Lo, Ho FaiHo FaiLoDr. DOS SANTOS Luis Miguel, LouisLouisDr. DOS SANTOS Luis MiguelKwee, Ching Ting TanyChing Ting TanyKweeFan, PingPingFanZhao, HangfeiHangfeiZhaoShe, XiongfeiXiongfeiSheWu, JiabaoJiabaoWuZhou, YiYiZhouGuo, TaoTaoGuoChen, YongchuanYongchuanChen2024-04-082024-04-082023Lo, H. F., Dos Santos, L. M., Kwee, C. T. T., Fan, P., Zhao, H., She, X., Wu, J., Zhou, Y., Guo, T., & Chen, Y. (2023 Jul 5). Why should doctoral learners decide not to come back to on-campus study after the government re-opened the border: A qualitative inquiry of Mainland Chinese learners in Macau. 2023 International Conference on Open and Innovative Education, Hong Kong.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/9327During the twenty-first century, online and distance learning have become the future trends of post-secondary education, particularly during disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditionally, research-based doctoral degree learning may involve peer-to-peer interactions and apprenticeship from supervisors. Unlike taught master’s degree learners, research-based doctoral degree learners tend to receive hands-on training and apprenticeship from their supervisors, who are not significantly focused on the taught degree stage. Although many research-based doctoral degree learners are well trained from their master’s degree stage and programmes, face-to-face and on-campus learning also play significant roles in theoretical and comprehensive development and upgrading, particularly during their doctoral degree stage. As the COVID-19 pandemic offers opportunities for many universities to develop and establish temporarily blended and online doctoral degree programmes, it is important to investigate the understanding, perspectives and opinions of doctoral degree learners, particularly those who are expected to receive faceto-face apprenticeships from their supervisors on campus. Due to the travel restrictions from the Chinese government, many research-based doctoral degree learners may complete their coursework requirement via on-campus or online learning platforms due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is particularly true for mainland Chinese learners who cannot come to the on-campus classroom instruction due to visa restrictions. In mid-2022, the government of Macau reopened the border for student visa holders who wanted to enjoy on-campus education and classroom interactions with classmates. However, some doctoral degree learners continue to complete their coursework requirements via the online platform. As many local and overseas learners have already returned to campus, the motivations and reasons for these groups of mainland Chinese doctoral degree learners remain unclear. Therefore, based on the social cognitive career theory and the social cognitive career and motivation theory, two research questions were established: 1) As many research doctoral degree learners, including local and overseas learners, may come on-campus for face-to-face instruction, why do some doctoral degree learners continue to complete the coursework requirement via the online learning platforms, particularly mainland Chinese learners who may come to Macau for their coursework requirement? 2) How do the doctoral degree learners describe their decision-making processes, particularly mainland Chinese learners who decided not to come to the on-campus classroom instructions after the government re-opened the border for student visa holders? <br> The general inductive approach and purposive sampling strategy were used to recruit 12 research-based doctorate in applied psychology learners who decided not to come to the on-campus classroom instruction at a university in Macau, particularly mainland Chinese learners who had received their student visas and could come to Macau for their education after the government re-opened the border. As this is research-in-progress, semi-structured and private interview tools were used to capture qualitative data from the participants. The online-based interview arrangement was used because many participants were not located in the city. The grounded theory approach with open-coding, axial-coding, and selective-coding techniques was used to narrow the massive data to meaningful themes and subthemes. As a result, three themes and two subthemes were yielded. <br> Although the participants received their student visas in order to study in Macau, various motivations and reasons prohibited their decisions and affected their decisionmaking processes. Based on the findings: 1) personal considerations: belief in online and home learning; 2) financial considerations: living standard differences, and 3) external considerations: the Chinese governmental policy played significant roles in their decisions and decisionmaking processes, particularly in the decisions between oncampus and face-to-face instructions and online learning platforms. <br> Although the COVID-19 pandemic may be over and universities may return to face-to-face and on-campus instruction soon, online teaching and learning have become international trends in education and higher education, particularly for doctoral degree learners. The results of this study may fill the research gaps in the motivations, reasons, and decision-making processes of doctoral degree learners’enConference Paper