Which generic competences are most encouraged with COIL? : a comparative longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis of student’s perspectives in the Netherlands and Switzerland

Abstract

COIL projects are often known as a form of virtual student exchange that can foster various generic competences that are relevant for the 21st century, such as intercultural communication, digital literacy, critical thinking, and global citizenship. However, there is not much empirical research on how COIL projects can effectively promote these competences and what factors influence their acquisition. Examples that can be found often focus on intercultural learning and are limited to smaller single case studies. This study aims to help to fill a part of the gap in research by conducting a mixedmethods analysis of a larger scale COIL project that has been running for a longer time. It involves all students in an academic year allowing more quantitative analysis and it also gives insight into generic competencies gained that go beyond the intercultural learning process. The study will then examine the pedagogy, technology, and assessment in facilitating or hindering the development of generic competences on COIL. COIL projects have been an integral part of the Facility Management programs from The Hague university of Applied Sciences and Zurich University of Applied Sciences. This research will highlight the quantitative and qualitative data involving 320 students from 2021 and 2022 project as this is the most recent and large-scale data available and will delve deeper using the qualitative data from the years before this. This COIL project is called FM- Beyond Borders. The methodological approach is: a. Quantitative cross-sectional analysis of competences from FM-Beyond Borders class 2022. Identifying significant differences between the generic competences and significant differences between NL/CH students. b. Longitudinal analysis comparing Quantitative data from 2021 and 2022. c. Qualitative analysis of possible causes of a and b. d. Qualitative analysis going beyond this project to previous years