Students’ Intercultural Development During Faculty-led Short-Term Study Abroad: A Mixed Methods Exploratory Case Study of Intercultural Interventions

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to examine the ways in which an instructor’s interventions and guided reflections influenced students’ intercultural development during a short-term study abroad experience in Oaxaca, Mexico The research questions were: (a) What was the impact of the study abroad program on the level of intercultural sensitivity and cultural intelligence of participants? (b) How did the instructor intervene to facilitate students’ intercultural development? (c) In what ways did the interventions influence students’ intercultural development? A mixed methods approach was employed, using both quantitative and qualitative methods to triangulate data, achieve deeper understanding, and further explain the quantitative findings. The population consisted of 10 students from one 4-year public higher education institution in the United States who participated in a faculty-led study abroad program. This study’s findings suggest that a short-term, faculty-led study abroad program can have a positive impact on students’ intercultural development. The major finding from the quantitative research is that students increased their scores on the Intercultural Development Inventory and the Cultural Intelligence Scale. The two major findings from the qualitative data are (a) guided reflections played a critical role in students’ intercultural development, particularly their culture-general learning, and (b) interactions with host nationals played an important role in students’ culture-specific and comparative learning. The findings have important implications for the design of short-term study abroad programs and for the instructors leading such programs.Keywords: faculty-led, short-term study abroad, guided reflections, interventions, intercultural development