This study explores how graduate
students learn to participate
in collaborative international science research. As part of an NSF-funded
program, 21 graduate students participated in extended research visits
to China, completing surveys before and after traveling, and participating
in semistructured interviews upon returning to the U.S. These survey
and interview data were qualitatively analyzed to determine how graduate
student participants defined collaboration and how they positioned
their own research experience in an international context. Data were
coded using emergent thematic analysis via a first pass open-coding
to generate a comprehensive list of descriptive codes for collaboration
and then a synthesis of these codes through discussions guided by
theories of situated learning in communities of practice. Findings
suggest that all graduate students emphasized the importance of effective
communication in collaboration. Graduate students also described collaboration
as including at least one of the following elements: complementary
expertise, shared goals, joint publications, and mutual learning.
These findings provide insight into graduate students’ experiences
with collaboration, and, in turn, how to support graduate students
so that they have successful international research experiences and
collaborations with international colleagues.