The Impact of Short-Term Study Abroad on Online Learners
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v11iWinter.1568Abstract
Even in countries with high availability of higher education, students increasingly choose online education over in-person immersion learning. As online learners begin to study abroad little is known about their motivations for, or professional and academic expectations of, the experience, nor the impact of their participation. The author hypothesizes that when compared to the traditional in-person immersion student, online study abroad students have distinct motivations and expectations due to their life experience, professional status and personal goals and also undergo greater growth in areas such as tolerance, critical thinking and global awareness. This research uses surveys, a standardized assessment tool, interviews and focus groups to incorporate both quantitative data and qualitative data in an attempt to understand the profile of the online student participating in a short-term study abroad program, their motivations and expectations, and resulting outcomes. Implications include identifying program design elements specific to the needs of online learners.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The findings, interpretations, conclusions, and views expressed in Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education (JCIHE) are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to CIES, HESIG, or the sponsoring universities of the Editorial Staff. These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. Readers are free to copy, display, and distribute articles that appear in JCIHE as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and JCIHE, it is distributed for non-commercial purposes only, and no alteration or transformation is made in the work. All other uses must be approved by the author(s) or JCIHE. By submitting a manuscript, authors agree to transfer without charge the following rights to JCIHE upon acceptance of the manuscript: first worldwide serial publication rights and the right for JCIHE to grant permissions as its editors judge appropriate for the redistribution of the article, its abstract, and metadata associated with the article in professional indexing and reference services.
