The Impact of Internationalization on Teaching and Learning: A Qualitative Exploratory Extreme Case Study in a Business PhD Program

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Proposal

I will be graduating this December 2018.

Dissertation Title:
The Impact of Internationalization on Teaching and Learning: A Qualitative Exploratory Extreme Case Study in a Business PhD Program at an American Public Research University


Research objectives

This study attempts to engage in and contribute to the conversation of rethinking, reimagining, redefining, and rehumanizing international education . This research tries to achieve three goals.
(1) To unpack the complexity of teaching and learning at an international environment.
(2) To look for possibilities of mutual adjustment in the local community and international students for better teaching and learning experience.
(3) To offer policy implications for institutional managers (e.g. department, college, and university levels) who are committed to the internationalization at home.


Research questions

Four questions guide this project.
(1) What is the meaning of internationalization at a doctoral program?
(2) How does internationalization impact the teaching and learning?
a. How does it contribute to teaching, discussion, and student’s cross-cultural learning?
b. How does it contribute to the development of curricula, research, and extracurricular activities?
(3) Why the impact has or has not been happening?
(4) If there exists any form of a major attitude in the learning community towards internationalization, what is it?


Conceptual Framework and its Connection to the Literature

After a review of the literature on the history of internationalization, the conceptual development of internationalization, and the intersection of internationalization and intercultural education, this study identifies the research direction in the cutting edge literature. 1) It is time to rethink, redefine, reimagine, and rehumanize internationalization. From different angles, scholars call for a rethinking of internationalization to stress the intercultural potential of internationalization (Hayward, 2000; Marginson & Sawir, 2011; Ryan, 2012; Turner & robson, 2008; Urban & Palmer, 2014; Volet & Jones, 2012), to discontinue the antagonism between globalization and internationalization (Brandenburg & de Wit, 2011; de Wit, 2016), and to recenter the moral and global responsibility of internationalization (Lee, 2017). 2) Internationalization at home and comprehensive internationalization are the direction of institutional internationalization. It is an expected shift from internationalizing student enrollment to internationalizing the learning outcome. 3) Scholarship on cross-cultural learning recommends applying a transformation perspective to observe intercultural education (Ryan, 2012; Singh, 2010; Sawir, 2013; Volet & Jones, 2012). The theoretical lens of transformation views cultural diversity in the student’s background as valuable learning resources.

Qualitative case study is recommended by a number of leading scholars as an appropriate approach to investigate the transitional, evolving, and relational intercultural learning (Marginson & Sawir, 2011; Marginson, 2014; Rizvi, 2014; Ryan, 2012; Volet & Jones, 2012). This study tries to contribute to these gaps and limitations. 1) To add clarity in the conceptualization of internationalization at the departmental and individual level and for a specific local context (Dewey & Duff, 2009; Friesen, 2013). (2) To study the impact of internationalization on the education and research experiences at the individual and departmental level (de Wit, Hunter, & Coelen, 2015; Knight, 2008). And (3) to extend the discussion of internationalization to cover the varied concerns of academics, teachers and students, which are limitedly understood and barely influence on policy implication (de Wit, 2013, cited in de Wit, 2016).

Marginson’s (Marginson, Nyland, Sawir, & Forbest-Mewett, 2010; Marginson & Sawir, 2011; Marginson, 2014) self-formation theory is a newly invented cultural theorization of internationalization from a transformation perspective. This theory emphasizes the centering role of self and three elements (individual agency, cross-cultural engagement, and communicative competency) in intercultural learning. I used this theory to collect and analyze the data.


Research design, data collection methods and analytic techniques

It was a qualitative exploratory extreme case study. I selected an internationally oriented business PhD program in an American public research university as the case. In addition to individual and focus group interviews, other data sources included documentation, archival records, short survey interviews, observation, and physical artifacts. In total, I had 25 participants in this program (5 American students, 10 international students, and 10 faculty members). The data were analyzed in both an inductive and deductive method.


Results and evidence to support conclusions

Findings are presented in two separate chapters: the student perspective and the faculty perspective. The student data produced four themes: 1) meaning of internationalization in the PhD program, 2) the nature of PhD education, 3) relation of intercultural learning and the ecology of learning environment, and 4) influential external factors. The faculty data created three themes: 1) meaning and practice of the internationalization of higher education in the PhD program, 2) academic publishing and international research, 3) PhD curriculum and teaching an internationally diverse class.

Most of the findings are consistent with the literature. This study enriches and adds new dimensions to the inherent challenges, ambiguity, confusion, problems, as well as the complicacy and complexity within the practice of internationalizing a PhD program. It provides new data on the indirect and pervasive impact of the value, belief, culture, and traditions within the academe on the teaching and learning in the doctoral program. These factors have been exerting their influence via shaping the purpose of doctoral education, the solitary academic culture, the difficulty in publishing international research at top journals, the implicit pressure from future job and career, the established status of U.S. dominance in theory development, and other ingrained intellectual traditions practicing in the academic world.

Both the student and faculty data emphasized the crucial role of faculty in internationalizing the curriculum, teaching, and the research. Their comments disclosed the gap and difference between international education and intercultural education. This study explores causes of difficulty in enabling international education to intercultural education at a business PhD program. The importance of learning ecology and the creation of necessity became obvious in enabling transformative intercultural learning. If the academia, higher education administrators, faculty, and students are committed to fulfill the educational promise of internationalization, there needs a serious discussion on how to respond to the impact of some of the academic value, culture, and tradition on the local practice.

This study provides theoretical implication, policy implication, and suggestions for future research. It contributes value to the discourse of internationalization by engaging with the scholarly conversation on rethinking, redefining, reimagining, and rehumanizing internationalization through the lens of transformation.

Author

• Wendan Li, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa