The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

The methodology has built on – grown out of – my conceptualisation of what I am
trying to understand. How I address my own questions depends upon what those
questions are and how I choose to construe them. Method is not technical, but
purposeful. It follows the logic of the problem under discussion. My research method
and design rolls out from the substantive source of the enquiry; namely, the
experience and perceptions of a particular group of overseas undergraduates studying
within the UK.
The approach to enquiry
The approach to the data analysis is mainly qualitative. Data was collected through
student participants‘ autobiographical life stories, and one-to-one in-depth interviews.
Most of interviews were conducted in the participants‘ first language – Mandarin
Chinese. Tape recordings of the interviews were subsequently transcribed and
translated. Qualitative techniques were utilised to search for patterns and themes and
to formulate interpretations. NVivo research software was used as the main tool to aid
the analysis of interview data. NVivo helps researcher classify, sort and arrange
unstructured information, and provides a convenient tool to analyse the data and
discover patterns, identify themes, glean insight and develop meaningful conclusions.
The process of analysing the data was messy and complicated than I expected. Some
themes I started off were proved not as significant as I initially thought. Some other
themes were turned out more important to participants. Wellington‘s (2000, p. 135)
qualitative data analysis stages have provided some important guidance on data
analysis. Wellington suggests following stages of data enquiry – immersion,
reflecting, taking apart data, recombining data, relating and locating one‘s data,
reflecting back and presenting/disseminating the data. Immersing myself in the data
by listening back the interview recordings and re-reading students‘ autobiographical
accounts proved both hard working and rewarding.
After the data was analysed, the findings of the study were sent to the participants for
validation of my analysis. In the email, I asked the participants if these findings
reflected their learning experience at Liverpool Hope University. Participants‘
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