Cross cultural experiences of Chinese students studying Food Science in Ireland

Food science is the comprehensive study of food and beverages or more specifically the application of the scientific disciplines of the physical, biological, and chemical as well as engineering, microbiology and nutrition to the study of food and beverages to improve the sensory properties, safety, nutrition, functionality, sustainability and availability. UCC attracts diverse cross-cultural groups of students to degree programmes in Ireland annually including 3000 international students from over 100 countries (UCC, 2018). However, anecdotally, students were underperforming (grades lower than Irish students) for some of their formative assessments due to a lack of familiarity with the Irish teaching system. For this reason, it was decided to investigate, from first principals, the experiences of these Chinese students both from their Chinese and Irish experiential perspectives in order to determine areas that could be optimised to improve their integration and promote their holistic learning experiences. The action research findings of this present study will thus be used to optimise a new bespoke degree programme, specifically catered for Chinese students, that commenced in UCC in September 2017.