•  
  •  
 

Abstract

The number of Chinese postgraduates in JMC has steadily increased with the growing number of JCC master’s programs in in China. Little is known about key factors that influence Chinese students’ decisions in choosing which program attend. In order to fill a gap in the academic field, a qualitative phenomenological approach was applied to examine the experiences of seven Chinese master’s students in JMC from three different universities in Zhejiang province, China. Three important themes have been created including (1) geographical advantages; (2) recommendation of peers and professors; and (3) course design and curriculum. These findings have important implications for school officials and decision makers, with respect to allocating their resources wiser to make masters programs in JMC more attractive. In addition, this research study is the first analysis of its kind to apply a phenomenological approach to study experiences of Chinese students in making decisions of choosing a master’s program. This study lays a valuable foundation for similar topics through a qualitative research method.

Keywords

Phenomenology, Qualitative, Chinese Students, Master Programs, Decision-Making

Author Bio(s)

Zhiwei Wang is an instructor at the Department of Communication in Shenzhen Polytechnic. He holds a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University. He has an M.S. degree in International Relations from Northeastern University and an M.A. degree from Murray State University. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: zw44@mynsu.nova.edu.

Dr. Zhenbiao is a professor from the New Media program at Zhejiang University, Ningbo Institute of Technology.

Dr. Fuzhen Ke is an instructor from the New Media program at Zhejiang University, Ningbo Institute of Technology.

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge Dr. Honggang Yang for his encouragement and guidance. I also want to extend my gratitude to Dr. Robin Cooper and Dr. Jason Campbell. I am especially grateful to the participants for their contributions to and support of this research.

Publication Date

3-20-2020

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4013

Share

 
COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.