Chinese Undergraduate Students’ Learning Experiences in a Transnational Distance Education Program in the United States

Multifaceted challenges and opportunities: Chinese exchange students’ experiences in the U.S. transnational online learning ecology

“…The finding is also consistent with previous research that Chinese students were dissatisfied with their online learning experiences because of social isolation, disengagement, and the lack of instructor presence (Ren & Zhou, 2022;Tang et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2020). Especially, exchange students with limited English proficiency often had fewer interactions with overseas instructors (Senyshyn, 2019).…”

“…These findings are also confirmed by previous research that students with limited online learning experiences often encountered technical difficulties and frustrations in a web-based learning environment (Chen et al, 2020;Dai et al, 2020b;Lin & Gao, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020). The challenges faced in technology-assisted instruction also had harmful effects on Chinese students' cognitive presence (Ren & Zhou, 2022). Accordingly, institutions need to improve their infrastructure and support resources to minimize students' anxiety and enhance their transnational online learning effectiveness, such as stable Internet connections, well-designed online learning systems, the availability of help desk services, and proactive support plans.…”

“…Without sufficient training, they encountered various challenges during the transition, such as technical difficulties, anxiety, social isolation, and information overload (Chen et al, 2020;Lin, 2022). As a result, it is highly possible that Chinese exchange students would experience dual barriers in transnational online education (Ren & Zhou, 2022).…”

“…However, limited research has been conducted to investigate the experiences of Chinese exchange students who enrolled in a transnational distance education program. For instance, guided by the CoI framework, one quantitative research showed cognitive and instructor presence, as indicated in student-to-content and student-to-instructor interactions, were two strong predictors of Chinese students' learning satisfaction in a cross-cultural online learning environment (Ren & Zhou, 2022). Further research is needed to explore Chinese exchange students' perceptions and experiences before targeting appropriate support resources and services to improve the effectiveness of transnational distance teaching and learning.…”