As graduate and professional programs internationalize to provide students with global competencies and skills, more graduate students are participating in education abroad programs. Graduate students represent a growing portion of the total population participating in education abroad, with short-term, faculty-directed (STFD) programs expanding as an internationalization strategy at the graduate level. Scholarship has only recently emerged to understand the characteristics of STFD graduate education abroad programs and the students who participate in them. The literature on graduate education abroad provides a useful foundation for recognizing that graduate students are unique in terms of personal, professional, and scholarly contexts. However, there is still little known about how graduate students experience education abroad and how these contexts matter to their experiences. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore graduate students' experiences of a STFD education abroad program relative to three contexts and their corresponding intersections: adult learning, professional socialization, and curriculum and pedagogy. This dissertation utilized an instrumental case study design to examine a STFD education abroad program in the graduate field of medicine at a large research university. Through the collection and analysis data including document analysis, observation of pre-departure meetings, and semi-structured interviews with 11 graduate students and the faculty-director-findings provided insight about how four contexts and their corresponding intersections influenced graduate student experiences of a STFD education abroad program: adult learning, professional socialization, curriculum and pedagogy, and interpersonal development. These findings situate STFD education abroad programs as a graduate-level experience and provide valuable insight on how education abroad programs can be designed and facilitated to better fit the goals, needs, and characteristics of graduate students. As contexts were mutually important to graduate student experiences of STFD education abroad, understanding their intersections illuminated a holistic perspective regarding student engagement and development in these programs. The analysis of these findings led to the creation of a model for understanding graduate student experiences of STFD education abroad, which highlights the complexity and holistic nature of students personal, professional, scholarly, and interpersonal needs in these programs. Implications underscore the design and facilitation of STFD education abroad programs at the graduate level, guiding faculty to support graduate students in ways addressing their goals, needs, and experiences within contexts of adult learning, professional socialization, curriculum and pedagogy, and interpersonal development.
Read
