This is a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of Chinese international students in the UK, with a comparison group of UK home students. It is part of a wider study with other surveys in Germany and China. The study population are taught (undergraduate and postgraduate) Chinese students studying in UK universities. Areas covered in the questionnaires: Socio-demographic characteristics and course details; family background (parental education, occupation, household income, siblings); prior education (academic achievement and educational migration); motivations for study abroad and decision-making process; personality traits and values (e.g., risk-taking attitude); study experience in current course; health and wellbeing; future life course aspirations; cosmopolitan vs national orientations.Young people moving away from home to seek 'bright futures' through higher education are a major force in the urbanization of China and the internationalization of global higher education. Chinese students constitute the largest single group of international students in the richer OECD countries of the world, making up 20 percent of the total student migration to these countries. Yet systematic research on a representative sample of these student migrants is lacking, and theoretical frameworks for migration more generally may not always apply to students moving for higher education. Bright Futures is a pioneering study that investigates key dimensions of this educational mobility through large-scale, representative survey research in China, the UK and Germany. We explore this phenomenon in two related aspects: the migration of students from the People's Republic of China to the UK (this data collection) and Germany for higher education, and internal migration for studies within China. This research design enables an unusual set of comparisons, between those who stay and those who migrate, both within China and beyond its borders. We also compare Chinese students in the UK and Germany with domestic students in the two countries. Through such comparisons we are able to address a number of theoretical questions such as selectivity in educational migrations, aspirations beyond returns, the impact of transnationalization of higher education on individual orientations and life-course expectations, and the link between migration and the wellbeing of the highly educated. Bright Futures is a collaborative project, involving researchers from University of Essex, University of Edinburgh, UNED, University of Bielefeld and Tsinghua University. The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), German Research Foundation (Germany) and the National Natural Science Foundation (China). The sample design is a two-stage stratified sample, with universities as the Primary Sampling Units (PSUs). The sample was stratified by university ranking and the size of Chinese students enrolled at the institution to ensure that students from different types of universities were proportionately represented. Within each university that agreed to participate we either sampled all Chinese students in undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes, or (in universities with a very large population of Chinese students) took a random sample. In each university, we sampled the same number of British home students as Chinese students for comparison. The questionnaire for UK home students is designed to serve as a comparison group to Chinese students. All questionnaires were in the students’ main language, i.e. Chinese or English respectively. The survey was conducted online. The response rate at the student level was approximately 13 percent. Survey fieldwork took place between April 2017 and March 2018. The achieved sample size in the UK is 1,446 Chinese students and 1,678 home students.

This dataset is based on original survey data from 224 Chinese undergraduate students who are studying in China and the UK. This dataset is to explore how UK-based and China-based Chinese students’ smoking behaviours are affected by their social networks, particularly their friends and family members, to address an empirical gap by testing the validity of three social network mechanisms: person-to-person contact, social support, and social stress, and to identify how studying abroad influences smoking behaviours by comparing these smoking behaviours for Chinese students in China.

This contains the do file and dataset to replicate all output for Paul Clist & Ying-yi Hong's Do International Students Learn Foreign Preferences? The Interplay of Language, Identity and Assimilation, forthcoming at the Journal of Economic Psychology. It also contains the experimental script. Abstract: Every year millions of students study at foreign universities, swapping one set of cultural surroundings for another. This may reveal whether measured preferences are fixed or flexible, whether they can be altered in the short-run by moving country, or learning a new language. We disentangle these influences by measuring international students' preferences. For Chinese students in the UK (who arrived up to five years previously) we randomise a survey's language. We add reference groups in each country, doing the survey in the relevant language. Simple comparisons provide a causal estimate of language's effect, and observational estimates of differences by country, location and nationality. We find language has a large causal effect on a range of survey responses. The effect size is similar to differences by country or nationality (at 0.4 standard deviations), and larger than differences by location (at 0.1 standard deviations). Assimilation theories predict any movement in measured preferences for Chinese students in the UK would be towards those of UK students, even if they may be small. We do not find this. In Mandarin, Chinese students hardly differ from those in Beijing. Yet in English, they are not close to either Chinese students in Beijing nor British students in the UK. This can be explained by an identity-priming model with monocultural subjects. For Chinese students in the UK, speaking English reduces the pull of a Chinese frame without increasing the pull of a British one. International students do not so much learn foreign preferences as learn to ignore old ones. Our reliance on mostly stated preferences enables a rich dataset covering many domains; future work is needed to see if such large effects are also found across a wide range of revealed preferences.

Although research suggests Chinese International Students (CIS) in UK universities are at higher risk of suffering from loneliness and social isolation, limited research has focused on understanding what loneliness means to CIS and how they experience this feeling. Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), as an intervention that addresses maladaptive social cognition, is effective in reducing loneliness in university students (Teoh et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2018). However, whether or how well it works for CIS has not been studied. Using a Participatory Action Research(PAR) approach, we aim to : 1. understand how Chinese International Students experience and understand loneliness in UK universities; 2. explore how MBCT can be culturally adapted to meet the needs of CIS. We interviewed 15 CIS (with optional use of images/photos) to explore their understanding and experiences of loneliness. The participants were then invited to attend a 2-hour MBCT workshop. Three focus groups (4-5 participants in each group) were conducted to explore the participants’ opinions on how to culturally adapt MBCT for CIS experiencing loneliness. Data were thematically analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019) Three themes emerged from the interview data: Navigating feelings of withdrawal, isolation and disconnection; The journey of adaptation and belongingness abroad; Withholding feelings and preference for self-reliant, problem-focused coping. The themes that emerged from the focus group data were: The need to focus on oneself and find “inner peace”; Unfamiliarity of MBCT, and reluctance towards help-seeking; Preference for an efficient, practical, and collaborative learning approach. For university support services, it might be helpful to: Proactively support CIS’s adaptation; Provide high-quality, accessible self-help material, ideally in Chinese; Help CIS explore how to balance the needs of self and others; Provide support programmes that emphasise developing skills and facilitating personal growth (e.g., MBCT); Consider changing the term “therapy” in the title, when offering MBCT (e.g., just “Mindfulness for Life”); Offer shorter versions of MBCT (Halladay et al., 2019; Chiodelli et al., 2020); Develop mindfulness teachers’ cultural competence so that the interventions can be more culturally sensitive and appropriate (having Chinese-speaking teachers would be especially helpful).This project aims to: 1. understand how Chinese International Students (CIS) experience and understand loneliness in UK universities; 2. explore how Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) can be culturally adapted to meet the needs of CIS. We interviewed 15 CIS (with optional use of images/photos) to explore their understanding and experiences of loneliness. The participants were then invited to attend a 2-hour MBCT workshop. Three focus groups (4-5 participants in each group) were conducted to explore the participants’ opinions on how to culturally adapt MBCT for CIS experiencing loneliness.

University students, who face an elevated risk of influenza due to close living quarters and frequent social interactions, often exhibit low vaccine uptake rates. This issue is particularly pronounced among Chinese students, who encounter unique barriers related to awareness and access, emphasizing the need for heightened attention to this problem within this demographic. This cross-sectional study conducted in May-June 2022 involved 1,006 participants (404 in the UK, 602 in Mainland China) and aimed to explore and compare the factors influencing influenza vaccine acceptance and intentions between Chinese university students residing in the UK (C-UK) and Mainland China (C-M). The study employed a self-administered questionnaire based on the Theoretical Domains Framework and Capability Opportunity Motivation-Behavior model. Results revealed that approximately 46.8% of C-UK students received the influenza vaccine in the past year, compared to 32.9% of C-M students. More than half in both groups (C-UK: 54.5%, C-M: 58.1%) had no plans for vaccination in the upcoming year. Knowledge, belief about consequences, and reinforcement significantly influenced previous vaccine acceptance and intention in both student groups. Barriers to vaccination behavior included insufficient knowledge about the influenza vaccine and its accessibility and the distance to the vaccine center. Enablers included the vaccination behavior of individuals within their social circles, motivation to protect others, and concerns regarding difficulties in accessing medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for evidence-based intervention design, providing evidence for healthcare professionals, policymakers, and educators working to enhance vaccination rates within this specific demographic.

This document forms part of the REDEFINE research project (ERC Grant No. 885475), funded by the European Research Council. REDEFINE focuses on the dynamics and effects of China’s large-scale infrastructure investments in Europe, with a focus on Germany, Greece, Hungary, and the UK. Through multi-sited fieldwork and interdisciplinary analysis, the project seeks to understand the evolving relations between China and Europe and to assess what this means for politics, economic growth and development more broadly.This anonymised interview note presents a semi-structured interview conducted with a university student representative P13. The conversation contributes to REDEFINE’s case study of Chinese investment in Airport City Manchester. All identifying details have been removed, and informed consent for participation and data use was obtained.

This study will investigate the nature and extent of teachers' professional development and learning in China as well as the significance of the concept of professional learning communities to evaluate and enhance teacher quality and school effectiveness in rural and urban senior secondary schools. The study also aims to extend previous (single cohort) models of school effectiveness employing innovative quantitative methodology (multilevel modelling) in two crucial ways - by examining improvement in school effectiveness over four consecutive student cohorts (2009-2012) and by investigating the impact of teacher development factors on student outcomes and progress. The research seeks to provide new insights and extend current theories about: The key features of effective teacher development and learning in China, taking into account local contexts and priorities; The value, relevance and utility of the concept of professional learning communities in Chinese schools; The impact of teacher development factors, in addition to pupil, school and contextual factors, on students attainment and progress at school. The studies are intended to lead to the development of new tools to enhance teacher and school evaluation and educational quality and guidelines for implementation via collaboration with key stakeholders.

This document forms part of the REDEFINE research project (ERC Grant No. 885475), funded by the European Research Council. REDEFINE focuses on the dynamics and effects of China’s large-scale infrastructure investments in Europe, with a focus on Germany, Greece, Hungary, and the UK. Through multi-sited fieldwork and interdisciplinary analysis, the project seeks to understand the evolving relations between China and Europe and to assess what this means for politics, economic growth and development more broadly.This anonymised interview transcript presents a semi-structured interview conducted with a university officer P11. The conversation contributes to REDEFINE’s case study of Chinese investment in Airport City Manchester. All identifying details have been removed, and informed consent for participation and data use was obtained.

The research in migrant selectivity largely overlooks the broader institutional processes that shape the extent to which migrants from different backgrounds are indeed positively selected. This is particularly true in the case of highly skilled migrants, whose selection may not be conditioned by migration but by education. This paper deals with this limitation by studying individual characteristics, which are often treated as unobserved selectivity, among a specific flow of educational migrants in Europe, namely, Chinese higher education students. To do so, we use a unique representative multi-country dataset of about 8,000 Chinese international students and their native-born counterparts in China, the UK, and Germany. Our evidence rules out positive selection of migrants on individuality traits such as ambition, creativity, or being a risk-taker or independently minded. This supports our argument that the prevalence of agentic models of individuality is embedded in tertiary education on a global level.

Supplementary files for article: On the importance of internet access for children’s health and subjective well-being: the case of ChinaDigital technology is transforming children’s daily routines and can potentially have long-lasting effects on their lives. This paper studies the impact of internet access on the health and subjective wellbeing of Chinese children. To conduct such analysis, we employ data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), a longitudinal dataset of Chinese seventh-year students representative of the whole country. This database allows us to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity and socio-economic characteristics. We use two alternative methods to address endogeneity concerns. The first one employs a recursive system of equations that allows unobserved individual heterogeneity to simultaneously affect both health outcomes and digital access. The second approach exploits the fact that Chinese students cannot choose which school to attend and employ the proportion of students owning a computer in the same school as an instrumental variable. Regardless of the method, we find that internet access improves health. We also find some positive impact of digital access on subjective wellbeing, albeit the evidence is weaker. This stands in stark contrast to prior research, which has found a negative effect of internet use on mental health in Western countries.© The Author(s), CC BY 4.0

BackgroundSleep is a necessary physiological process, which is closely related to cognitive function, emotion, memory, endocrine balance, and immunity. The prevalence of sleep problems continues to rise in Chinese medical students, which has a potential influence on living and work.ObjectiveThis study aimed to observe the prevalence of sleep problems among medical students in China.MethodThe included cross-sectional studies on the prevalence of sleep problems of medical students in China were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CNKI, and Wanfang database. An 11-item checklist recommended by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality was adopted to evaluate the methodological quality of the included studies. Software Stata 12.0, SPSS 26.0, and R were used to analyze the data. Registration: PROSPERO, CRD 42021237303.ResultThe prevalence of sleep problems among Chinese medical students was 27.38%. The subgroup analysis showed significant differences in the prevalence of sleep problems among different regions, educational backgrounds, grades, and University types. The region, latitude, and gross domestic product (GDP) were significant heterogeneous sources of sleep problems. The prevalence is positively correlated with latitude and negatively correlated with GDP per capita. Regular screening and appropriate intervention are recommended for these mental health problems.Systematic Review Registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42021237303, identifier: CRD42021237303.

BackgroundProblematic Internet Use (PIU) has been increasingly linked to suicidal behavior among adolescents, raising significant public health concerns, particularly in Chinese youth. This study aimed to systematically review and meta-analyze the correlation between PIU and suicidal behavior in Chinese adolescents to provide a clearer understanding of this association.MethodsA comprehensive search was conducted across seven databases up to July 1, 2024. Studies investigating the relationship between PIU and suicidal behavior among Chinese adolescents were included. A random-effects meta-analysis was employed to assess pooled effect sizes, with subgroup analyses conducted to explore potential moderators, such as geographic region, age, gender, assessment tools for PIU and suicidal ideation, and the presence of depression. Data analysis was performed using STATA software (version 16).ResultsThis meta-analysis, comprising 23 studies with 353,904 participants, identified significant associations between PIU and suicidal behavior among Chinese adolescents. PIU was associated with increased risks of suicidal ideation (OR = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.45, 2.03), suicidal plans (OR = 1.50, 95% CI: 1.02, 2.20), and suicidal attempts (OR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.16, 1.89). Subgroup analyses indicated higher risks in specific groups: adolescents from Central China (OR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.46, 2.32), college students (OR = 2.09, 95% CI: 1.66, 2.62). The risk of suicidal ideation was particularly elevated when depression was not controlled (OR = 1.86, 95% CI: 1.53, 2.25). These findings underscore the need for targeted interventions in vulnerable populations.ConclusionThis meta-analysis demonstrated significant associations between PIU and suicidal behaviors among Chinese adolescents. The findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions, particularly for adolescents from Central and Western China, college students, and those with untreated depression. Focused strategies are required to mitigate the risks associated with PIU and to effectively address suicidal behaviors in these high-risk populations.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42024577593, identifier CRD42024577593.

Thirteen semi-structured interviews were undertaken with students on an MA in Education programme at a small urban English university. The overarching research question was: what are the benefits and risks for students of drawing on prior experience in academic assignments?

Questions related to students' previous experience of academic learning, and how they responded to the pedagogical approach on the MA. This drew students' prior experience together with theory and research to engage students and promote learning.

The UK students came from White, African-Caribbean, African, or mixed African-Caribbean and White backgrounds. There were two Chinese students, two Canadians, one Slovakian and one US student. There was only one male participant.

The interviewer was the tutor on the module under discussion. Interviews took place in a small classroom on campus, and lasted between 20 and 90 minutes. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed by the interviewer.

BERA ethical guidelines were followed, and ethical approval was given by the host institution.