Meaning of Internationalization in the Doctoral Education: A Qualitative Exploratory Extreme Case Study at a Business PhD Program in the U.S.

• In Event: Higher education evaluation

Proposal

Research Objectives

1) To pin down the concept of internationalization and relate it to practical teaching and learning phenomena within the routine experiences of faculty and students in a PhD program
2) To add clarity to the conceptualization of internationalization at the departmental and individual levels and for a specific local context


Research Questions

1) What is or should be the meaning of internationalization in the doctoral program in the student perspective?
2) What is or should be the meaning of internationalization in the doctoral program in the faculty perspective?
3) After a comparison of their perspectives, what can the findings tell us about internationalizing a PhD program?


Conceptual Framework and Its Connection to Literature

Four main conceptualizations dominate the discourse of internationalization. They are the integration process from functional and organizational viewpoint (Knight, 2003; de Wit, Hunter & Coelen, 2015), the self-formation process approach from intercultural and individual perspective, the organizational adaptation continuum approach from managerial perspective (Marginson & Sawir, 2011; Marginson, 2014), and the performance and effort evaluation approach from national and sector viewpoint (ACE, 2012).

Literature on the intersection of international and intercultural education indicates that internationalization is more of intercultural development at the individual level. Studies (Elliot, Baumfiled & Reid, 2016; Peterson, 2010; Shi, 2011; Turner & Robson, 2008, 2009) show that academic culture and intellectual traditions have an impact on intercultural learning. International students are valuable learning resources (Sawir, 2013; Ryan, 2012; Singh, 2010; Urban & Palmer, 2014). Intercultural interaction and relations are challenging (Marginson & Sawir, 2011; Volet & Ang, 1998).

However, not enough research has examined these issues through internationalization. Scholars (Dewey & Duff, 2009; Friesen, 2013; Knight & de Wit, 1995; Turner & Robson, 2008, p. 5) call for research on the real practitioners’ experiences at the international and intercultural setting. That is the experiences of the faculty, domestic students and international students. Marginson’s (2014) self-formation theory is the selected conceptual framework for this study.


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, 25 participants joined this research (5 American students, 10 international students, and 10 faculty members). The data were analyzed in both an inductive and deductive method.


Results

The student perspective produced two themes. 1) Practical meaning. Practical meaning has three layers. First, the program was internationally attractive. Second, the international and cross-cultural components were existent in some courses and some faculty expertise. Third, this program was comparatively more open to international research than the ones in many other business colleges. 2) Other assumed or expected meaning. This theme concentrated on two aspects: student research and the international nature of the learned knowledge.

The faculty perspective also generated two themes. 1) What should it mean? Overall, faculty shared similar thoughts on what internationalization should mean in the PhD program. Some of the popularly used internationalization indicators were mentioned, such as international student presence, cross-cultural learning, and the faculty’s international background. But most responses highlighted the international and cross-cultural nature of the curriculum and research. Across specialty areas, participants emphasized that faculty research and expertise as well as the seminar courses were supposed to be international, at least have some international components. Interestingly, not all faculty members have included student research as an important aspect of internationalization. 2) Is this PhD program an international and intercultural educational program? Faculty did not reach a same evaluation answer towards this question. These different or appearing contradictory answers further demonstrated the complexity of internationalization. Their experiences specified the internal and external factors contributing to the internationalization at the doctoral program level. My findings stressed that internationalization was susceptible to the influence from the academe, even though the program could execute some influence within its control. These external impactful factors included the job market, competition pressure from peer colleges, accreditation body, and others.


Discussion

The contradiction in the student and faculty comments reveals two issues for discussion. 1) There existed an ambiguity of and a lack of discussion on the learning outcome of internationalization between and among faculty and students. According to the data on the faculty part, it was debatable if student research should focus on international and/or cross-cultural issues and if student research could serve as a significant indicator of the internationalization in this PhD program. To some professors (Dreambig, Buval, QQ, GK, and Sirius), conducting international research was a self-selected decision and could not be forced upon. Meantime, it was widely recognized that conducting and publishing international research was a very difficult task for all researchers. Further, while acknowledging that the situation was getting better, some professors (GK, Dreambig, and QQ) admitted that there was a bias in the academia towards international research, questioning the validity of data and the quality of these papers. In my study, these discouraging signals had an indirect but obvious impact on the teaching and learning environment at this doctoral program.

Students held different and uncertain thoughts on the issue that if they were expected to conduct international research or not. Such confusion was more obvious among the students who were in their beginning years. There appeared a lack of open and explicit discussion on the issue and significance of student research on international and/or cross-cultural issues among the faculty and students in the program. As such, overall the data in this study showed a stark difference between junior researchers (i.e. doctoral students and junior scholars) and the experienced scholars (i.e. the faculty participants) on the perceived value of international research to the field and toward their career development.

2) Faculty had a crucial role in internationalizing the curriculum, teaching and research. This study confirms the observation that Gu and Maley (2008), Leask (2010; 2016); Marginson and Sawir (2011), Rizvi and Lingard (2010), and Turner and Robson (2008) have made—the professional training of faculty is missing and needed. All the faculty members admitted that there was no training available at the departmental and college levels on how to effectively teach an internationally diverse class. They were also not aware of any such professional training offering at the campus level. Their comments on the hiring of new faculty suggested that it was assumed that the new faculty would have already known how to teach and engage an internationally diverse class.

This study adds a new dimension of the crucial role of faculty to the current understanding. That is, their role in internationalizing the research. The findings point out three areas where faculty and only faculty could help improve the current situation for internationalizing the research. a) Their role in changing the situation and making more international and cross-cultural learning resources available to doctoral students. b) In some subfields of business, faculty could play a role in bettering the way of how international research has been practiced and positioned in the academic world. c) The influential role of the faculty in internationalizing the research has been observed in the student participants’ reports on what advising services they could access to in the program. Student comments across specialty areas collectively consolidated an impression.

Author

• Wendan Li, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa