The primary purpose of the author is to ----.

Chinese students have recently become the largest
single ethnic group of overseas students enrolled in
Australian institutions dealing with services. Due to
cultural differences in communication styles, these
students find it difficult to adjust to local communication
norms that encourage students to speak out in class
and in interaction with academic staff. Cindy Gallois and
her associates studied this phenomenon in 1992. They
prepared twenty-four carefully scripted videotapes of
communication between a student and a lecturer, in
which the student adopted a submissive, assertive or
aggressive communication style to ask for help with an
assignment or to complain about a grade. Gallois and
her associates had Australian students, ethnic Chinese
students and lecturers view the videos and rate the
students on a number of behavioural dimensions and
on the effectiveness of their communication style.
All participants agreed that the aggressive style was
inappropriate and atypical of students of any ethnic
background. Consistent with stereotypes,
submissiveness was considered more typical of
Chinese than Australian students, and assertiveness
more typical of Australian than Chinese students.
Chinese students felt that the submissive style was
more effective than the assertive style. However,
lecturers and Australian students interpreted the
submissive style as being less effective and as
indicating less need for assistance.