The Journey of Academic Resilience: Lived Experiences of Overcoming Academic Challenges by International Master’s Students in Chinese Universities

Previous studies have documented the globalised educational challenges faced by international students; little has been written about the resilience pathways of master's students beyond Western contexts, such as China. This qualitative study fills this gap by addressing the experiences of 16 international master's students in China through semi-structured interviews. By employing Masten's (2001) process model of resilience, this study revealed that international master's students face challenges linked to language and instructional approach. In turn, these students were able to create resilience pathways, including a creative application of hybrid learning, which regained and adapted home and host academic cultures in novel ways, and self-regulation to tackle academic challenges. This qualitative research offers a new contribution by identifying "self-regulation" as a primary resilience pathway and recognising the salient role of cultural hybridity within these pathways. This study highlighted the implications of the findings for stakeholders to ensure that institutional support is culturally and temporally focused, whereby students experience academic persistence and success.