TITLE:
A Comparative Analysis of Study Contentment among African Students Studying in China
AUTHORS:
Agoma Abengiba Simon, Haruna Inusahh, Hibe Casimir, Qinke Fu
KEYWORDS:
African International Students, Study Contentment, Learning Motivation, French-Speaking African Students, English-Speaking African Students, China-Africa Educational Cooperation, Cross-Cultural Student Adaptation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.10,
October
30,
2026
ABSTRACT: Under the Belt and Road Initiative, China has become a major destination for African students, yet research often treats them as a single group. This mixed-methods study compares learning motivation and study contentment, a holistic evaluation of academic, linguistic, administrative, residential, and social experiences across the period of enrollment, between French-speaking and English-speaking African students in China. A purposive quota sample of 400 students (200 from Chad and Côte d’Ivoire; 200 from Ghana and Nigeria) at 15 Chinese universities completed a 28-item bilingual questionnaire (valid response rate 95.2%), and 40 took part in semi-structured interviews. Analyses included independent-samples t-tests, chi-square tests, covariate-adjusted ordinary least squares regression, and thematic analysis. English-speaking students reported higher overall study contentment (M = 3.76 vs. 3.21; t(398) = 8.72, p M = 3.82 vs. 3.36; t(398) = 7.19, p 2(1, N = 400) = 32.47, p p