Alternatives to Study Abroad

Presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) conference, Las Vegas, NV, November 16, 2012.This presentation was delivered at the annual Association for the Study of Higher Education conference. Colleges and universities are increasingly internationalizing their curricular and co-curricular efforts on campuses; subsequently, it is important to compare whether participation in study abroad or on-campus global/international activities may be associated with students’ self-reported development of global, international, and intercultural (GII) competencies. This study examined undergraduate students’ participation in study abroad and on-campus global/international activities within nine large, public research universities in the United States (n = 15,807). Framed within contact theory and person-environment-interaction theory, the results of this study suggested that students’ participation in activities related to internationalization at home—participation in on-campus global/international activities such as enrollment in global/international coursework, interactions with international students, and participation in global/international co-curricular activities—may yield greater benefits than study abroad for students’ development of GII competencies