Considering the complexities of virtual student mobility as an approach to inclusive internationalisation in the post-pandemic period

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic increased virtual student mobility as an elective choice and an emergency solution. Whether brought on by the pandemic or encouraged as a solution for more sustainable international education programming, virtual student mobility is a complex method for making internationalisation more inclusive. This qualitative research examines 16 Erasmus students’ experiences with emergency virtual student mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside a reflective assessment of two scholar-practitioners. Findings revealed three themes: teaching and learning challenges, the burden of environmental code-switching, and deficient intercultural socialisation as a result of missed experiences. Overall, results and findings show that some virtual student mobility programs were perceived as a concrete challenge, disappointment, and inadequate learning experience for Erasmus students. The results also challenge the purported inclusiveness of virtual student mobility programs. The paper concludes with the need to reconsider virtual student mobility as inclusive internationalisation, and offers concrete implications for policy, practice, and research.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• international students
• COVID-19
• virtual student mobility
• inclusive internationalisation
• Erasmus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Hodges et al. (2020) refer to this VSM form as emergency remote teaching (ERT), which they define as ‘a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances’ (no p.).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Schueller

Jessica Schueller is a Ph.D. student in Educational Leadership and Applied Statistics at Miami University (Ohio, USA). She holds an Erasmus Mundus joint master's degree in Research and Innovation in Higher Education from Tampere University (Finland) and Danube University Krems (Austria). Previously, she held roles in international education, career services, and higher education research in the US and Europe. Her current research interests include the internationalization of career services, transnational education, and ethical advising practices.

Betül Bulut Şahin

Betül Bulut Şahin is a lecturer at Middle East Technical University (METU) in the Educational Sciences Department. Previously, she worked as the Coordinator of European Mobility in the International Cooperations Office at METU. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Planning with a specialization in internationalization in higher education institutions and completed her post-doc at the University of Surrey (UK).