The paradox of the Chinese learner in the context of the research-teaching nexus: a matter of module design

With the increased number of Chinese students at western universities, academics for long have sought to explain their performance and searched for ways to resolve associated challenges, specifically for the research-teaching nexus. This paper proposes and investigates an alternative approach to learning for addressing the paradox of the Chinese learner. Using performance data from two deliveries and qualitative data on the student experience from one delivery of an undergraduate strategic management module at a UK Business School, the pedagogical redesign seems to explain why Chinese students had achieved high marks in some part of the assessments, contrary to perceptions. Staged, collaborative and cumulative learning for coursework embedded in the module design benefited these students. Unexpectedly, some home students objected to the module design, because they preferred discrete blocks of learning and assessment rather than cumulative learning and assessment for research-informed coursework. The encouraging results confirm the proposed approach but given the limited scope of this case study also call for further research.