students. International students also create over 83,000 employment opportunities for the Canadians. Canadian universities host more than 90,000 international full-time students. International students are special to the Canadians. Canadians classify these students as a creative class because they come from far countries to pursue higher education, driven by their passion for knowledge and professional development. They bring academic, cultural, and economic benefits to Canada. Consequently, they represent Canadian education to the world. China has become the largest source of international students. In 2009, there were 16,375 Chinese students out of the 85,140 international students in Canada (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2010).
Since 1999, the Chinese students pursuing higher education in Canada increased from 6,465 to 49,905 in 2009 (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2010). This increment is nearly four times in a period of ten years. Information from the “Chinese Ministry of Education shows that in 2009, there were 229,300 Chinese students studying abroad” (Aoji Education, 2009, par. 5). Out of this number, only 16,375 were studying in Canada (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2010). This aspect placed Canada as the fifth preferred destination, with the top three destinations being the United States, Australia, and the UK (Aoji Education, 2009).
China is a huge potential market for Canadian international education. In Canada, the government is making quick steps to grasp this market by making new policies that attract more Chinese students. For instance, the association of the Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC), through its president and the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), said that it would use the program called SPP (Student Partners Program) to attract more learners from China (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2010). All marketing plans need to be focused on meeting or exceeding the demands of the consumers and their expectations. Therefore, there is a need to understand why students from China choose to study in Canada. Unfortunately, there is little information about what motivates the Chinese students towards Canadian institutions, as well as how they perceive these institutions. There is also the need to know the variable that influences decision-making among Chinese students.
The majority of previous researches has focused on how Chinese students adjust to foreign countries. Very few researches have aimed at understanding the students’ original ideas and the practices adopted by educational institutions. In addition, numerous researches about Chinese students have been carried out in other countries like Hong Kong, the US, and China. None of the studies has been carried in Canada. Therefore, this study will explore the literature gap in the practices adopted by Canadian educational institutions to motivate Chinese students to take up their studies in Canada.
This research will give an understanding of why the Chinese students choose to study in Canada as well as their experiences with the institutions and their programs. This aspect will help instructors in improving their institutions as well as tailoring the programs to match the students’ needs. The insight given by this research could also help in improving international students’ recruitment programs in China. The results of this research will help the Chinese education system to compare its systems with the counterparts in developed nations to fill the noted gaps, hence an improved education system.
The main objective of this research is to find out the motivators that influence students from China to prefer Canada as their study destination. By studying and analyzing the practices adopted by the Canadian institutions of higher learning, the research will provide useful information to the institutions, which will help them raise their quality of education.
The main research question in this research is, “Why do Chinese students study their Master’s degrees in Canada?” This question could further be split into three sub-questions, viz.
- What factors influence the decision of Chinese students when seeking overseas education?
- How do students in China choose their foreign education destinations?
- What influences the students to select Canada when looking for study destinations abroad?
This study will employ a narrative inquiry, which is a qualitative method of collecting data. The data collection will involve open-ended interviews with fifty Chinese students pursuing graduate education in Canada. It is expected that the participants’ experiences and insights will provide resourceful information to answer the research question.
Literature Review
Canadian universities attract many Chinese students who want to undertake their masters’ degrees. Many researchers, policymakers, and college administrators have discussed this tendency. However, the focus has been on two groups of factors. In particular, researchers examine the social environment of the country, its educational, as well as immigration policies. Moreover, it is important to study the practices adopted by educational institutions. These issues affect the decisions of many Chinese students. Therefore, it is important to examine these details in detail.
There may be three reasons why Chinese students seek international education. One of these could be the view that the Chinese institutions of higher learning may not be sufficient to accommodate the demand by the Chinese students. In 2011, only 9.33% of the Chinese students sat for graduate entry examinations, and out of these, only 6.75 million students, viz. 72.3%, were admitted. This aspect confirms that there is more demand than what the Chinese institutions can offer. Another reason could be the quality of education. In their study seeking experiences of international students in Canada, Li and Tierney (2013) found out that the reason why most students leave their country to study abroad is to gain overseas experience. Those who selected Canada as their preferred destination of the study said that their most important motivator is the quality of education. However, this research does not explain the practices adopted by Canadian institutions as constituents of quality education.
A third reason could be the influence is the recruiting agencies. In China, it is easier to apply for an international program through an agency. These agencies assist students in compiling the required application materials, thus making the procedure easy and cost-effective. The study by Li and Tierney (2013) found out that more than 47% of the Chinese students in Canada applied through an agent.
The analysis of various available sources indicates that Canada offers several distinct benefits to Chinese learners who want to undertake their Master’s degrees. In particular, much attention should be paid to China’s inability to accommodate all its postgraduate students. Additionally, Canadian universities ensure high quality of education and flexibility of programs to students. Moreover, the price of education in Canada is more affordable as compared to other destinations like the US and the UK. These findings can help policymakers and college educators attract talented students from different countries. Furthermore, this review can be a starting point for further studies because it shows that researchers should understand the reasons why people choose to study in a certain country.
Methodology
Research Design
The objective of this research is to explore the factors that influence Chinese students to choose Canada when looking for study destinations abroad. Therefore, the study will focus on the students’ pre-departure experiences. Qualitative research will be used in this study. Qualitative research uses verbal views of the sampled population to describe a phenomenon. This method gives a better understanding of the structural features, process, and patterns of social realities (Flick, Ernst & Steinke, 2004). One of the strengths of qualitative research is its inductive approach in the research by focusing on particular situations or people and spoken words instead of numbers. Narrative inquiry, which is a qualitative research method, will be used because it offers a good understanding of the people’s experiences.
Researchers have attempted to define narrative inquiry in different ways. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) define narrative inquiry as an experience of experiences. According to Schwandt (2007), a narrative inquiry is an interdisciplinary study of the actions that take part in creating and analyzing the narrative of experiences in life and documenting that research. Other researchers hold the definition that narrative inquiry involves a systematized study of personal experiences and their meaning (Clandinin, 2007).
Chinese students who seek graduate education abroad have varying experiences. These experiences vary from making their decisions and the process of application coupled with how they could adjust after landing to a new environment. Using narrative inquiry will give an insight into these experiences. According to Bell (2002), narratives can dig out hidden information that other methods can neglect. Therefore, it will be justified to use narrative inquiries because the researcher will understand the lived and told stories (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). This method also provides sufficient description of the experiences encountered by students while selecting Canada as their study destination.
One of the advantages of qualitative research is that it is economical. In addition, it saves time because the sample size is small (Hair, Busch & Ortinau, 2000). However, this method has two major limitations. It involves the use of a complex and expensive selection of a qualified interviewer. Another limitation is that it uses a limited sample size, which reduces the reliability of the results (Hair et al., 2000).
Nomination of Participants
For this study, fifty participants, who in this case are Chinese students pursuing graduate education in Canada, will be selected by means of purposive sampling. In purposive sampling, the researcher selects participants with an emphasis on certain characteristics related to the study. It is a non-probability sampling (Johnson & Christensen, 2010). In Canada, the Chinese students are found at all levels of study from high school to postgraduate levels. This study will focus only on Chinese students pursuing graduate education because they have had experiences in the Canadian institutions of higher learning.
Those who agree to participate will be given a consent form to sign. The consent form will inform the participants that they could stop the interview at any time. In a bid to assure confidentiality to the participants, their names will be replaced with alphanumeric codes during the interview.
Method
This research will employ open-ended interviews. Scholars argue that an interview should not be a mere conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee. On the contrary, it should have a purpose, be flexible, and allow the two to share experiences and meanings (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003). Using open-ended interviews will enable the researcher to understand the views, feelings, and intentions of the interviewees clearly. Face-to-face interviews will enhance the validity of the data collected because there will be little or misunderstanding between the researcher and the client.
According to DeMarrais (2004), an interview has three phases, viz. preparation, actual interview, and the leave phase. At the beginning of each interview, the participants will be briefed about the objective of the research. Their consent to proceed with the interview will then be sought. After the participants agree to proceed with the interview, a brief introduction will be done by the two parties, which generally will provide demographic information on each side. This move will prepare the participants fully for the actual interview, which will involve getting their actual experiences.
When using narrative inquiry, researchers should be flexible (Minichiello & Kottler, 2010). This assertion implies that although the questionnaire is designed based on the research question, the interview may vary from one client to another and in such a case, the questionnaire will only act as a guide. Therefore, being flexible will help the researcher to move away from own expectations and predictions. Understanding social, cultural, and economic backgrounds in this research is important, as it will give a unique angle perspective to listen and analyze experiences of the participants. This aspect means that the interviewer of the same cultural background as the participants will be selected for this study. This move will give to the researcher the advantage of reflecting the complexity, specificity, and interconnection of the phenomena.
Data Collection
The data required for this study will include interview responses, observations, field notes, and relevant literature on the topic. Multiple data collection techniques will be used for this study. A survey questionnaire will be used to gather general information about the participants’ expectations, perspectives, and experiences of studying in Canada. The survey will also collect the participants’ demographic data including age, gender, the period they have been studying in Canada, their hometown in China, and the courses they are studying in Canada coupled with if they had relatives in Canada.
From the survey data, questions for a semi-structured interview will be created focusing on the research question. Individual interviews (narrative inquiry) will then be conducted to gather an in-depth data on the main reasons why the students choose Canada when looking for overseas education. Special attention will be paid to their pre-departure experiences. The qualitative data from these individual interviews with the focus groups will be used to triangulate the original survey responses. The individual interviews will be conducted as a data collection follow up by seeking the investigative aspect of data analysis. Using open-ended interviews will enable the researcher to understand the views, feelings, and intentions of the interviewees. Face-to-face interviews will enhance the validity of the data collected because there will be little or no misunderstanding between the researcher and the participants.
The interviews and discussions with clients will be recorded using digital voice recorders and the information will be later translated to text before analyzing the data. The researcher will adopt a guided approach to conduct each interview and discussion. This aspect will be in accordance with semi-structured interviews and discussions. It allows the interviewees to share their views and experiences openly (Gall, Gall & Borg, 2007). In order to ensure quality answers, the researcher will clarify all emerging issues from the participants.
In the interviews, participants will be allowed to choose their preferred interview language between Mandarin and English. Mandarin is their mother tongue and English is their destination’s official language. During the actual interview, the researcher will take additional field notes to enrich the data. According to Clandinin and Connelly (2000), when using narrative inquiry, researchers need to know where they are at any particular moment with their participants.
Kramp (2004) argues that colorful and distinctive words used by the participants could tell the uniqueness of their experiences. While conducting a narrative inquiry, the researcher will probe the participants for more details using the words that they use persistently. This assertion holds because those original words will reflect continuous re-interpretation of their experiences and eliminate chances of misunderstanding.
Data Analysis
The collected data will be analyzed using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) model of three-dimensional space narrative. This model depicts narratives as epistemological stance, research methodology, and scholarly discourse. All these elements are used to get the content of human lives. Narratives capture and investigate the experiences lived by humans in time, space, person, and relationship. The model demonstrates that those who conduct narrative inquiries should adopt the three dimension space of inquiry, viz. temporal, spatial, and the personal-social.
The participants’ stories will be organized and presented according to continuity (past, present, and the future), social and personal interactions, and the particular situation. The narrative code will be used for the field texts. Alphanumeric codes will be used to identify the participants. The names of China and Canada will be used to indicate where the participants’’ experiences happened. This way, the participants’ experiences will be identified in different places over time. In describing the decision-making process of the students, the words “parents” and “students” will be used to represent decisions made by parents or student.
On factors that could have influenced the students’ decision to study in a foreign country, the factors mentioned will be coded as cost (C), institution (I), family influence (FI), quality of education (Q), and western influence (W). According to Kramp (2004), analyzing narratives can help a researcher to derive a common connection among the narratives and come out with themes. Minichiello and Kottler (2010) note that the challenge of analyzing qualitative data is that the researchers have to remain in the data until the emergence of meaningful themes. While analyzing the data, interview transcripts, field notes, and other field materials will be referred.
It is expected that there will be a connection among the narratives, which would lead to meaningful themes. Therefore, by relating these themes to the literature review, the research question will be answered.
Permissions
There are no sensitive issues in this research. It does not cause physical, psychological, or reputational risks to the participants. The only needed requirement is the participants’ consent. Those who agree to participate will be given a consent form to sign. The consent form will inform the participants that they could stop the interview as they wish. Therefore, the study does not require any statutory approvals as the researcher can interact with students freely at their colleges or other preferred stations.
References
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Citizenship and immigration Canada: Facts and figures 2008 – Immigration overview: Permanent and temporary residents – Temporary residents – Canada – Total entries of foreign students by source country. (2009). Web.
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