The gains and pains of mixed national group work at university

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.

Intercultural group work in higher education: Costs and benefits from an expectancy-value theory perspective

“…Differences in communication styles also induce self-reflection about their own ways of communicating and help students develop their intercultural communication skills. Prior research suggests that the variety of perspectives, ideas, and learning practices available are benefits of IGW (Moore & Hampton, 2015;Spencer-Oatey & Dauber, 2017, Sweeney et al, 2008. We again add nuance to this point by showing that in addition to the benefits, a plethora of ideas can lead to costs, such as extra time and effort needed to share the different perspectives or a sense of insecurity about being confronted with different learning practices.…”

“…In particular, some aspects of IGW can result in both benefits and costs and are not, in themselves, automatically positive or negative. Prior research frequently identifies communication as a major challenge in IGW (Popov et al, 2012: Spencer-Oatey & Dauber, 2017Turner, 2009). We go a step further to reveal that differences in communication style and language proficiency are sources of not only communication problems but also certain benefits.…”

“…The costs and benefits that span more than one EVT category might have a more powerful impact on the overall value of an activity, such that they may be more influential when it comes to student engagement. Previous research has shown that effective communication is a substantial challenge and frustration in IGW (Popov et al, 2012;Spencer-Oatey & Dauber, 2017;Turner, 2009). Reasoning from the EVT, communication problems affect not just one but all the cost categories; they cause negative emotions, take a significant amount of time and effort, affect the quality of the end product, and hinder equal contributions from all group members.…”

“…When students may choose with whom they collaborate, they tend to select peers from their own culture, even if they have had positive, successful intercultural experiences in the past (Kimmel & Volet, 2012;Moore & Hampton, 2015;Osmond & Roed, 2010;Peacock & Harrison, 2009;Strauss et al, 2011;Volet & Ang, 2012). This preference for mono-cultural group work appears stronger among students studying in their home country than among international students (Kimmel & Volet, 2012;Moore & Hampton, 2015;Spencer-Oatey & Dauber, 2017).…”

Sino-Russian Intercultural Communication Research: Literature Review

“…Changes associated with the geopolitical and economic situation affect the nature of bilateral relations. Despite the significant number of contacts between countries, the process of communication at the interpersonal level is often accompanied by cases of misunderstanding and passing communication barriers along the way (Croucher et al, 2015;Spencer-Oatey, 2017).…”