Description
This research study, held at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), was part of the 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), where five student researchers collaborated with staff researchers. At XJTLU, a Sino-Foreign university, students face many challenges related to cultural differences in the new learning environment, including learning shock, language barrier, and so forth. There is also a noted difference among students in their willingness to participate in class discussions. Previous research (Fang, Chen, and Elyas, 2020) suggests that students with a stronger sense of global perspective are more willing to communicate and integrate into a new environment. One effective method to enhance global perspectives is through Darla Deardorff’s framework on intercultural competence, which emphasizes developing the attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary for a global outlook. This can be further cultivated through the application of Deardorff’s (2020) Story Circles, a storytelling activity widely used for building intercultural competence, which may aid students in adjusting to the transnational education landscape. The study, therefore, employed two interventions—an online-adapted version of story circles and traditional face-to-face story circles—to assess and compare their impact on students’ global perspectives (GP) using the survey developed by Liu, Yin, and Wu (2020). Interviews were also conducted to reveal further insights of participants’ experience with story circles. Our research data indicate that story circles, whether conducted online or in person, have a statistically significant impact on students’ GP. In this presentation, we will share our intervention techniques, particularly the online story circle, to support other educators and practitioners in their respective contexts.| Period | 21 Feb 2025 |
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| Held at | Duke Kunshan University, China |
| Degree of Recognition | Local |