Perceived Learning Effectiveness and Student Satisfaction: Lessons Learned From an Online Multinational Intensive Program

Multifaceted Differences

This new “knowledge economy”, as Domingues and Araújo (2010) coin it, requires us to reflect on the importance of developing competencies in order to be at the level of acquiring skills on a global scale. As a consequence of globalization students are required to have mastered global competences and international multicultural skills over and above traditional academic expectations. Briguglio (2007) suggests current students must acquire, in addition to the curricular contents, other transversal skills, of which the internationalization of the curriculum is highlighted as a critical success factor for new future professionals. To many scholars, education is not understood as an isolated area, but as a permanent process of building bridges between schools and the globalized universe that characterizes the current reality, where the internationalization of education is now an irreversible phenomenon and the demand for education across borders is a perfectly common fact (Duarte, 2013).

Universities play a key role in nurturing these multicultural skills¹ and this is often manifested in the universities’ internationalization efforts and strategies, which as Deardorff (2006) points out, should lead to more inter-culturally competent students. Research has shown that multicultural competent persons display superior job performance and have a positive impact on their co-workers (Leung, Ang & Tan, 2014). University internationalization is defined as “the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff and to make a meaningful contribution to society” (Wit 2020). It is mostly implemented across two pillars, through staff and student mobility on the one hand and internationalization at home which involves weaving international aspects into the curriculum for local students who may not be able to go abroad, which is where such projects like the online CBBC are promoted and supported.