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5? Research Problem

Despite a growing body of literature into the educational experiences of overseas Chinese students at Western universities, discipline specific studies are rare. Personal experience of teaching professionally accredited (ACCA, CIMA and ICAS) subjects elicited a number of questions as to how overseas Chinese students experience the programme from the disciplinary perspective. Use of a second language is a challenge for many overseas students but less obvious is the impact of Western cultural concepts and ideas embedded in the accounting discipline, which are often assumed, wrongly, to be ‘international’ and therefore readily understood.

AimThe aim of the research is to investigate the experiences overseas Chinese students of an accredited accounting undergraduate degree programme at a Scottish university.

ContributionA greater understanding of the overseas student experience allows adaptation, where necessary, of universities to enhance student experience with positive implications for support services, lecturers and students alike. While the discipline studied is Professional Accounting, there is scope for findings to be translated into other disciplines.

Contribution to Theory: development of theories relating to how the students experience Western education from within the still under-researched perspective of the Professional Accounting Discipline.

Contribution to Practice: enhanced understanding for teaching professionals and student experience through better understanding of the student perspective in relation to accounting concepts and ideas. Implications for learning, teaching and assessing practice in the accounting and related disciplines.

MethodologyA critical realist approach, qualitative methodology using focus groups, audio recording these, transcribing and thematic data coding and analysis using NVIVO. There are18 students in the population leading to small focus groups of three or four. 100% participation achieved.

Early Themes• It’s not just the newness of the language – it’s ideas and concepts. Accounting related laws here often formed in case law. Not the

same in China. Why is a judge’s wig tax deductible? ‘Who made that rule up anyway!’

• Students tend to like numbers but can find taxation difficult because of legal concepts and language, often ancient or historical, but which don’t exist in China. (‘notional tax credit’ – no equivalent in China)

• Auditing is full of discipline specific ideas and language (‘True and Fair’ has no definition and does not exist in China until recently; Regulations are not rules – why?; Audit objectives or Auditors must be objective?).

• Financial Accounting Group work: popular but difficult to integrate with ‘local’ students & companies selected not known to Chinese students

• Idiomatic language in assessment papers: ‘remittance’, ‘cash till’, ‘ring up on register’, ‘docket’, ‘slip’, ‘wrong end of stick’.

The Experiences of Overseas Chinese Students of a Professionally Accredited Accounting Degree Programme at a Scottish University