'You don't know what you don't know': A Qualitative Analysis of Health Administration Students' Outcomes after Faculty-Led Programs Abroad

摘要

This project measures and assesses cultural awareness outcomes following short-term, study-abroad programs called "faculty-led programs" (FLPs). The researchers deployed an open-ended journal asking the same 10 questions of each volunteer participant pre- and post-program to gauge shifts in their cultural awareness as measured within the intercultural assessment (INCA) model. In all, program participants volunteered to take part in the study over a period of two years with 54 providing completed (pre- and post-experience) journals, yielding a total of 1,080 question responses. The same faculty member led all of the FLPs during the research period, though not all participants took part in all programs. Each program was the same in structure, lasting approximately two weeks but taking place in various locations including Australia/New Zealand, Costa Rica, Cuba, Germany, and Ghana. The students participating in the FLPs were enrolled in health services administration courses in the school of business, or were health science majors. The programs all included a course in comparative health services between the host country and the United States. The robustness of this study offers new insight into the way both academics and practitioners understand the impact of short-term, study abroad programs. Furthermore, our conclusions offer considerations for how we model these types of study abroad programs for professional fields of study including healthcare.