Together we can: enhancing key 21st-century skills with international virtual exchange
ISSN: 0040-0912
Article publication date: 20 October 2022
Issue publication date: 27 October 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This research reveals how a virtual exchange (VE) can foster transnational collaboration in higher education, assist students acquire key learning outcomes and raise awareness regarding the complexities affecting development policy and sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Overall 50 students from two universities in Spain and the United Kingdom, enrolled on two different degree courses (Global Studies and Marketing), cooperated in multidisciplinary teams to analyze real development policies and initiatives. The authors collected quantitative and qualitative data to assess the students' perceptions of the methodology.
Findings
The students perceived the VE to be of great value, enriching their educational experience by having a positive effect on their overall learning and fostering internationalization. A high number of participants declared the teaching and learning methodology was useful to assist them in reaching crucial cognitive, skill-based and affective educational objectives, and to help them understand how development policy works while also raising awareness regarding real-world complexity.
Practical implications
This methodology proved valuable in helping students acquire the set of skills expected from today's graduates in economics, political science and marketing. This active learning and pedagogical innovation component provides some interesting conclusions contributing toward widening the adoption of VEs in higher education contexts.
Originality/value
The increasing complexity of the globalized world makes it challenging for higher education institutions to develop multidisciplinary approaches to education to foster sustainable development. The experience provided offered the students an online international experience at their home institutions. Consequently, the research elaborates on how VE can be applied in economics, business, management and political science courses to enrich learning experience by applying theory in a practical way.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the alumni who shared their time and responses with us in the essays.
Citation
Sierra, J., Yassim, M. and Suárez-Collado, Á. (2022), "Together we can: enhancing key 21st-century skills with international virtual exchange", Education + Training, Vol. 64 No. 6, pp. 826-843. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-05-2021-0171
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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