However, domestic Australian students also have an important role to play, according to the learned academic, who said universities need to play a greater role in facilitating social opportunities between their domestic and international students.
"One thing that I have found is that a lot of domestic students don't see the value in interacting with Chinese international students, so they lack that inherent motivation, but it should all be about reciprocal interaction and mutual learning," Tran said.
"Chinese students can learn a lot from Australian students, and Australian students can learn a lot from Chinese students."
Domestic students need to understand the "enormous amount of valuable resources a Chinese international student brings with them to Australia, in terms of their cultural knowledge and global networks," Tran said, although she acknowledged that domestic students may also feel nervous about interacting with international students, for fear of a lack of common ground and opportunities to facilitate conversation.
Sarah, an international student at the University of Technology, Sydney, agreed a divide exists between domestic and international students, and although she arrived in Australia four years ago and lives on campus, she still feels opportunities to make friends with local students are quite limited.
"I have about one or two local friends, maybe they aren't even friends, they are more like acquaintances," the 21-year-old conceded.
"It would be nice to have more, but knowing it's quite hard to make friends with locals, I don't feel that motivated. Sure, we have class together, but when semester finishes, we say goodbye."
The factors behind the socialization of international students, including a lack of motivation, are largely driven by population demographics, according to Tran, who noted that the significant Chinese community in Australia encourages Chinese students to "stick together" and form cultural clusters.
"The Chinese community tends to form what is called a parallel society, this means they may tend to socialize with people from a similar background, or only socialize with co-nationals," Tran noted.
"This does prevent people from integrating and engaging, and ultimately forming a sense of belonging to Australia, it impacts their overall sense of connectedness."
