Demonstrating the Impact of International Collaborative Disciplinary Experiences on Student Global, International, and Intercultural Competencies

This Work in Progress research paper describes a study that directly compares the impact of a globally themed Information Technology (IT) project on students' global, international, and intercultural (GII) competencies. The authors will compare the change in student competencies by analyzing the impact of a common project with an international theme integrated into three different undergraduate IT classroom modalities: (1) a traditional classroom course with no interaction with students from a foreign university, (2) a virtual exchange context where teams of local students and students from a foreign university collaborate via information and communication technologies (ICT), and (3) a hands-on version of the course project that is implemented by local and remote students collaborating at a foreign university during a short-term study abroad program. This paper directly compares the changes in student GII competencies after executing the classroom project in the first and third modalities: a classroom without international collaboration and in conjunction with students at a foreign university during a short-term study abroad program. Preliminary results suggest that student competencies are more significantly improved when students collaborate with their international peers. However, the results might be influenced by the demographic profiles of students in the various courses. Students who pursue opportunities to study abroad may already have an innate expectation or desire to improve their GII competencies.