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Faculty exchanges and the internationalization of undergraduate curricula in Australia and the United States
Abstract
While faculty and administrators throughout the world recognize the need to internationalize the curriculum, the literature has not yet addressed the extent to which this has been accomplished nor the catalysts of the process. Therefore, the purpose of this survey research was two-fold: (a) to examine the relationship between the international experiences of faculty at selected universities in Australia and the United States and the extent to which those faculty had internationalized their undergraduate classes in the colleges of education, agriculture, and business; and (b) to compare the universities in Australia and the United States as to the amount of international faculty experiences and the extent of internationalization of their undergraduate curricula. Ten of the 36 universities in Australia contained all three colleges and faculty members from those ten were surveyed. Comparable institutions in the U.S. were identified and ten were randomly selected--faculty from those universities were surveyed. Data analysis consisted of four ANOVAs. Descriptive results indicated that the Australian faculty reported higher levels of participation in all four main independent variables--international exchange, international conference attendance, international collaboration, and foreign language ability. The Australian respondents also reported a slightly higher level of internationalization within the classes they teach (60.8% had internationalized some or all of the classes they teach) than their U.S. colleagues (54.9%). Multivariate analysis indicated that two of the four main independent variables were related to the extent of internationalization. Faculty who reported exchanges and/or international collaboration reported significantly more internationalization within their classes. International conference attendance and foreign language ability showed no significant difference, nor did the sub-variables number and length (of exchanges). When dividing the analysis by college rather than country, it was the colleges of education who reported the most internationalization, followed by the colleges of business, and then the colleges of agriculture. This study provides a foundation for further quantitative analysis in the field of international education.
Subject Area
Higher education|Curricula|Teaching
Recommended Citation
Bull, Inger M, "Faculty exchanges and the internationalization of undergraduate curricula in Australia and the United States" (1996). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9703774.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9703774