Evaluation of an Intercultural Professional Experience Visit by Australian Teaching Students to Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The authors examine changes in the perceptions of student teachers as a result of a structured professional experience in a culture and environment different than their previous life experience. For the past 13 years the University of New England has conducted an annual Professional Experience Visit (PEV) to a remote rural area in Papua New Guinea involving trainee teachers and staff of the Faculty of Education, Health and Professional Studies. Participants were volunteers who met their own costs. The PEV has been supplementary to the university course.