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eing and harmony. Similarly, Pan et al. (1994) indicate that American cultureemphasises individualism, equality and freedom. Some scholars argue that westernstudents prefer working alone, whereas Asian students like working together. Forexample, Hofstede (2001) suggests “It is important evidence that western studentsare more independent. They are more likely to work according to their own ideaswhereas students from China, Japan or other Asian countries prefer to worktogether.”In relation to language and communication, both students and teachers are aware ofthe inherent difficulties, and agree that many international students require Englishlanguage support during their study (Chalmers and Volet 1997; Eisenchlas andTrevaskes 2003). Tiong and Yong (2004) state that Asian international studentsbecome silent in group discussion and in the classroom because of their inadequatelanguage skills and their underdeveloped interpersonal communication skills. Somescholars also examine the methods which can help international students to improvetheir language skills (Briguglio 2000).3.3 Contributions of this study to the literatureAlthough there is growing recognition of the need for research in the cross-culturaleducation domain, there remains a lack of research on which to draw to informimproved teaching and learning practices in higher education. A broad literature oncross-cultural education research has been found; however, it focuses primarily onissues of language and communication, specific courses, satisfactory analysis,difference between diverse student groups in learning methods and styles, and highschool level study (Asmar, 1999; Watkins, 2000; Wei, 2007). There is essentially noliterature on how deeper culturally specific assumptions and or situational variablesmay impact upon the teaching/learning relationship in higher education. Very littlestudy has explored the implications of cultural background on teaching and learningitself.There is therefore an urgent need to explore current new cross-cultural teaching andlearning situations and to develop more suitable approaches to help improve thelearning practices of Asian students in IT and business higher education in Australia.This project identifies the influence of the trend of increasing numbers of crossculturalstudents on teaching and learning approaches in the Australian educationalenvironment through uncovering the differences and difficulties of Asian studentswho are studying in Australian universities. It proposes better understanding ofAsian students’ cultural backgrounds, their previous learning approaches and theirperspectives on Australian culture and educational mode. It shows the differencesbetween students of Asian background and local students in learning methodologyand behaviour. It particularly develops a set of guidelines to help internationalstudents who come from different cultural backgrounds to overcome the difficultiesof cross-cultural study. At the same time, it brings new ideas to lecturers who teachstudents from different cultural background about how to improve the quality ofcross-cultural teaching in their courses. It also develops related strategies byrecognising the factors which influence teaching and learning in a cross-culturalenvironment, to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in Australianuniversities.15