%0 Thesis
%9 Doctoral
%A Zhao, X
%B Education, Practice and Society, Institute of Education
%D 2017
%F discovery:1544347
%I UCL (University College London)
%P 347
%T Qualitatively Different Ways of Experiencing Learning: A Phenomenographic Investigation of International Economics and Trade Undergraduates’ Conceptions of Learning in a Chinese-Australian Cooperative Programme
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1544347/
%X This study investigates International Economics and Trade (IET) undergraduates’  conceptions of learning in a programme cooperatively run by a Chinese and an  Australian university.  Programmes jointly run by Chinese and foreign universities are increasingly common,  as a means to attain greater internationalisation of higher education in mainland China.  While higher education internationalisation research in China has been dominated by a  focus on policy making, strategic planning and institutional management, the student’s  learning experience remains relatively unexplored. The way in which a learner  experiences or understands learning may significantly influence their way of engaging  with learning in universities (Marton & Booth, 1997) and the subsequent quality of  learning outcomes (Biggs & Tang, 2007). Therefore, the study aims to reveal the  undergraduates’ qualitatively different ways of learning or conceptions of learning  (Marton & Booth, 1997), in a Chinese-Australian cooperative programme.  The research methodology adopted is phenomenography, a qualitative approach which  has been often used to elicit and describe the limited number of qualitatively different  ways people experience or understand some phenomena or aspects of a phenomenon  around them. Data is collected through semi-structured interviews with a group of  undergraduates and analysed following the phenomenographic principles to identify  the referential and structural aspects of each conception. Ultimately seven main  conceptions of learning and four sub-conceptions are identified. Generally speaking,  the relationship between conceptions found is hierarchical, but the sub-conceptions or  branches are also notable.  The study not only expands the research context of phenomenography, but also  contributes to the understanding of Chinese undergraduates’ conceptions of learning  in a cross-cultural teaching and learning context. Given the close relationship between  ways of experiencing or understanding learning and learning approaches, and  consequently the quality of learning, the implications of the outcomes of this research  for the improvement of learning and teaching in such programmes are explored.