Global Education Profiler (GE-P)
A diagnostic tool to identify student aspirations and
opportunities for developing ‘Global Graduate’ skills
HOW INTERNATIONALISED IS YOUR
UNIVERSITY?
Gain a competitive advantage by moving
beyond structural internationalisation!
‘Internationalisation’ can mean many different things
to different people. At present, the measures used by
most of the well-known organisations for benchmarking universities worldwide for their level of internationalisation are exclusively structural in nature, such
as the composition of the student and staff population
and the level of incoming and outgoing mobility. This
is clearly an extremely important foundation and crucial first step to becoming a truly internationalised university. However, if one of the goals of internationalisation is to develop ‘global graduates’, this is insufficient
in itself, as a recent British Council report points out:
“simply having a diverse student body does
not mean the education or even the campus is
global in nature. What comes as an essential
part of a global education is the inclusion of international students in communities and classes.
Integration of all students is an elemental factor
in the expanding concept of internationalisation.”
In other words, structural internationalisation is not
an end in itself, but rather is merely the foundation
for promoting ‘integrated communities’ and offering a
‘global education’. The Global Education Profiler (GE© All rights reserved. University of Warwick.
P) addresses a current blind spot for HE policy makers,
which can make the difference between a ‘diverse community’ and a ‘diversified integrated community’ that
helps develop your students into ‘global graduates’.
HOW INTEGRATED IS YOUR
STUDENT BODY AND WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?
Improving integration means nurturing the
development of global graduate skills
A series of large scale studies has shown that employers are seeking graduates who are not only
knowledgeable in a certain discipline, but more importantly are capable of addressing the challenges
most frequently faced by organisations today, including working in multicultural teams, working across
multiple languages, and communicating effectively
across cultures. In addressing this demand by simply
increasing the proportion of international students,
HEIs run the risk of assuming that the mere creation
of a diverse student population will automatically
lead to positive interactions among them. However,
prior research, and most importantly the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) has shown that this cannot be
assumed. On the contrary, HEIs need to pro-actively facilitate social and academic integration in order
to become a healthy internationalised HEI that is not
only financially, but also socially viable in the long-run.
FROM ‘DIVERSITY‘ TO ‘INTEGRATED
DIVERSITY‘
PLANNING STRATEGICALLY WITH A
RELIABLE DIAGNOSTIC TOOL
Use the Global Education Profiler (GE-P) –
a diagnostic tool for internationalising HEIs
How the Global Education Profiler can inform your internationalisation strategy
In order to transition from a policy of ‘diversity’ to a
policy of ‘integrated diversity’ and ‘global graduate’
development, it is necessary to monitor systematically
your university’s current progress towards deeper internationalisation. This can be done by measuring social and academic integration, as well as the extent to
which students feel they are developing ‘global skills’,
including growth in their understanding of what this entails. The Global Education Profiler (GE-P) has been developed to assess these elements in a systematic and
reliable manner. It consists of five short modules each
of which serves to measure gaps between aspirations
and experiences of students in relation to ‘integrated
diversity’ and ‘global graduate’ development. In other
words, it offers evaluation measures of both ‘supply’
and ‘demand’, rather than just student satisfaction.
The GE-P measures not only the current level of
social and academic integration but also opportunities for developing global graduate skills. The
‘supply’ and ‘demand’ design reveals your institution’s strengths and weaknesses, enabling you to
prioritise effort and optimise your internationalisation endeavours. The tool allows for contextualised
decisions that are meaningful to policy makers, not
only in terms of overall student satisfaction, but also
with respect to resource allocation and overall improvement in the social viability of your institution.
Given the design of the diagnostic tool it is also ‘forward looking’, by capturing students’ aspirations,
which makes it a particularly powerful instrument.
GE-P offers measures of:
•
Students’ level of aspiration for integrating into the educational community;
•
Students’ level of aspiration for developing ‘global graduate’ skills;
•
Students’ perceived experience of integrating into the educational community;
•
Students’ perceived experience of developing ‘global graduate’ skills;
•
The size and direction of any gap between students’ aspirations and experiences.
Aims of GE-P:
•
Measurement of current levels of social
and academic integration
•
Measurement of current levels of ‘global
graduate’ development opportunities
•
Optimisation of resource allocation
•
Tracking of performance and impact of
integration and ‘global graduate’ development initiatives
Leading to…
•
Increase in student satisfaction
•
Increase in graduates with global skills
and greater employability
ABOUT THE DEVELOPERS:
Prof. Helen Spencer-Oatey, Helen.Spencer-Oatey@warwick.ac.uk
Helen’s research explores the construct of Intercultural Competence. She is particularly interested in effective communication, sensitive rapport management and adaptation strategies. Her current projects include
the development of resources to promote intercultural competence and underpinning research into the
internationalisation of education and the ways in which culture may (or may not) influence behaviour.
Dr. Daniel Dauber, d.dauber@warwick.ac.uk
Daniel’s research focuses on Organisational Diagnostics, covering areas of Organisational Behavior, International Management and Intercultural Communication. He is interested in organisational pathologies and
coherence in light of organisational change, culture and communication. His latest large-scale projects include research on internationalisation of HEIs and intercultural communication in the construction industry.
© All rights reserved. University of Warwick.