To the Editor:
"Study Abroad Is Often Not All It Should Be" (The Chronicle, September 21) reflects many well-meaning but unfortunate and outdated views regarding study abroad. John F. Burness, the author, correctly notes that education abroad has changed greatly over the past century, but while he seems to long for the classic "junior year abroad" that he remembers, many of us—including those of us who also come from this tradition—realize that the very goals he cites are more readily accomplished by newer and more versatile models of education abroad.
Consider curricular integration. Shorter, faculty-led programs embedded into the curriculum provide opportunities for students of all majors to engage in meaningful study abroad. At my university, the State University of New York at Oswego, we have run successful programs of this type for majors in the sciences and education, for example, two of the many disciplines that have traditionally not been highly represented in study abroad. How? By designing on-campus courses, including required ones, that include a study-abroad program as their concluding experiences. Far from an "extracurricular activity," these programs are very much curricular and, I might add, far more affordable than traditional programs, which makes them more accessible.
The author is correct that there is a "study-abroad industry." This is not news. But much like his yearning for days gone by in advocating for a longer, presumably more-rigorous junior-year-abroad model, I ask genuinely: Is every institution able to design, deliver, insure, and assess programs abroad that now reach all continents and time zones, including remote and hardship locations? I am pleased that mine can, but I know many that cannot. If we accept that the answer is no, then what are the implications of his critical view? Will study abroad return to its original form? This largely meant a boutique opportunity for affluent students who attended exclusive institutions that were able to afford and mount select international experiences for a chosen few—almost always to Western Europe. This is passé.
Evidence is mounting from original research that study abroad impacts students in ways we never knew. Beyond language learning and cultural appreciation, which are still vital educational goals, recent findings that study abroad enhances students' lifelong pursuit of global engagement (see the University of Minnesota's SAGE project), and their involvement and efforts on campus toward degree completion (see the National Survey of Student Engagement), and my own research on students' intellectual development show that we are well past the time when educators and policy makers considered study abroad a likeable but strategically unimportant college activity requiring little empirical research. Would researchers in the author's discipline be impressed if an outsider cited "conversations" on airplanes as evidence? I am glad that he feels that he has "talked with enough students" to make his conclusions that most view study abroad as "a semester off," but the emerging research contradicts him. What is coalescing is a set of findings that show that it is less important where, how long, or in what form an American studies abroad. What is important is that they do it.
What seems to unite faculty, administrators, students, and parents is the belief that education abroad is more important than ever for U.S. students. We should use this time to continue refining what our educational objectives are for study abroad, as we should do for all other academic programs. There are well-executed study-abroad programs and weaker ones, just as there are good professors and bad; there are more-rigorous programs abroad and there are ones that are less so, just as there are more-rigorous majors and institutions than others. Let us stop singling out study abroad for criticism that it is uniquely "academic lite" when it is today an academic experience woven into the curriculum and strategy of increasing numbers of institutions. Let us critique it in the context of our overall academic success. After all, to borrow the author's wording, "higher education is often not all it should be" either.
Joshua S. McKeown
Director of International Education and Programs
State University of New York
Oswego, New York
The writer is the author of "The First Time Effect: The Impact of Study Abroad on College Student Intellectual Development" (SUNY Press).
Comments
1. 22074041 - November 04, 2009 at 10:35 am
Research that documents enhanced student learning from education abroad is essential, especially for garnering more support for this endeavor. However, since much of the impact can be delayed -- students may not realize until years later what a difference the experience made - it can be difficult to document.
It will also be difficult to discern whether the increased interest in international issues results from the study abroad experience or already dwells in the students who choose to go abroad. As long as the experience is elective, it can be self-selective. That makes it hard to tease out cause and effect.
That said: it seems "intuitive" that experiences that expand students' awareness, knowledge, thinking, and understanding would benefit their learning in a range of fields. And that the better the content and tie to the curriculum, the stronger the impact.
2. bghansel - November 11, 2009 at 06:09 pm
Having done quite a bit of research on the outcomes of study abroad at the secondary school level, including a large scale survey some 25 years later, I have concluded that there are several important outcomes that can be expected from study abroad generally, related to confidence, motivation, and simply being comfortable interacting with people from different cultures.
It's also clear that this is a self-selected audience, or perhaps "parent selected" might be more to the point since students who study abroad more often have parents who traveled with them, who encouraged them to meet people from other cultures and to study abroad.
Study abroad encompasses a wide range of program models, and some are more intellectually and, equally important, more emotionally challenging than others. Unlike a regular course in school where students typically master specific content, study abroad can and should challenge their beliefs about what is "normal." Such a challenge can lead them to create new ways to understand the world and life in general, and students are often left to their own devices to figure this out. While it's a good idea to tie the study abroad experience to the curriculum, a deeper understanding requires a curriculum that builds on and enhances the study abroad experience.
Bettina Hansel