Internationalisation has been actively pursued by Hong Kong's universities. Recent years have witnessed quantitative growth in non-local students. To ensure a qualitative success of internationalisation, it is crucial that universities cater for students with diverse academic backgrounds. This research explored challenges to academic adaptation. Focus group interviews were conducted with 124 local, mainland Chinese and international students at four Hong Kong universities. Findings revealed variation in academic adaptation challenges. First, adaptation to an English-medium-of-instruction was a concern for local and mainland Chinese students, while international students noted that limited English proficiency among other students undermined classroom discussions and led to tensions in group projects. Second, local students faced challenges in adapting to a wider range of assessment modes and academic writing, while mainland Chinese and international students reported how teacher-student relations and teaching approaches differed from prior educational experiences. Implications for the delivery of higher education amid internationalisation are discussed.
[Copyright © 2017 European Higher Education Society.]

University support to students' transition to university life can be divided into three dimensions, namely: academic adjustment, social adjustment and psychological adjustment. Previous researches show that there are relationships among those adjustments. However, less is known about gender differences in these relationships. The purpose of this study is to examine the gender differences in the perception of the relationships among these adjustments during the transition period. The study is based on a survey of 265 students from five Hong Kong universities. The findings show that: (i) social adjustment is perceived by female students to have more influence on academic adjustment than male students; (ii) psychological adjustment is perceived by female students to have more influence on academic adjustment than male students; and (iii) there is no significant difference in the relationship between social and psychological adjustments for both female and male students. Finally, implications of this study are explored and discussed.
[Copyright of Tertiary Education and Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2011.629676]

The purpose of this study is to determine if there are gender differences in the perception of university support. The study is based on a survey of 368 students in a Hong Kong university. The findings of the study are threefold. First, female students perceive the university as being more supportive in their academic adjustment than do male students (t = 2.401, p < 0.05).
[Copyright of Tertiary Education and Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2012.697914]