Summer Courses As A Platform For International Collaboration In Chinese Higher Education: An Exploration Of Students' Learning Experiences

Higher institutions in China have seen increased international collaboration in engineering education. Among the increased effort to facilitate international collaboration, summer courses and programs have become a unique platform partly due to the flexibility they provide in time and formats. Despite its prevalence among leading universities in China as a key platform for international collaboration, students' learning experiences and outcomes remained unknown due to the lack of assessment efforts. This study aims to understand students' learning experiences through a student engagement survey and a learning environment survey. Also, follow-up interviews were conducted to explore the opportunities and challenges as related to these programs. Preliminary results implied active student engagement in their learning. Our findings also suggest diverse opportunities for summer courses as a useful platform for international collaboration. These findings provide useful information as to the design and further improvement of international collaboration in similar engineering courses settings.