Learning Together? Experiences on a China–U.K. Articulation Program in Engineering

Abstract

This article reports some of the findings of a longitudinal ethnographic research study on the intercultural transition experiences of 50 engineering students in a China–U.K. articulation program. It focuses on the interaction between these students and the U.K.-based cohort, mainly home students. The findings indicate that lack of suitable interventions at the initial stage, the competition for insufficient resources, double-language barriers, and different questioning behaviors led the Chinese and U.K. students to self-categorize themselves into “us” and “them.” The separation has a negative impact on peer learning. This research suggests that integration in the class can be promoted through developing a low-stakes learning environment, enhancing intercultural competence and developing a common in-group identity as engineering students on the same program.

Keywords

intercultural transition transnational higher education intercultural competence social identity Chinese learners

Introduction

This research reports on the learning experiences of international students, and their home student colleagues, studying on an articulation program in engineering offered by a U.K. university in conjunction with a university in China. International students, studying outside their home country, have rapidly increased in number in recent years, and new curriculum delivery models are being developed. One of these models is the articulation program, an example of which is represented in this research. Articulation programs at undergraduate level are one of the most common forms of collaboration between China and the United Kingdom. These are programs where Chinese students, recruited through the National Higher Education Entrance Examination, study in a Chinese partner institution, following a U.K. curriculum, for 1 to 3 years, then progress to the United Kingdom to complete their studies. This article reports on research based on a U.K.–China articulation program in engineering. Much of the research into the experience of international students has studied them as individuals traveling to another country to study. The type of program researched here gives students a somewhat different, group-based experience and this is not well represented in research on the experiences of international students.

The Intercultural Contact Experiences of International Students and Home Students

International students have been studied as individuals moving independently to study in another country. These students have high expectations from their study abroad, to not only accomplish their study task, but also integrate with the people in the host country, especially making friends with home students on campus. Therefore, despite the issues they experienced to adapt to their study in the host countries, such as “culture shock” (Brown, 2008; Oberg, 1960; Ryan, 2005), “language shock” (Ryan, 2005; Sovic, 2008), and “academic shock” (Gu & Maley, 2008; Turner, 2006), international students strive hard to participate in their overseas activities to maximize their intercultural experience. Their presence creates international campuses that provide ideal social forums to develop the intercultural competence, skills, and confidence for both international students and home students (Summers & Volet, 2008; Volet & Ang, 1998).

Positive evidence has been identified to portray this ideal picture and the optimistic effects. In academic settings, culturally mixed group assignments can be a medium for intercultural contact and an effective means to enhance students’ intercultural competence (Smart, Volet, & Ang, 2000), which can produce a positive effect on the individual average mark of all students, and generate synergistic effects (De Vita, 2002). Diversified experiences have been proven to positively influence students’ problem-solving and team-working abilities, and also their appreciation of and respect for diversity (Denson & Zhang, 2010). Outside the class, structured contact between host and international students, such as peer-pairing programs, can benefit international students’ experience (Quintrell & Westwood, 1994). A study found that through multicultural intervention programs, such as bus excursions, international students developed a greater number of new friends, especially local Australian friends, and maintained their interests in local culture (Sakurai, McCall-Wolf, & Kashima, 2010).

The aforementioned positive outcomes are generated mainly through structured interventions. In natural settings, more research projects report negative results and show that the potential of creating an ideal international social forum is often not well developed on many campuses. During the adaptation to a new culture, international students experience isolation and difficulties in integrating with home students (Brown, 2009; Gu, Schweisfurth, & Day, 2010; Middlehurst & Woodfield, 2007; Montgomery, 2010; Volet & Ang, 1998; Walsh, 2010). Some research shows that international students do benefit from studying in an international context but this is more to do with interaction with other international students than by integrating with home student cohorts (Montgomery & McDowell, 2004). Home students’ general lack of language awareness and unchallenged conceptions of privileged knowledge are contributing factors to the isolation of international students (Ippolito, 2007; Sovic, 2009). Majority of them display “passive xenophobia” toward their international peers, which was typified by “a reluctance to interact voluntarily with international students at anything beyond the most surface level,” and active avoidance in some extreme cases when worrying about their academic marks (Harrison & Peacock, 2009, p. 894). In fact, both groups are more likely to work in homogeneous groups to avoid uncertainty and anxiety (Strauss, U, & Young, 2011).

The integration between international students and home students deserves a great concern because it will benefit both sides. For home students, intercultural contact with international students will benefit them in terms of intercultural learning, intercultural communication skills, intercultural competence, alternative perspectives, future employment prospects around the world, and also a sense of global citizenship, agency, and responsibilities (Harrison & Peacock, 2009; Sovic, 2009). For international students, peer support is a buffer against acculturative stress (Berry, Kim, Minde, & Mok, 1987; Duru & Poyrazli, 2007; Lee, Koeske, & Sales, 2004; Searle & Ward, 1990; Tsang, 2001; Ye, 2006; Yeh & Inose, 2003). It can help sojourners to cope with uncertainty and enhance perceived mastery and control (Adelman, 1988). International students’ bicultural network that consists of bonds with host nationals will facilitate their academic and professional aspirations (Bochner, 1982). Appropriate host culture friends will help sojourners learn the skills of a host culture more easily than those whose friends are all compatriots (Furnham & Bochner, 1982, p. 174). Sojourners with strong host national identification experienced less sociocultural adjustment difficulties (Ward & Kennedy, 1994). Furthermore, conational groups can limit the heritage worldviews of the individuals (Kosic, Kruglanski, Pierro, & Mannetti, 2004), and the difficulty to make friends on campus has a negative impact on international students’ academic literacy practices (Sheridan, 2011).

Most of the research on intergroup integration on campus is based on studies whose participants are international students studying abroad individually. Our participants, the articulation program students, are studying in the United Kingdom as a group. It might therefore be expected that their experiences would be somewhat different. The size of the group has resulted in Chinese students forming the majority in the engineering course. This also might lead to a somewhat different experience compared with that reported in many other studies. For instance, Denson and Zhang (2010) reported that international students, as the minority group, have more chances than home students to be exposed to diverse perspectives and engage with diverse others. In a research setting where Chinese students were the dominant group, the interaction experience between them and the home students may be different. Furthermore, certain barriers hindering the integration between home students and international students have been identified, such as language skills, cultural-emotional connectedness, stereotypes on both groups, fear about lower group work marks, work and family commitments, age difference, different “center of gravity” in social lives, and also different expectations and motivations (Harrison & Peacock, 2009; Ippolito, 2007; Montgomery, 2010; Sovic, 2009; Volet & Ang, 1998). However, to what extent the size of a group of international students could influence the multicultural interaction in class has not been explored.

Meanwhile, it has been recognized that the experience of international students must be viewed alongside that of home students and of teachers to gain a full picture. As Brown (2009) suggested, this research encompasses the staff and student host perspective to counterbalance studies that document the international student perspective. Research on the interaction between Chinese students and home students in the Chinese-dominated classroom on a British campus has not been extensively explored to date. Yet, with the increasing number of Chinese articulation program students, this phenomenon will become a common feature in many British universities.

Research Study

The “2 + 2” articulation program that is the focus of this study was first set up by a university in the southeast of China and a university in the north of England in 2004 for two courses: BEng (Hons) electrical and electronic engineering (EEE) and BEng (Hons) communication and electronic engineering (CEE). To protect the confidentiality of the field setting, the two universities are referred to here as Southeast China University and North Britain University. The research focused on Chinese articulation program students entering North Britain University in the summer of 2008. They had studied in Southeast China University for 2 years, while the home students had studied the same core engineering curriculum over 1 year.

An ethnographic approach was used in the research with longitudinal fieldwork conducted in China and the United Kingdom for 15 months. In China, the researcher lived with the students in their dormitory and participated in academic, social, and day-to-day activities. This continued when the students moved to the U.K. phase of their program, although without the shared living arrangements. Data were collected mainly through participant observation, document analysis, and in-depth interviews. Table 1 shows the interview data sources.

Table 1.

In-Depth Interview Data Sources.

Participants	n	Interviews per person (n)
Chinese program students	16	3
Home students	5	1
Non-Chinese international students	2	1
North Britain University staff	8	1 (except for the program leader, interviewed twice)
Southeast China University staff	10	1 (except for the personal tutor, interviewed twice)
Chinese parents	2	1

Chinese students, staff, and parents were interviewed in their native language, Chinese. The researcher was also able to undertake participant observation in English or Chinese as appropriate. Data were analyzed by using the data analysis principles advocated in grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Multiple data sources were triangulated and member checks (Guba & Lincoln, 1989) were conducted with the participants to safeguard the rigor and trustworthiness of the findings.

Findings

It was clear from the beginning of the research that the pedagogic context was one where the learners in both China and the United Kingdom would best be seen as social groups rather than collections of individuals entering a program of study. We acknowledged that when two people interact they do not merely respond to each other as individuals but as members of their respective groups, and the larger the differences between groups, the greater the tendency will be for the participants to make a distinction between in-group and out-group membership (Bochner, 1982, p.35).

A class of 50 Chinese students, who moved to North Britain University after 2 years studying the first part of the program in China, joined a class of 25 who had studied the first part of the program, over 1 year in the United Kingdom. This class included mainly home (U.K.) students and also two non-Chinese international students. The Chinese group outnumbered other students on the program. Within each group, students had got to know their respective classmates well and had formed supportive groups. Jacky, a home student, reflected on the U.K. class:

First year, after a few weeks we all started to hang around with each other anyway, then when the assignments came up . . . we all sort of bounced ideas off each other. And then you started to get group work . . . and then you sort of find out that some are better than others and so you tap into their resources and ask them, “Oh, you’re good at this” and then you just always sort of work together.

These relationships were also important within the Chinese group. The observation research showed that students acted in accordance with the prevalent Chinese view of friendships with “classmates” as sincere, uncontaminated by material considerations, and a powerful factor that will help students to succeed in their future careers. Classmates are expected to help each other with course work and join in many activities together. Chinese students expected that this would also be true in a British class and many of them were determined to make friends among British classmates, when they set out. They were almost all disappointed.

Although two existing student groups joined together when the Chinese students arrived on North Britain Campus, neither group appeared to have been prepared for this. The existing cohort of home students had not taken on board the impact of a large cohort of Chinese students joining them in their 2nd year:

I didn’t expect it . . . I turned up on the first day and there was a whole bunch of Chinese students there and it was a bit of a shock. (Charlie, British student)

A new learning group was forming and, as students participated in this new context, it was observed that they focused on differences in behavior, ways of studying, and social interaction between the two constituent parts referred to here as the Chinese group and the home student group. We particularly noted how students used the classroom space, issues of language, classroom behavior, and lack of integration between the two groups.

The Geography of the Classroom

Chinese students always came early to the class and sat at the front. When the home students came, there were no seats at the front. Home students commented on this, suggesting it could be detrimental to their learning, preventing them from sitting at the front when they wanted to:

I think the Chinese were quite prompt for lectures and they always come in early, so when we came in, there were only the back seats left . . . you go to the front because you might not understand it so much, and so you’re closer to it so that you can see it better and hear better . . . we get there on time, not late, but we get there and are forced to go to the back [so] we might not understand it. (William, British student)

In addition, Chinese students preferred to ask the lecturer questions straight after the class. This habit made home students feel that staff did not have the time and attention for their questions:

Chinese students will sit in the front and then will quickly sort of ambush the lecturer and you can’t ask [your] question because the lecturer is too busy dealing with their queries. (Max, British student)

Here, the findings support Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1986) argument that seating arrangements can lead to group bias. Students were also competing for insufficient resources in the class that is likely to cause hostility between groups (Sherif, 1967).

Double-Language Barriers

During lectures, if they did not understand the teaching, some Chinese students asked their friends sitting beside them. Within the Chinese group, all communication was in Chinese, sometimes even in students’ own dialect if they were from the same city. The dominant atmosphere of the Chinese language made some of the home students feel “vulnerable,” “irritated,” or “frustrated”:

I think if they were speaking in English it wouldn’t bother me as much as if they’re speaking Chinese. Sometimes when they’re speaking Chinese you think, “Are they talking about us?” and you never know. I think people feel vulnerable when they don’t know what someone is saying. (William, British student)

They’re just chatting but . . . in Chinese, so even if I wanted to listen, I couldn’t, because all I could hear was Chinese . . . It’s just a bit irritating that you can’t kind of join in, I guess . . . it can be frustrating in a way, because if you want to ask someone something then you just feel like you can’t because you don’t speak their language. (Charlie, British student)

Chinese students also felt excluded. Perhaps their use of Chinese allowed home students and lecturers to make less effort to include Chinese students in their interactions in English:

The home students at the back are chatting. Don’t know what they’re doing. I never cut in. Sometimes the staff tell jokes. I don’t understand. How do I know it’s a joke? The English students will laugh loudly. Then they tell jokes back and the teacher laughs as well. (Xiao Dong, a male Chinese student)

The double-language barrier contributed to a divided atmosphere blocking interactions between home and Chinese students and between students and staff. As Byram (2008) argues, the presence of another language is one indicator of group difference, which accentuates the presence of group characteristics. The size of the Chinese group in the class results in two competing languages: Chinese and English. Not knowing the strangers’ language and their perspectives caused anxiety and uncertainty (Gudykunst, 2005). It was hard to say which language was more powerful in this setting. Home students described their feeling as being intimidated when surrounded by the Chinese language within their own country. Some lecturers felt disempowered:

In my workshop class, all of them are Chinese and that is one of my concerns . . . I don’t understand what they are talking about because they are discussing in Chinese, all the time, during the two hours, unless I am speaking to them. (Ben, a British staff member)

The Meanings of Questions in the Class

Staff in North Britain University tended to make lectures interactive mostly through the use of questions. However, Chinese students did not normally answer questions that gave lecturers and home students the impression that Chinese students were quiet, shy, and less interactive. Frank (a British staff member) expressed the view that “they seem quite passive in the class, but obedient.” Some home students noted that Chinese students did not often participate, even when the lecturer made it really simple. When a lecturer says,

“Oh, it’s one of two things. Who thinks it’s this one?” and some of the class put up their hands, and then he’ll say “Right, who thinks it’s the other one?” and the rest will put their hands up. The Chinese don’t participate in that . . . I don’t know if they are scared to answer or they just don’t see the concept. (William, a British student)

Meanwhile, Chinese students found it difficult to see the point of questions that were not difficult or did not require thought:

British students are noisy in the class. It seems that they are always very high. When the teachers ask a question, they shout back the answers quickly without [it] going through their mind. (Xiao Yu, a male Chinese student)

Chinese students also had another explanation for their tendency to not answer questions that was not shyness or worrying while answering questions in a second language when the classroom dynamics are poor, as claimed by MacIntyre (1995). Xiao Hua said,

I normally sit in the first row and answer questions often. But I won’t shout as loudly as the British students. To be frank, some of the questions are not challenging enough. You’re like doing a favour for the teachers. (Xiao Hua, a male Chinese student)

Chinese students considered questions as a way for the staff to test knowledge, rather than to promote interaction. Home students appreciated a more interactive class, with debate and engagement involving every student, so they were disappointed that the Chinese group seemed to be reluctant to be involved:

[Chinese students] pick up really well and they had [understood course material] before we did, working it out. But I think it would help if they interacted in class more. It would be nice to have debates in some of the more interactive classes, with them, and involve everyone. (Jacky, a British student)

The different questioning behaviors became a great differential between these two groups within the classroom culture:

Definitely in the classroom there always seems to be a split of interactivity. We’re kind of a chatty group and we all communicate with the lecturer and stuff, but the Chinese . . . they don’t sort of interact very much; they sort of write everything down but keep to themselves . . . We are quite loud and will say anything and we treat the lecturer like a friend really. (Jacky, a British student)

Jacky’s comments show that there may be a stark difference of classroom culture with Chinese and home students having different views about questions and their function. These views lead to different ideas about what is appropriate behavior, rather than suggesting a simple explanation such as “shyness” on the part of Chinese students.

Divisions Within the Class: Us and Them

Our analysis draws on the conceptual resources of social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981) and self-categorization theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) to help us to interpret the emerging evidence. The distinction between in-group and out-group membership takes the form of categorizing people as belonging either to “us” or to “them,” through which they acquire the value differentials between these groups (Tajfel, 1981, pp. 254-255). Chinese and home students joining together in the same class resulted in two social and psychological groups, “us” and “them.”

The “front–back” seating results in a visible division in the class. The different classroom behaviors in asking and answering questions distinguish the two groups. The double-language barriers accentuate the presence of group characteristics. Each group saw themselves as the in-group and the others as the out-group. This contributed to the generalization of group identities (Schmitt, Spears, & Branscombe, 2003). Once this social categorization is done, the tendency for in-group favoritism and out-group derogation is evident (Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002). When the group characteristics are prominent, individuals categorize themselves and others in terms of their belonging to groups and interact based on intergroup behavior rather than on an interpersonal level (Byram, 2008):

In the class, British students didn’t talk to us and we didn’t talk to them. It’s weird as we are like two separated parts but sitting in the same class. (Xiao Ming, a male Chinese student)

There is quite a large divide in the class. There was a lot more of them than there was of us. And there wasn’t much integration . . . It is a bit “us and them” and it’s very separate. There are a lot of Chinese students on the course and I don’t know a single [Chinese] person. (Max, a British student)

Both Xiao Ming and Max describe the separation between the home cohort and the Chinese cohort. After 18 months of study in the same class, Max still did not know anyone from the Chinese group. Xiao Ming was not happy with the division in class. It was in conflict with his concept of a normal class, where peers could integrate and help each other. His English was competent enough but his direct interaction with fellow students was blocked by the divide in the class. This was the same case with Yan Yan, who said, “Whenever I come across a problem, I’ll ask my classmates from Southeast China University.” She put a question to the interviewer:

Have you noticed anybody talking to them [home students] in the class? (Yan Yan, Female Chinese Student)

The separation in the class was driving the two groups closer within themselves:

The situation has probably brought together the home students who we were with in the first year; we’re all sort of quite a close group now. (Jacky, British student)

Life Outside the Classroom

Not only the academic experience but also the social experience and day-to-day life are different for the Chinese and the home students. Home students have their own life, friends, and family members in their own country, often nearby. Some of the home students had taken out loans and had part-time jobs:

It’s all right for them [Chinese students], they’ll come into the lecture and [if they] don’t understand anything, go home and read a book, while we English students, we finish University and basically most of us have got jobs so we go home, get changed and go to work . . . The English students, we need to worry about the financial side. (Jim, a home student)

The financial pressure made Jim concentrate as much as possible on his studies during his hours at the university. There was no extra time for him to make friends with a new group of Chinese students. In contrast, all the Chinese students received full financial support from their parents. It was unnecessary for them to find a part-time job. They could spend most of their spare time on their study, while home students could not. For home students, making friends on campus, including with international students, is not the “center of gravity” in their social lives and motivations (Montgomery, 2010), and is limited by their economic situation.

Peer Learning

In the North Britain University, it was usual to require students to undertake some of their learning in groups. This was seen as a contribution to graduate skills needed by engineers. However, the “us and them” separation meant that this did not operate effectively. William, who wanted help from the Chinese students, felt it was difficult to break the ice:

We’re doing a project. You have to write a code and program this little box, and some Chinese students have it working, and we don’t at the minute, for some reason, we can’t figure out why, but it seems awkward to ask if theirs is working and what they did about that, because we’ve never spoken to them before. (William, a British student)

William felt awkward about asking for help from students who were still strangers, even though they had studied together for a whole year by this time. Peer learning was constrained within groups. Chinese/U.K. peer learning was seldom observed in the study. Intergroup bias, the tendency to appraise the in-group members more favorably over the out-group (Hewstone et al., 2002), was generated in this separated class.

On a practical level, both Chinese and home students were worried about a possible negative effect on their academic performance if they worked with students from the other group. Home students worried that language limitation would prevent Chinese students working effectively with U.K. students and might pull down their grade. Chinese students did not know how well individual U.K. students performed and so had no idea whether their group grade would be affected if they worked with them:

The Chinese choose their own [groups] and the English choose theirs, and you might argue that’s bad because it prevents integration, but . . . obviously some of the Chinese speak really good English but some of them are very limited, so if . . . I wasn’t able to work effectively and got a lower grade then that would be mad. (William, a British student)

It’s fine if we could have a British student member, but we won’t cry for it. And we really don’t know who studies well, who doesn’t. We have to consider our score. We know our [Chinese] classmates very well after two years. (Xiao Hua, a Chinese student)

Barriers to Integration

Both the Chinese students and the home students expressed a willingness to get to know each other. Both said that more integration could have a positive effect on their learning experience and future career. However, they still stayed in their own groups and felt that there were barriers to acting in a different way. In the final year, Jacky (a home student) wanted to join the Chinese students for group work, but he did not know how to break the by now established patterns of working in separate groups. He found that they were too close, which made it hard for him to join in:

I was willing to work with any of the Chinese people. I thought they were all in groups themselves though so I didn’t know how to go up and [say], ‘Can I work with you? (Jacky, British Student)

Some U.K. and some Chinese students chose to work in smaller groups thus taking on more work individually, rather than opting to form groups that included U.K. and Chinese students together. Some Chinese students worried about being criticized by their friends if they approached the other group, as Xiao Qiang illustrated:

It’s impossible for you to keep on talking to home students, because my previous classmates will think I’m strange. You have studied and lived with the [Chinese] group for two years. How can you break away from them and sit with white people? Even white people might think, “What’s wrong with this guy? Why didn’t he get along well with his group?” So I seldom talk to them. (Xiao Qiang, male Chinese Student)

These quotations show that the worries in both groups drag them back to their own groups, in spite of their tentative motivations to work or talk together. We are reluctant to attribute this outcome to differences in “culture” but see it as rather a matter of familiarity. The group of home students included two international students who were well known and an accepted part of the “home” group. Students knew each other very well and were willing to work together. This supports the proposition that a lack of enough contact should be blamed for the “monocultural” group work phenomenon.

Staff made little attempt to make changes. For example, they could have required that the groups were mixed, including U.K. and Chinese students, in some group work assignments. This was not addressed perhaps because the normal practice on the program was for students to choose their own groups. An opportunity was missed to prepare students to function in an international and intercultural context (De Vita, 2002; Knight & De Wit, 1995; Volet & Ang, 1998).

“Us” and “Them”: Unavoidable?

The size of a group is identified as a factor that has influenced the integration between international students and home students. In the classroom that we researched, the group of Chinese students was numerically large, but home students were the dominant cultural group as part of the host culture in the university and country. A dominant cultural group tends to feel threatened by the presence of cultural minority groups whose size increases (Nesdale & Todd, 1998). Evidence from this study supports Peacock and Harrison’s (2009) findings that where the ratio of international to home students is higher, less interaction between the groups is observed. Work groups tend to crystallize around national and language groupings. International students who travel abroad individually integrate more easily with home students than students traveling as a group (Zhou & Todman, 2008). It is easier for the host nationals to accept them. It may be that contact is best promoted in an unequal ratio condition, as members of a minority group experience significantly more contact with home students than members of equal-sized groups (Nesdale & Todd, 1998).

Cross-cultural group work may be seen as sufficient to promote the integration of international students and host nationals in a multicultural class. However, this research finds that when students are assessed by group work, the desire to have a mixed-culture group is given lower priority than academic performance. Data show that both groups have the same concerns about working with students from other groups who they do not know well. Other studies (Peacock & Harrison, 2009; Strauss et al., 2011; Volet & Ang, 1998) have also identified the same phenomenon. More effective group work conducted in low-stakes assessment environments should be encouraged to enable students to perceive the strength of working in multicultural groups.

Recategorizing different groups into one group to develop a common in-group identity (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000) might be useful in diminishing the divide. Setting up a common in-group identity can make both sides feel part of the community, with more commitment to the university (Dovidio, Gaertner, Niemann, & Snider, 2001). Once this kind of identity as a university student is perceived, more positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are believed to develop toward the former out-group members. Our participants, Chinese and home students, share a common superordinate category as engineering students on the same campus. By expanding the inclusiveness of one’s in-group to include students who would otherwise be considered as out-group members, the perceptions of the memberships can be transformed from subordinate “us” and “them” to a more inclusive superordinate “we” (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner, Dovidio, & Bachman, 1996). The likelihood of positive intercultural behaviors should increase, and the prejudice of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes, and discrimination in behavior should decrease (Dovidio et al., 2001).

Findings in this research demonstrate that both the Chinese students and the U.K. cohort express a high level of interest in getting to know each other, but do not put it into practice. Some knowledge and skills are necessary to function effectively in this type of multicultural class and adequate preparation is necessary for learners’ intercultural competence (Savicki, 2008). As Volet and Ang (1998) have argued, successful intercultural contact can only be achieved if both parties are prepared to make it work. Currently, the predeparture preparation in China includes English language teaching, one of the aims of which is to increase language competence. It also includes some elements of cultural learning and an appreciation of the similarity and differences between the British and Chinese culture, which focuses on static facts rather than process knowledge. Consistent and holistic training on intercultural competence was not conducted. In addition, the home student cohort did not benefit from any preparation. Intercultural competence education should be one important part of the preparation for both parties in articulation programs. Being interculturally competent can help students to break the ice, move out of their own circles, and become more integrated. As Byram (2008) has pointed out, acting interculturally requires members of both groups to be willing to suspend their deeper values acquired in early socialization to understand and empathize with the values of others that are incompatible with one’s own. Both partner universities should provide training to the students to enhance their abilities to become “aware of cultural similarities and differences,” and able to “act as mediator between two or more cultures, two or more sets of beliefs, values and behaviours” (Byram, 2008, p. 75).

Conclusion

The findings in this study indicate that significant differences perceived by Chinese articulation program students and the home student cohort contribute to the generation of group identities and to visible and invisible divides in the class. The size of a sojourners’ group is an influential factor in segregation in the class. The study supports Byram’s (2008) argument that the success of interaction is dependent on both groups of interlocutors involved in intercultural communication. To provide constructive solutions for intercultural integration, we need to define “interlocutors” in the context of transnational articulation programs. The situation is more complex than in cases where students travel as individuals. The parties include not only both groups of students, but also the two teaching teams, from the sending and receiving universities. Many research studies have offered some solutions for universities and students to take, as they argue that institutions play a critical role in fostering positive intercultural interactions among all students, and the responsibilities for the lack of interaction should be shared between home students and international students (Denson & Zhang, 2010; Sovic, 2009; Volet & Ang, 1998). This is correct beyond all doubt. The institution, in the form of the senior management, can set up and support agreements with overseas institutions and take steps to foster an international ethos on campus. However, most of what affects students directly happens within their program and with their immediate peers. While students may have some concerns, it is likely that they will accept the situation as they find it, unless there is some clear and obvious way to raise issues and propose action. This is probably why the issue remains intractable and still puzzles many educators and researchers in this area. In fact, between the management level and the student group, there is an influential body that is more concrete, direct, and effective—the staff teaching team. This is where development could most usefully take place.

To facilitate the intercultural integration in a transnational articulation program, the coherence in both teaching and management is the key influential factor. A better understanding between the two teaching teams will benefit the integration among students. The harmonious understanding is formalized at the management level when signing up numerous memoranda and contracts to set up the transnational educational programs. The universities should also provide more opportunities for academic exchange, design cooperative modules for both teams of staff to lecture together, and conduct collaborative research projects. The two teaching teams themselves can adopt some creative solutions to facilitate the integration of their students. Before students meet in the United Kingdom, both teams can do more to develop intercultural competence education in their courses. With more opportunities for academic exchange, academics can give seminars in both countries. They can also design some modules to involve both of the groups. This can readily be facilitated by e-learning approaches. Steps could be taken to allocate articulation program students e-learning system accounts as soon as they enroll in the program in their home country. A space could be set up on the e-learning platform for the two groups of students and staff to exchange information. Activities focusing on the common interests and concerns of engineering students across national boundaries would foster the process of changing “us and them” to “we.” This could support staff and students on both sides of the articulation partnership to get to know each other. It would enable some relationships to be formed before the groups join for their final 2 years of study, and students could start to develop their intercultural competence.

When two groups of students first meet in the class, staff at the host universities can conduct structured interventions, such as mixing seating, building in time for group discussion, and producing a low-stakes assessment environment to support students to undertake group work in mixed cultures. The schools can organize some social activities outside the classroom for their students to foster long-term friendship, which has been argued as an effective way to solidify learning about culture and to reduce anxieties (Harrison & Peacock, 2009).

This research is a preliminary study to explore the impact of a large group of Chinese students in an overseas classroom. The intention is to raise the level of attention given to the issue and invite more research studies in this area. The solutions we suggest can be viewed as initial proposals for guidance to enhance the integration in an intercultural classroom. This needs more joint effort from the universities, staff, and the students to promote an ideal intercultural campus and classroom.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Junxia Houis a lecturer in School of Humanities and Social Sciences at National University of Defense Technology, China. She received her PhD in Education Studies from Northumbria University at Newcastle, UK in 2012. Her research interests are in curriculum design in transnational higher education, pre-departure preparation for international students at their home country, Engineering Education, and intercultural competence cultivation.

Liz McDowell is an honorary research fellow at University of Cumbria, UK. She was formerly professor in Academic Practice at Northumbria University and director of the National Centre for Excellence in Assessment for Learning. Her main research interests are on the impacts of learning environments on student learning. She has led a number of research projects and been involved in a number of development projects as educational advisor and evaluator.

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