Undergraduate Research Abroad: Challenges and Rewards

Why should international educators encourage research abroad? The work of the students represented in this Special Volume of Frontiers exemplifies the best of undergraduate research abroad. Their research shows an achievement of one, or all, of the goals international educators typically set for learning abroad: linguistic competence, cross-cultural skills, cultural competence, and disciplinary learning. Research abroad often holds strong incentives for successful student learning. Students choose their own research topics, providing intrinsic motivation to move beyond superficial explorations of their topic. Fulfilling faculty expectations for student learning, whether in the form of a paper, thesis, data collection or ethnographic study provides extrinsic motivation. The value of disciplinary learning abroad, especially in course-based programs, disputed on home campuses. Undergraduate research abroad can demonstrate that the cultural context of learning enhances the disciplinary knowledge gained. Disciplinary learning in another cultural context can correct culturally-ingrained research biases. Students gain knowledge difficult to capture without the cultural exposure provided by the experience abroad, which informs their work with nuances of first-hand research, moving it beyond the intellectual. Home-campus faculty may be less skeptical of the merits of sending students abroad for disciplinary learning if that experience results in an increase in knowledge or a demonstration of the application of previously gained disciplinary knowledge in a new context. Developing research skills in an international context means that students must learn how to navigate in another culture. Students must interact with people who are not their peers and who are outside a traditional classroom setting. By approaching organizations and individuals that inform their research, students learn much about the workings of the culture. And success in one attempt to navigate a host-culture can lead to success in further attempts. For the student-researcher, persistence is necessary because their research goal depends on successfully gaining access to the information they require. Cross-cultural skills are the tools that enable student-researchers to accomplish their goals and finish their projects. I n t r o d u c t i o n