The Library
The gains and pains of mixed national group work at university
Tools
Tools
Tools
Spencer-Oatey, Helen and Dauber, Daniel (2016) The gains and pains of mixed national group work at university. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38 (3). pp. 219-236. doi:10.1080/01434632.2015.1134549
|
PDF
WRAP_0673125-cal-221115-gains_and_pains_of_mixed_national_group_work_at_university_full_final.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (1020Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2015.1134549
Abstract
According to a recent report, the top skill that employers are looking for in graduates is “An ability to work collaboratively with teams of people from a range of backgrounds and countries” (Diamond et al. 2011, 8). So as universities seek to internationalise, an important question is how successful they are in developing this skill. Both research (e.g. Summers and Volet 2008; Kimmel and Volet 2012) and anecdotal evidence suggest that it is a challenging task and that universities are struggling to achieve it. In this paper, we report a study on working in mixed national groups and its relation to intercultural skills. A total of 2000 responses were collected from students at a UK university to a questionnaire that had both closed and open questions. A range of statistical analyses were carried out on the quantitative data, and the open-ended comments were analysed thematically. The responses were compared across national/regional clusters and our findings indicate
that mixed national group work is widely perceived across the clusters as enriching and not particularly challenging. Correlations indicate that students perceive such group work as more important for the development of intercultural skills than crossnational friendships.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology H Social Sciences > HM Sociology L Education > LB Theory and practice of education P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics |
||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Group work in education--Great Britain, Intercultural communication in education--Great Britain, Social interaction, Students, Foreign--Education (Higher)--Great Britain | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Taylor & Francis | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0143-4632 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 February 2016 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
|
||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 31 May 2016 | ||||||||
| Volume: | 38 | ||||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 219-236 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/01434632.2015.1134549 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
