This paper investigates the motivations and satisfaction levels of international students studying in China, using a marketing approach. Through a literature review, it examines education service quality, marketing tools, and the importance of international students. The main goal is to identify the main incentives for students coming to China and to assess the gaps between their expectations and satisfaction with various aspects of the marketing mix during their studies. To achieve this goal, a quantitative survey was conducted, which reveals that the most valued incentives are related to the campus environment, professional teachers, student life, and cultural diversity. In terms of student satisfaction, the results highlight that the least satisfactory factors include aspects related to the promotion of international studies and the partnerships between universities. These areas require more attention from Chinese university management for future improvement. The paper concludes with theoretical implications and managerial recommendations for universities, national policymakers, and Chinese authorities in the context of China’s national education development strategy, entitled “Opinions on Accelerating and Expanding the Opening Up of Education to the World in the New Era”.

International student mobility is essential to higher education internationalization, yet comparative quantitative research on incoming and outgoing students remains limited. In this study, motivations and attitudes toward cross-border education were analyzed by comparing 329 international students in China and 303 Chinese outgoing students using questionnaires. Data were examined via reliability and validity tests, mean comparisons, and structural equation modeling (SEM), with acceptable model fit indices. The findings show that incoming students prioritized postgraduate employment and scholarships, whereas outgoing students focused on cultural exploration and personal growth. Incoming students held more optimistic attitudes toward career benefits, policy support, and leadership engagement. Both groups supported peer mentoring but were neutral toward extended language courses and online learning. This study enriches theoretical frameworks and provides practical implications for universities and policy makers to design tailored strategies that improve student satisfaction and support sustainable international mobility.

The digital transformation of higher education is central to sustainable and equitable international education, as reflected in Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5, and 10. Yet gender equity research in digital education has focused on access and technology acceptance, leaving unknown whether male and female international students differentially evaluate the educational technology services their host universities deliver. This study analyzed a cross-sectional survey of 329 international students in China (135 male, 194 female), who completed mirrored importance–satisfaction batteries for six educational technology services, online admission, diversified information access, timely website information, social media information, smart classrooms, and digital libraries, analyzed with Welch’s t-tests, effect sizes, paired tests, and HC3-robust regressions. Male students rated technology importance significantly higher than female students (4.46 vs. 4.29, p = 0.011, d = 0.278), while no statistically significant gender difference in experienced satisfaction was detected (p = 0.614, d = −0.057). Consequently, male students exhibited a larger negative expectation–perception gap (−0.48 vs. −0.27, p = 0.016), concentrated in information-intermediated services. Controlling for region of origin and family income attenuated the male coefficient to non-significance, although the gap persisted within the Asian subsample (p = 0.012). Because importance and satisfaction were measured concurrently, the importance ratings are interpreted as retrospective evaluative anchors, proxies for, rather than direct observations of, pre-arrival expectations. Within this interpretive frame, the pattern is consistent with expectation inflation without experience discrimination: gender appears to operate at the expectation-formation stage rather than at service delivery, although this mechanism requires longitudinal confirmation. The paper concludes with theoretical implications and managerial recommendations for universities and national policy makers, in the context of China’s national strategy of opening up education to the world: expectation calibration, realistic pre-arrival information and social-media promise management, is a lever for sustainable, gender-equitable digital education alongside interface quality.

The digital transformation of higher education is central to sustainable and equitable international education, as reflected in Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5, and 10. Yet gender equity research in digital education has focused on access and technology acceptance, leaving unknown whether male and female international students differentially evaluate the educational technology services their host universities deliver. This study analyzed a cross-sectional survey of 329 international students in China (135 male, 194 female), who completed mirrored importance–satisfaction batteries for six educational technology services, online admission, diversified information access, timely website information, social media information, smart classrooms, and digital libraries, analyzed with Welch’s t-tests, effect sizes, paired tests, and HC3-robust regressions. Male students rated technology importance significantly higher than female students (4.46 vs. 4.29, p = 0.011, d = 0.278), while reported satisfaction was statistically indistinguishable between genders (p = 0.614, d = −0.057; 90% CI [−0.17, 0.09]), with equivalence supported at a moderate (d = ±0.3) but not a small (d = ±0.2) smallest effect size of interest. Consequently, male students exhibited a larger negative importance–satisfaction gap (−0.48 vs. −0.27, p = 0.016), concentrated in information-intermediated services. Controlling for region of origin and family income attenuated the male coefficient to non-significance, and further adjustment for study duration left this conclusion unchanged; although the gap persisted descriptively within the Asian subsample (p = 0.012), that persistence was itself attributable to country composition within Asia. Because importance and satisfaction were measured concurrently, the importance ratings are interpreted as retrospective evaluative anchors, proxies for, rather than direct observations of, pre-arrival expectations. Within this interpretive frame, the pattern is consistent with a gendered difference in attributed importance rather than reported satisfaction; expectation-related mechanisms remain hypotheses for longitudinal testing. The paper concludes with theoretical implications and managerial recommendations for universities and national policy makers, in the context of China’s national strategy of opening up education to the world: transparent pre-arrival information, realistic recruitment communication, and attention to comparatively lower-satisfaction services can support sustainable, gender-equitable digital education alongside interface quality.

The transmission of high-power microwave (HPM) with a frequency of 1 GHz in a plasma double-line induced by intense femtosecond laser pulses is discussed by CST software. The simulation results indicate that the EM wave can propagate around the plasma double-line rather than in the over-dense plasma with a velocity near the speed of light. It can also be obtained that the time evolution of the electric field is consistent with the duration of the incident HPM. We also discover that the electric field increases monotonically with increasing the line radius. Meanwhile, the electric field is inversely proportional to the propagation distance along the plasma double-line and the spacing between two lines. Furthermore, the attenuation value of the EM wave in the plasma transmission line can be calculated at approximately 0.03 dB/m in a double-line with an effective plasma electron density of 1016 cm^–3 .

This study compares what internationally mobile students consider important with how satisfied they are, across both mobility directions of a single country. Using an identical 32-dimension importance–satisfaction instrument—including a six-item educational-technology subset—329 inbound international students in China were compared with 303 Chinese outbound students within a descriptive and associational design, applying Importance–Performance Analysis, non-parametric tests with false discovery rate correction, and regression and cluster-robust sensitivity checks. The central result is a contrast between divergent stated importance and convergent experienced satisfaction. Importance ratings differ significantly between the groups on 28 of 32 dimensions—technology importance is higher among inbound students (composite 4.361 vs. 4.085, p < 0.001), with the smart classroom showing the largest single contrast (4.264 vs. 3.756, p < 0.001)—whereas satisfaction differs on only 5 of 32 dimensions, and agreement that online classes will be indispensable in future study abroad is statistically indistinguishable (3.708 vs. 3.591, p = 0.094). Importance exceeds satisfaction on 31 of 32 dimensions inbound (mean gap 0.346) and on 24 of 32 dimensions outbound (mean gap 0.192). “Timely information on the university website” is the only technology item placed in the “Concentrate here” quadrant by both groups (gaps 0.505 and 0.383), making reliable digital institutional information—rather than sophisticated learning technology—the shared digital priority. Because the two samples differ in composition, between-group contrasts are interpreted as associations, not as effects of mobility direction; the technology-importance association survives adjustment for measured compositional variables (β = 0.424, p < 0.001) and institution-level cluster-robust re-estimation. These findings are relevant to sustainable smart education and SDG 4 as stakeholder-experience evidence on where digital services meet students’ stated priorities.