The Comparative Study On Student Experience Of Higher Vocational Education In China And Australia

Higher vocational education has become the priority of the educational reform and development of China.With national policies in China and Australia encouraging students to participate in vocational education,an increasing number of high school graduates enter higher vocational institutes.However,there are still limited previous studies on student experience in higher vocational colleges,the cross-cultural comparative study of Chinese and Australian higher vocational colleges,and the utilization of cultural discourse study methods to explore social and cultural issues.This study takes students from Institute J in China and Institute T in Australia as the study cases and draws on a questionnaire and interview combined study with both quantitative and qualitative methods being utilized to ensure the reliability of the study.Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice(1977,1990)as the theoretical framework and the method of cultural discourse studies(Shi-xu,2022)as the analytical framework,the study investigates the differences in student experience between the two groups of students and discovers the in-depth socio-cultural reasons for the student differences.97 Surveys of Chinese participants from Institute J and 111 Australian surveys from Institute T were collected.The survey data was analyzed by quantitative data analysis software IBM SPSS Statistics 19 with crosstabulation and independent sample T test.Differences in student experience between Chinese and Australian vocational students were discovered as follows,opportunities for scholarships,opportunities for internship,improvement of skills,expectations,hope towards future,attitude towards certificate,job hunting,preference for academic university and overall satisfaction.Among these participants,12 from China and 8 from Australia were conducted semistructured in-depth interviews according to the data analysis of quantitative data.Based on the interviews,the study acquired their discourse of student experience and analyzed by cultural discourse study method with the qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti 9.Based on Bourdieu’s theory of social practice and the method of cultural discourse studies,this study reveals three categories of sociological reasons for the differences between the two groups of participants,i.e.discursive background as field,cultural values as habitus and discursive subject differences as capital.Specifically,‘discursive background as field’ consists the field of society and the field of institute,with the former one presenting history and cultural background,policy,social needs,and the latter one including function of institute and study atmosphere.‘Cultural values as habitus’ covers social habitus and personal habitus.Social habitus contains social value,perception of people around,social recognition of certificate while personal habitus consists personal expectation and personal preference.‘Discursive subject differences as capital’ is consisted of economic capital as source of income,cultural capital as school record and study ability,and social capital as people connection.This research utilizes the method of cultural discourse studies to study social issues,which is a combination of language research and socio-cultural research.Besides,this study is also a practice and localized application of traditional Western theory in the Eastern context.The research contributes to understanding the overall experience and current situation of students in higher vocational colleges from the perspective of cross-cultural comparison context and helps to promote the application of cultural discourse study methods in the fields of pedagogy and cultural sociology.