Areas of research and inquiry, along with discussion on the trends, critique and how to improve student mobility.

1. Dr Valentina Seravalle
Global trends in study abroad:
student engagement in
international experience
16 February, 2018

2. • Where does it focus?
• What are the main findings?
• What are their implications?
• Ideas for improvement
• Essential bibliography
RESEARCH ON INTERNATIONAL STUDENT MOBILITY

3. ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Gloria Dall'Alba & Ravinder Sidhu (2015)
Australian undergraduate students on the
move: experiencing outbound mobility,
Studies in Higher Education, 40:4, 721-
744
• Lilley et al. (2017) The Global Citizen
Conceptualized: Accommodating
Ambiguity, Journal of Studies in
International Education, 21:1, 6-21
• Elspeth Jones (2017) Problematising and
reimagining the notion of ‘international
student experience’, Studies in Higher
Education, 42:5, 933-943
IDP Database of Research in
Higher Education

4. • Factors shaping the choice to
participate
• Motivations, expectations and
experiences
• Perceived outcomes
• Policy and institutional factors
• Participant profiles
5 AREAS OF INQUIRY

5. • A North-South divide
• Prestige and social advantage
The ideal global graduate
shows openness, tolerance,
respect and responsibility for
self, other and the planet.
This graduate […] is
comfortable with dealing with
uncertainty and diversity.
(Lilley et al. 2017)
TTREND #1

6. • Life experience
I wanted to get out to stop myself
falling in a rut … to learn to be myself.
Enjoy travel, but wanted some purpose
to it.
I pushed myself out of my comfort zone
and learnt a lot about more about my
strengths and weaknesses.
Dall’Alba & Sidhu, 2015
TREND #2

7. • Participation is very low
• Non-inclusive
• Focused on the Global North
“An elitist and excluding concept”
De Wit, H. (2017)
TREND #3

8. TREND #4
• Only the positives
• Opaque about academic learning
• What is “success”?

9. CRITIQUE
Internationalization: the
intentional process of integrating
an international, intercultural or
global dimension into the
purpose, functions and delivery of
post-secondary education, in
order to enhance the
quality of education and
research for all students and
staff, and to make a meaningful
contribution to society.
de Wit et al. (2015)

10. • Expand horizons
• Encourage & support reflection
IMPROVING the impact of STUDENT MOBILITY
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves;
and we travel, next, to find ourselves.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes
and learn more about the world than
our newspapers will accommodate. We
travel to bring what little we can, in our
ignorance and knowledge, to those
parts of the globe whose riches are
differently dispersed.
Pico Iyer

11. ANY QUESTIONS?
?

12. v.seravalle@ucl.ac.uk
www.linkedin.com/in/valentinaseravalle
@v_seravalle
THANKS & STAY IN TOUCH!