Beyond “It was Great”? Not so Fast!

Abstract

This article is a response to “Beyond It Was Great” argument that dominates much of the recent study abroad research literature. This argument is based on assertions: growth in students’ intercultural competence is disappointing, and students’ intercultural competence is best developed when experts intervene and students engage in deliberate reflection. I point to results from large study abroad studies to raise questions about assertions that student growth is “disappointing” and that the interventionist approach is the best approach to developing students’ intercultural competence. I question the term “intervention” and the assumptions it carries about students becoming more interculturally competent. I describe two alternatives to the interventionist approach that have a distinctly different view of how intercultural competence develops and the respective roles of the teacher and students. I conclude that diversity of assessments and instructional approaches is critical for the future of research and practice in the relatively young field of study abroad.

The connection between experience and learning: student perspectives on the significance of international study

“…These workshops revealed to the researcher that students often had difficulty understanding what they had gained from their experiences and how those gains translated into employability learning. This practice finding is echoed in the literature (Forsey, Broomhall & Davis 2012;Wong 2015). (See Chapter 3.…”

“…This study also recognises that, although students are often inarticulate about the details of their learning, it is reasonable to assume that it must mean something when they talk about their international study experiences having changed them (Vande Berg, Paige & Lou;Wong 2015). This idea of change, and how it may be constructed from the international study experience, provides the rationale for this research.…”

“…There are still some concerns, however, over what students are learning and how their learning could be supported (Vande Berg, Paige & Lou 2012). One reason for the quandary over what students learn from international study is that researchers often face surface-level responses, such as 'it was great', when they ask participants what they learned from their experiences (Wong 2015).…”

“…There are also concerns in the literature around assessing international study outcomes, where the transformative value of the experience is not always evidenced by pre-and post-program instruments designed to measure student growth (Wong 2015). The extant research that questions what students learn from international study supported the researcher's decision to select the experience as the vehicle for examining the significance of life experiences.…”

“…This idea of change, and how it may be constructed from the international study experience, provides the rationale for this research. The study investigates what students are saying about their experiences (Wong 2015) in terms of the personal significance of those experiences, or how their experiences have changed them. This study also probes the ways in which the significance of a life experience can be understood and articulated by the learner, to gain further insight into how adults translate life experiences into learning.…”