Nuevas tendencias tecnológicas educativas

The qualitative and quantitative studies have both received independent ethical approval letters from the Lancaster University’s Research Ethics Committee. The Reference number of the ethical approval letter given by The Faculty of Health and Medicine Research Ethics Committee (FHMREC) is FHMREC15063. Great attention has been paid to the ethical issues.

Posters with a short message introducing the study and an invitation to the study were used on campus to recruit participants. Also relevant societies (e.g. CSSA-Chinese Student Scholar Association) were approached. Those who have shown interest by responding to the university email address given on the poster was further contacted via email with subsequent participant invitation letters and information sheet and the consent forms (see Appendix V). The Chinese international students who have given their consent and permission were contacted about their possible involvement of in-

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depth recorded interview about well-being. The researcher also reassured their understanding and got the forms signed before conducting the interviews.

All interviews were digitally recorded and uploaded to the researcher’s password protected H drive. The data were then transcribed, and stored on the university H drive, and that all data analysis were conducted on the H drive i.e. at no time will any data be downloaded onto memory sticks, university or personal computers. All the relevant paper resource, such as consent forms were stored in the locked drawer at the researchers’ university office and will be destroyed after the research. Anonymity and confidentiality were maintained at all times. Participants’ names would not appear in the report and the information about them will be confined to the researcher only. All of the identifiable data, including recordings of participants’ voices, were deleted from the recorder as soon as it has been transferred to a password protected PC, and in the meantime the recorder were stored securely. The transcript data were stored in a locked drawer (kept secure) at the researcher’s university office and will be destroyed after the viva. The electronic versions of the anonymous transcripts will be kept in the Lancaster University for 5 years, and the researcher’s supervisors: Dr Ian Fletcher and Professor Carol Thomas will destroy all the data.

The information given by the participants was kept in strictly confidential and anonymous manner unless it is thought that there is a risk of harm to the participants or others, in which case the researcher would need to share this information with her supervisors and report to university services if appropriate. This research is purely for academic purposes.

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University email address was used to contact the potential participants. All participants for the interviews were adult students (no old people or children involved). The researcher only conducted interviews on campus during university office hours, and the researcher’s supervisors were informed of the times/dates of the interviews. The researcher did not reveal her home address, or contact details (other than university email) to any participants. Hence, the risks to the researcher are believed to be minimal.

4.10 Chapter summary

This chapter has presented the research methodology, including research design, justification of mixed research methods, and recruitment of the participants, research instruments, data collection procedures and methods for qualitative and quantitative data analyses. At the end of the chapter, validity, reliability, triangulation, and the related ethical issues were discussed. The researcher has made every effort to reduce subjectivity, and enhance the validity of the study. The chapter also gives rationale of conducting interviews before questionnaires as the item pools are generated from the qualitative interviews. The next chapter will report on the main findings from personal interviews with Chinese international students and chapter six will test the hypotheses informed by the literature review in chapter three and main findings from chapter five.

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CHAPTER FIVE

QUALITATIVE STUDY RESULTS

This chapter presents the findings from qualitative analyses of the data collected from 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Chinese international students. Seven main themes were identified regarding their health and well-being while studying in UK universities (see table 5.1), including: 1) Cultural health beliefs and well-being practice of Chinese international students; 2) Sociocultural adaptation of Chinese international students; 3) Academic stress arising from study abroad; 4) Psychological adaptation during study abroad; 5) Different views on social support; 6) Dilemmas regarding health service: TCM or WM; and 7) Health concerns of female students. In the following sections, the emerging themes are illustrated with a range of excerpts from individual interviews. Focusing on the qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, the chapter probed Chinese international students’ perception of well- being and health practices in the UK.

Table 5.1 Central themes of Chinese international students’ health and well-being

Main Themes

1. Cultural health beliefs and well-being practice of Chinese international students 2. Sociocultural adaptation of Chinese international students

3. Academic stress arising from study abroad 4. Psychological adaptation during study abroad 5. Different views on social support

6. Dilemmas regarding health service: TCM or WM 7. Health concerns of female students

To help understand the excerpts from the participants of the qualitative interview study, a table summarising the key background information of the participants is given

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below. The background of the informants includes their pseudonym, length of time they have already stayed in the UK, their gender, age, degrees, whether they are undergraduate students, master students or doctoral students, what subjects they study as well as where they originally came from. Their host universities in the UK were differentiated by either L or M.

Table 5.2 Informants of semi - structured interviews

No Name Length

in the UK

Sex Age Degree

level

Degree subjects Place of

birth

Uni

1 Yu Pan 6 Ms M 19 BA Statistics Xiamen L

2 Yu Wen 1 Y F 24 MA Management Xi’an M

3 Yu Ting 5 Ys F 30 PhD Economics Beijing L

4 Chris 6 Ms M 19 BA Chemistry Engineering Shenzhen M 5 Juan 2 Ys F 25 MSc Electronic Engineering Tai’an L

6 Ming Ze 3 Ys M 27 PhD Computer Science Qing’an M

7 Yue Qing 6 Ys F 26 MA Economics Changchun M

8 Cui Ling 4 Ys F 22 BA Chemistry Hong Kong L

9 Chen Wei 4 Ys M 29 PhD Environment Wuhan M

10 Xu Meng 2 Ys F 24 MSc Materials Science Tangshan M

11 Miao Li 7 Ys F 30 MA Civil Engineering Ji’nan M

12 Wan En 3 Ys F 21 BA Law Taibei M

13 Liu Wei 1 Y M 27 PhD Electronic

Engineering

Beijing L

14 Xiang Fei 3 Ys M 23 BA Statistic Taiyuan L

15 Huang Fa 1 Y M 25 MA Management Fuzhou L

16 Han Jing 3 Ys F 28 PhD Applied Linguistics Guangzhou L

17 Qu Kai 2 Ys M 25 MA Business Beijing M

18 Xuan 7 Ys M 21 BA Medicine Tianjin M

19 Ling Fei 4 Ys M 28 PhD Cosmos Physics Ji’nan L

20 Li Yan 2Ys M 27 PhD Environment Lanzhou L

Note: Names are anonymized.

5.1 Cultural health beliefs and well-being practice of Chinese international