Interview Data

Two sets of data were collected, through participant observation and in-depth interviews, to comprehensively explore how art study abroad agencies help students build an “All-Rounder” to meet the application requirements of elite art institutions. The first set of data comes from the first author's immersive fieldwork at a large art study abroad agency, which included access to internal agency documents and long-term tracking of the student application process. The researcher worked as a “Study Abroad Instructor” at the organization from approximately March 2025 to September 2025, and was involved in the daily application process, including student selection, portfolio planning, writing, mock interviews, and submission of applications.
Next, we will conduct in-depth interviews with 10 participants, which mainly focus on two core dimensions. The first part provides basic information about the students, and the second part outlines the process of building the capacity of the “All-Rounder”. According to four different categories of respondents, different interviews were conducted.
(i) For organization managers, we need to understand the trend of the art study abroad industry and the admission situation of elite art schools in the past five years.
(ii) For Study Abroad Consultant and portfolio tutors, we need to find out the specific details of the application process and the individual cases of the applicants.
(iii) For student applicants, we need to understand the basic background of the student and the real application process from the student's perspective.(iv) For parents, we need to understand the financial cost of preparing for studying abroad and the factors to be considered when making decisions.
All interviews in this study were conducted in Mandarin, each lasting approximately 40 minutes, and were recorded with the participants' consent. To ensure the accuracy of the data, the researcher transcribed the interviews verbatim immediately after each interview, forming a text record in simplified Chinese. During the preliminary analysis stage, the researcher screened out representative interviews and translated them into English for subsequent in-depth analysis. To obtain more comprehensive research data, key interviewees were invited to participate in supplementary interviews.