Study Abroad Decision-making of Chinese International Students: The Role of Universities’ International Environment and Overseas Publicity

In the world today, there are 5 million international students studying abroad, including those at the universities in Japan. This research investigates the factors influencing the study abroad decision-making of Chinese international students, based on the results of two surveys and semi-structured interviews. It focuses on the universities’ international environment and overseas publicity. The results were used to test the following hypothesis: “Chinese international students who decide to study in English-speaking countries/regions are more affected by universities’ international environment and overseas publicity than those who decide to study in non-English-speaking countries/ regions, such as Japan.” Sample size emerged as a limitation of this study. Thus, future research should conduct analysis based not only on the “JASSO Study Abroad Fair,” which provided the sample for this study, but also on a variety of study abroad fairs with larger sample sizes.