Date of Award
5-27-2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Policy Studies (DPS)
First Advisor
Prof. MOK Ka Ho Joshua
Abstract
Background: The unavoidable effects of globalisation and increased competition amongst nations have fuelled students’ pursuit of international higher education. In response to this development, the adoption of transnational higher education has become a major global trend. For instance, the Chinese Ministry of Education (MoE) initiated Sino–foreign cooperative education in different forms to reform its education system whilst introducing high-quality educational resources from overseas. As one of the most popular forms, the articulation programme (2+2 programme) has attracted many students. Thus, the quality assurance of this programme warrants further exploration.
Aims and objectives of the study: The present study focuses on students’ perceptions of their learning in the 2+2 programme. Students from this programme spend two years studying in China and two years studying abroad to achieve their degree, thus gaining study experiences in their home and their host university. Accordingly, the intercultural experiences of these students have been extensively investigated. However, only a few studies have focused on the teaching and learning resources in this programme to assess its internal quality assurance. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the students’ perceptions of their learning from the lens of the prospective approach model (Tsiligiris & Hill, 2019). Explorations within this theoretical framework provide practical implications for stakeholders in formulating policies to develop the quality management of the 2+2 programme.
Methods: This study regards students as internal stakeholders and acknowledges their right to provide suggestions and engage in governance to improve the quality of transnational higher education (TNHE) at the grassroots level. This study adopts a qualitative method to explore the defects of quality assurance for the improvements and developments of quality management in the 2+2 programme. Annual quality reports of universities and regulations formulated from home and host countries are analysed. A total of 30 valid interviewees were recruited from Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in early 2023 via purposive sampling.
Findings: The analysis of quality assurance reports and relevant policies reveals some rigidity flaws in the process of quality assurance. For a long time, quantitative and measurable indicators have been used in the evaluation. In this study, internal stakeholders are introduced into the analysis of the development of quality assurance at Sino–UK cooperative universities. In the interviews, the students have expressed their satisfaction with their learning experiences, and such satisfaction is evaluated using quantitative and measurable indicators. Most of these students’ perceptions of their learning in Sino–UK cooperative universities generally match or exceed their initial expectations. However, some insights from these interviews have been overlooked in the quality assurance process. For instance, if the proactive role of students is ignored, then the assessments of these quantitative and qualitative metrics in annual quality reports could fully align with these students’ descriptions of their learning experiences. In fact, students’ expectations in some areas, such as teaching quality and autonomy in Sino–UK cooperative universities, have not been met.
Discussion and conclusion: The results of the study highlight some gaps between policy and reality by analysing documents from competent authorities, annual quality reports of universities and students’ perceptions. The empirical results address the research gaps concerning the quality management of the 2+2 programme by exploring the perceptions of students participating in such programme. At the policy level, this study develops a framework that introduces students as stakeholders based on the prospective model for the development of quality assurance. The findings emphasise the importance for policymakers to take into account these students’ voices in the quality assurance process of TNHE programmes. By recognising the shortcomings in traditional, quantitative measures of satisfaction, this research advocates for the development of a more student-centred approach to policy formulation, which involves integrating qualitative feedback mechanisms into the quality assurance framework and aligning educational policies with the diverse needs of students. This study further recommends the MoE and other regulatory bodies to re-evaluate their existing quality assurance practices to better accommodate the dynamic interaction between student expectations and the actual educational offerings of the 2+2 programme. This research provides valuable insights for the reform and improvement of Sino–UK cooperative education strategies, aiming to optimise educational outcomes and student satisfaction. Such exploration and theoretical discussion provide a direction for integrating top–down and bottom–up approaches in policy formulation. Stakeholders should improve the quality of student resources, adjust the teaching context and optimise the governance network in quality management.
Language
English
Copyright
The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited.
Recommended Citation
Ke, G. (2024). Transnational higher education and quality assurance: A study of 2+2 student learning experience from Sino-UK cooperative universities (doctoral thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd_tpg/14/
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Higher Education Commons, International and Comparative Education Commons
