Challenges of Globalization and Successful Adaptation Strategies in Implementing a “Scientific Writing and Authoring” Course in China

Abstract

This paper describes the adaptation of an upper-division undergraduate seminar course taught at the University of Missouri in Columbia (MU) to the Summer School Program of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (UCAS). The course "Scientific Writing in Chemistry" addresses an essential need for science students across the globe to receive experiential education in scientific writing. An assignment-based curriculum was developed to instruct students on best practices in writing a scientific paper and to educate students about the scientific publication process and peer review. The semester-long MU course that included three meetings per week and had low enrollment was adapted to 20 h UCAS block courses with much higher enrollments. The drastic differences in scale and mode of delivery posed numerous nontrivial challenges and required modifications of the teaching goals. Because of the short duration of the summer courses, the MU curriculum with its focus on "working on assignments and working with rubrics" was adjusted to a curriculum which is based on "working with posted samples of completed assignments and working with rubrics" at UCAS. Instruction on publication ethics was emphasized, and several adjustments were made to address cultural and language differences. Enrollment data and results of evaluations collected over five years (2011−2016) are presented to demonstrate the success of the adaptation. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to the wide and open dissemination of this "Scientific Writing" curriculum and, more generally, that the example of our course adaptation might encourage outstanding experts from many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to contribute in a significant way to international education.

Interactive Effects and Mediating Roles of Multiple Factors That Influence Learning Adaptative Growth of International Students: Evidence from China

“…For example, Wei and Li [ 10 ] found that college students’ learning adaptability mainly includes five aspects: learning motivation, learning ability, environmental factors, teaching mode and learning attitude. Yang et al [ 13 ] also pointed out that the main factors of college students’ learning adaptation include learning motivation, teaching mode, learning ability, learning attitude and environmental factors. Li et al [ 16 ] found that there existed adjustment to Chinese culture and mental health issues among foreign students on Chinese university campuses during the COVID-19 pandemic from a collaborative ethnographic study perspective.…”

“…Zhu et al [ 11 ] conducted an open questionnaire survey of experts, teachers, and students, used the two dimensions of learning motivation and learning behaviour, and constructed the structure and components of college students’ learning adaptability through eight factors: self-management, method application, professional interest, pressure regulation, hell-seeking tendency, information utilisation, environmental choice and knowledge transformation [ 12 ]. Yang et al [ 13 ] conducted a study of 918 college students from four different universities and performed exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis on the survey data. The results showed that the main factors of college students’ learning adaptation include learning motivation, teaching mode, learning ability, learning attitude and environmental factors.…”

“…International students should actively cultivate cross-cultural active communication abilities, strengthen cultural empathy, improve knowledge of the country where they study and develop the mentality to better adapt to and integrate into the local cultural environment. At the school level, scholars have proposed requirements for teachers and administrators, respectively [ 13 ]. For example, Cao et al [ 3 ] concluded that, in terms of intercultural education, the development of intimacy, sincerity, tolerance, mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual solidarity by teachers and students can promote cross-cultural communication.…”