Finding the right fit or fitting what is found? Contextualising connections between international student mobility and quality in teacher education

ABSTRACT

The political promotion of international student mobility in the Nordic countries is underpinned by claims about its contribution to quality enhancement in higher education. Yet, this link is scarcely elaborated and is an understudied issue empirically. This article presents the findings of an interview study exploring the recontextualisation of this policy discourse by micro-level actors in Norwegian teacher education. Analytically, it employs quality perspectives to unpack the ideas that underlie the planning, learning process and envisioned outcomes associated with mobility. The article finds that quality is associated with clearly envisioned personal and professional outcomes of mobility; yet, it is also shaped by unclear notions about the learning process involved and constraints set by the practical possibilities for organising it. The article argues that the malleability of quality and the uneasy nature of student mobility in teacher education involves a risk that mobility becomes instrumentalised and loses its educational value.

KEYWORDS:

• Internationalisation policy
• international student mobility
• quality
• teacher education
• higher education
• Norway

Introduction

Over the past decades, increasing the levels of international student mobility has received significant political attention in the Nordic countries and Europe beyond. Short-term student mobility has developed to become a key activity in higher education (HE) internationalisation processes and has in particular been spurred by the launch of the Erasmus-programme in 1987 and the Bologna Process in 1999 (Papatsiba, 2005). While rationales for mobility vary across institutional, national and international contexts, historically the main European rationale for stimulating student mobility has been associated with European identity formation and economic ideals about creating a unified European labour market (Papatsiba, 2006). In the wake of the Bologna Process, a prevailing rationale concerns the role of student mobility as a key dimension in HE internationalisation and serving as a means of quality enhancement through compatibility and competition (Rivza & Teichler, 2007). The emphasis on quality is also reflected in the Nordic countries. However, quality in this context is often more explicitly linked to educational and cultural rationales than the economic and competitive rationales prevailing in many other European countries (Sin et al., 2019).

Yet, as has been observed by more researchers, the quality rationale for student mobility is often shaped by “circular” arguments; quality acts as both the main rationale for internationalisation and mobility, as well as its most important outcome in terms of increasing international cooperation in education and research; sometimes as a problem to which mobility is the solution, sometimes as a justification in itself (Alexiadou & Rönnberg, 2022; Elken et al., 2022; Lomer, 2017; Papatsiba, 2006; Pedersen, 2022). We currently have little knowledge about what kinds of quality mobility may actually be perceived to bring about by those involved in its provision at the micro-level of HE institutions. Given the prominent political and institutional focus and resources devoted to increasing student mobility from the claim that it enhances the quality of education, there is a need for exploring how the ways in which mobility is “practised” ground-level relate to current policy ideas framing this agenda.

The study presented in this article aims to unpack how the policy discourse on the value of student mobility for quality enhancement in HE is recontextualised at the micro-level of HE. The study is situated in Norway and analyses a set of interviews with actors involved with internationalisation in teacher education for primary and lower secondary education (TE) to illuminate these issues. As such, TE both serves as a general case of the work with mobility in HE, and as a somewhat deviant case due to the generally limited nature of internationalisation and mobility within it. Educating mainly for a national labour market may shape how mobility is seen to contribute to educational quality, for instance by linking it to specific professional needs rather than more generic competencies (de Wit et al., 2015; Leask & Bridge, 2013). While TE shares these features with other short professional programmes (such as nursing, social work or engineering), it also stands out as a deviant case in terms of its role as a key societal institution of importance for the whole education system. It has increasingly become a battlefield for competing visions and discourses on quality and how to achieve it (Cochran-Smith, 2013; Trippestad et al., 2017). This issue is highly visible in how the internationalisation of TE has repeatedly been singled out in national and European policies as a critical issue in need of improvement over the past decades (Pedersen, 2022).

Drawing on quality perspectives (inspired by Dahler-Larsen, 2019) and Biggs’ dimensions of educational quality (Biggs, 1993) as an analytical framework, the analysis identifies a range of tensions underlying how student mobility is made sense of as an educational activity relating to quality in TE. While the outcomes of mobility are clearly envisioned in terms of linked to personal and professional aspects, mobility also emerges as an ambiguous learning experience linked to ideas about learning from complementarity in relation to the national aims of TE. Based on the analysis, the article advances the argument that the malleability of the quality concept as an overall aim in organising student mobility, involves a risk that all mobility is accepted as being of quality, thus obscuring key aspects of its educational purpose.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the next section contextualises the study by outlining key concepts, national policy context and the case of TE, before moving on to a review of existing literature. This is followed by a presentation of the analytical framework and methodological design, and subsequently, the findings are presented and discussed against the backdrop of the current policy discourse.

Contextualising the study

The article focuses on outgoing short-term mobility of which credit/exchange mobility (via Erasmus+, NORDPLUS, or other institutional agreements) and teaching practice abroad (via Erasmus+ or specific programme partnerships) are the most common in Norwegian TE. While they clearly represent different learning activities, both are included in the study from the assumption that they can expand our understanding of quality perspectives associated with student mobility. The underlying political rationales for credit mobility are typically related to educational and cultural ideas, whereas degree mobility (mainly incoming) is associated with economic and competitive rationales and attracting talent (Elken et al., 2022). Additionally, other short-term mobility activities, such as trainee/internships may be related to professional rationales (Cuzzocrea & Krzaklewska, 2023).

Aims of increasing student mobility have been a highly visible policy priority in Norway for several decades, but with changing underlying rationales; From being mainly a matter of a lack of capacity in the national HE system, the Quality Reform in 2003, which implemented the Bologna Process, implied a stronger emphasis on short-term mobility linked to quality enhancement (Wiers-Jenssen, 2019). While all the Nordic countries generally place a strong emphasis on educational rather than economic rationales for mobility, it has been identified as particularly prominent in Norway (Elken et al., 2022).¹ However, this assumed relationship is scarcely substantiated by policymakers and has for instance been linked to both the personal development of the students, an overall increase in the educational quality of the study programme and Norway’s adaptability and competitiveness globally (Meld. St. 7, 2020-2021). The strong focus on outgoing mobility is witnessed by still higher political ambitions on increasing it; currently, the aim is that 50% of the student population should have had a stay abroad at graduation, with the long-term objective of creating “a culture in higher education where student mobility becomes the rule rather than the exception” (Meld. St. 7, 2020–2021). Following this, the responsibilities of study programmes and academic staff for organising and quality-assuring exchange agreements have been strengthened (DIKU, 2019).

Over the past 30 years, challenges to fostering internationalisation and student mobility in TE have been identified, discussed and attempted tackled by Norwegian and European policymakers alike (Pedersen, 2022; Wernisch, 2016). In Norway, mobility levels in study fields such as teacher education and pedagogy, and shorter bachelor programmes in health, social work and engineering, are averagely lower than in longer discipline-based programmes. A report from 2019 showed that the total share of students in TE and pedagogy who had undertaken an exchange stay abroad at the time of graduation was 6%, compared to 10% in shorter health programmes, 20% in business and administration, and 23% in social science and law (DIKU, 2019). These differences are quite consistent over time, and as for TE, these numbers also mirror the general European picture (Ballowitz et al., 2014; DIKU, 2019; Vögtle, 2019). Nonetheless, the political expectations for it remain high. For instance, when teacher education programmes for primary and lower secondary education were extended to 5-year master’s programmes in 2017, one of the arguments was that it would allow for a more flexible structure with more room for student mobility in the programme (Skagen & Elstad, 2020). TE is centrally governed by national regulations stating both the educational purpose, learning outcomes and aspects around its structure (Ekspertgruppa om lærerrollen, 2016). These aspects have been found to narrow the possibilities for exchange mobility, which is the preferred type of mobility at national policy level (Pedersen, 2021). However, reports have demonstrated that other types of mobility, such as international practice placements, are very common and are a valued learning activity in TE (DIKU & NOKUT, 2018; Sjøen, 2021).

Arguably, then, TE and other short professional programmes in Norwegian HE share some common conditions and challenges for fostering student mobility in terms of national labour market orientation and how they are regulated. This may position them as somewhat deviant cases for studying the stated issues of this paper, as internationalisation and mobility may be perceived, practised and valued differently than what research based on more traditional HE disciplines tends to depict. For TE in particular, its nature as a key institution in society and how it is discussed in public may also shape the work with mobility and how it is perceived to contribute to quality in distinct ways. Choosing a deviant case of HE in the context of this study first of all provides an empirical contribution focussing on an understudied sub-field of HE. Additionally, the deviant case may also have analytical value for shedding light on unexpected views and challenges of student mobility and be rich in information about the assumptions, challenges and preconditions for implementation underlying current political discourse (Flyvbjerg, 2006).

Literature review: student mobility and educational quality

Quality is an inherently vague concept and studying it inescapably forces us to operate in grey zones (Wittek & Kvernbekk, 2011). Student mobility can relate to quality in several ways depending on which aims are set and which outcomes are assessed, and the expectations surrounding this may vary significantly between actors in and around HE (Papatsiba, 2006; Pedersen, 2021). Notably, while mobility programmes, such as Erasmus+, may associate quality with academic aspects, such as academic skills, enhanced subject knowledge and language competence, in national policies, institutional practices and research, personal dimensions, cultural awareness and future employability are often foregrounded as key outcomes of mobility (Cardwell, 2019). Research has provided more potential explanations for this: it may be because academic outcomes are less tangible for researchers and practitioners than personal or cultural outcomes (Pedersen, 2021), or that the emergence of mass mobility programmes altogether moves focus away from academic aspects to more administrative issues and issues of participation (Courtois, 2018). Finally, the prominence of personal/social outcomes of mobility may also indicate that policy expectations about more systemic impacts of individual short-term mobility (such as enhancing educational quality) are over-stated and require a stronger degree of involvement by academics and HE institutions than what is assumed by policymakers (Frølich et al., 2016; Halvorsen & Faye, 2006; Papatsiba, 2006).

Existing research tends to take the perspective of students in analysing aspects of quality in relation to student mobility and often links quality to outcomes, such as professional, personal, and social aspects, and long-term effects on employment, career and personal development and broader societal aims (Cardwell, 2019; Roy et al., 2019). In the context of TE and international practicums specifically, additional outcomes such as the development of intercultural competencies and global understanding are also highlighted (for instance Abraham & von Brömssen, 2018; Cushner & Mahon, 2016; DIKU & NOKUT, 2018; Klein & Wikan, 2019; Sjøen, 2021). Valuable as these findings are for understanding aspects of quality, the student-centred strand also tends to obscure the fact that outgoing short-term mobility is an activity which is strongly influenced by institutional logics and practices and practical possibilities related to when and where it is possible to undertake a study abroad (Courtois, 2018). As such, research into the quality dimension of internationalisation in HE necessarily implies a perspective on how the expectations for internationalisation and mobility become translated into practice – in terms of what, how, and why to learn in specific learning contexts (Wihlborg, 2009). Academic staff have a key role in ensuring that the offer abroad is academically or professionally relevant for students in relation to the aims of the domestic study programme (Toporkoff, 2014). The viewpoints of academic staff involved with educational provision in HE (teaching and research) and tasked with organising mobility in relation to the aims, content and pedagogical processes in the study programmes are therefore key to exploring issues around the contribution of mobility to educational quality. Yet, their perspectives on the relationship between educational aims and the role of internationalisation and student mobility in supporting them are often overlooked in research (Cairns & França, 2021; Green & Whitsed, 2015; Hunter & Sparnon, 2018; Leask et al., 2021). However, the study by Frølich and colleagues for instance reported that academic staff generally perceived individual student mobility to be less relevant for quality within a study programme compared to aspects such as staff mobility or institutional cooperation, and that its perceived relevance is highly dependent on the quality of the exchange partner abroad (Frølich et al., 2016; Halvorsen & Faye, 2006). These findings demonstrate that the value and quality of mobility must necessarily be understood in relation to something, otherwise, it is at risk of becoming a detached element in the study programme (Nerlich, 2021). The study presented in this article aims to fill out some of the gaps identified in this review to shed light on the presumed relationship between student mobility and quality enhancement in TE.

Analytical framework

The overall analytical approach to exploring how mobility relates to educational quality in TE builds on multiple sources of inspiration. The study foregrounds the study programme level (micro-level) of HE as the sites where quality “is practised” contingent to the particular context and situation at hand and in relation to ideas and practices about teaching and learning. However, micro-level ideas and practices about quality cannot be analysed in total isolation from structural (macro) and institutional (meso) level quality ideas; indeed, a key assumption in the study is that despite its lack of specificity, the ways in which current policy discourse employs the concept of quality has effects in terms of shaping how ideas about, and practices of, student mobility can be legitimised at the micro-level of HE institutions (Pechmann & Haase, 2021).

To capture the complexities of educational quality from a micro-level actor perspective, the analytical entry point is to capture different quality perspectives, that is, “a way of seeing and talking about quality that conceptually highlights a particular aspect” (Dahler-Larsen, 2019, p. 47). More specifically, the analytical framework borrows inspiration from the contexts for quality identified in the “3P model” (Biggs, 1993) as an interpretive frame for transforming fragmented elements of reality into a meaningful whole (i.e., quality perspectives). Biggs distinguishes between presage, process, and product as three key components of the educational process and suggests that educational quality is not only a matter of output but is relative to the compatibility and interaction between the three components. Presage involves student context (individual characteristics such as prior knowledge, expectations, aspirations, etc.), and teaching context (contextual characteristics such as teachers’ beliefs about teaching and students, curriculum and course structure, teaching methods etc.). Process concerns the approach to learning and what goes on in the learning process (for instance pedagogical programmes, modes of learning etc.), and product refers to the learning outcomes of the process (Biggs, 1993; Biggs & Tang, 2011). While originally intended to provide a framework for quantitatively estimating the relationship between the variables in particular learning settings (Gibbs, 2010), this article merely adapts the model as an analytical heuristic and relevant vocabulary for identifying and categorising quality perspectives in the interview data, as well as potential tensions between them. The original 3P model focuses mainly on students, but part of the adaption in the present study implies that student experience is only indirectly analysed as it emerges in the accounts of academic staff.

In light of the notorious challenges involved in handling the quality concept analytically and empirically, and the study’s aim of using its complexity productively rather than constraining its potential meanings, the analytical framework aims to balance the needs for flexibility and precision. To do so, it utilises the 3 P’s as analytical keys for categorising the variety of perspectives on the relationship between student mobility and quality among interviewees. In the interviews it appeared that it was difficult to discuss quality as an “end goal” without including perspectives on the preconditions for it linked to planning and quality assuring mobility (before), and on the learning process involved as such (under). Put simply, how quality is perceived and “handled” before and during a stay abroad has implications for how the quality-enhancing potential of mobility may be realised. The value of the 3P model is that it contributes analytically to opening this black box and points to the complexities involved in supporting and realising the ambiguous aim that “quality” represents. In sum, these analytical assumptions are brought together to analyse the interview material and are operationalised and exemplified in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Quality perspectives, operationalisation and empirical example.

Quality perspective and key features	Operationalisation in relation to mobility	Identification in data and empirical example
Presage: the student and teaching context existing before the teaching and learning take place	Aspects involved in organising and quality-assuring mobility: Practically: which considerations underlie its organisation? (curriculum, strategies, etc.) Staff and student factors: other ideas about “quality” framing mobility (academic relevance, destinations, duration of stay etc.)	A key issue in organising mobility concerns what constitutes a relevant exchange offer for Norwegian TE: “We approve students’ learning agreements and make sure that those courses provide something which we can say is roughly similar to the subject we teach here … We don’t always get there” (Interview A5).
Process: what is going on in the actual teaching and learning process	What is involved in the learning experience supported by mobility? What supports or hinders this process? (How) is it being assessed?	The personal experience of going abroad is key to the learning process: “The physical experience of being in an unknown territory, the new smells, sounds and emotions you are confronted with being there … Students mature from this confrontation, and this is what enables them to actually acquire new perspectives, to learn … ” (Interview C3).
Product: the outcomes of the educational processes	What are the envisioned outcomes of mobility for TE students?	Personal development is a key outcome of mobility and influences other areas of learning: “You grow as a person by studying abroad, you gain new perspectives which can contribute to your academic achievements” (Interview B2)

Materials and methods

Academic staff play a key role staff in the educational provision and as resources for understanding issues around educational quality. Therefore, the present study is designed as a qualitative interview study aimed at eliciting in-depth perspectives on the assumed relationship between student mobility and quality. A total of 20 interviews were conducted with micro-level actors in TE by the author in the early spring of 2020, some face-to-face, but most via online communication due to the pandemic. Interviews lasted around 1 h and were all recorded with the consent of participants and subsequently transcribed verbatim and anonymised with regards to any exposing details.

The participants are all (directly or indirectly) involved in the work with internationalisation and student mobility in three teacher education programmes: most as academic staff, and some by holding administrative and management positions. An overview of interviewees can be found in Table 2. Their involvement varies from informal or “voluntary” based on personal motivation and interests (such as participating in projects which include mobility) to having formal responsibilities and dedicated working hours for it (such as academic international coordinators). Due to quite different levels of involvement in internationalisation issues in the three programmes respectively, the number of interviews in each programme varies (from 5 to 8). Clearly, the final sample of interviewees in any study impacts the possibilities for generating knowledge (Andrews & Vassenden, 2007). On the one hand, the interviewees are highly experienced and knowledgeable about the topic and thereby have valuable perspectives to illuminate the research question. But they clearly also represent a highly selected group of dedicated people likely to have a (more) positive attitude towards student mobility than others and in that sense may not be representative of indifferent or critical attitudes. However, in light of their different institutional affiliations and varied degrees of involvement, the data represents a multiplicity of perspectives which contribute to a way of triangulating the data (Flick, 2004). In any case, the research design does not allow for suggesting that the findings paint a representative picture of all TE, let alone a whole institution or study programme; rather, it aims for analytic generalisation in the sense that the theoretically qualified findings of the study may be useful for making sense of similar situations or issues in and across TE (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2015; Maxwell, 2002).

Table 2. Overview of interviews.

Programme	A	B	C
Interviewees	Four teachers International academic coordinator International administrative coordinator Head of Studies Faculty adviser (Total: 8)	Four teachers International academic coordinator Adviser, international office Dean (Total: 7)	Three teachers Adviser, international office Head of Studies (Total: 5)

All interviews were based on semi-structured interview guides informed by the analytical framework. All interviewees were explicitly asked to reflect on how they perceived the presumed relationship between student mobility and quality enhancement. Other questions unpacked issues around quality more broadly and implicitly (e.g., “what do teacher students gain from going abroad?”, “what are your considerations when finding exchange partners abroad for your students?”, or “what are the main challenges to your work with organising mobility?”). This dual way of unpacking issues of quality in combination with the overall categories provided by the analytical framework was supportive for shedding light on the intricate relationship and tensions between different aspects involved in conceptualising something as being of (educational) quality.

Analytical process

To capture patterned responses related to the three key dimensions of the analytical framework, as well as opening up other interesting or surprising themes, the analysis of the interview transcriptions was based on an eclectic approach inspired by thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The first step of the analysis was to become re-familiarised with the material and develop initial ideas about broader themes beyond the assumptions in the analytical framework; (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun & Clarke, 2006); essentially letting the data “talk” as much as possible. Next, coding was performed assisted by Nvivo software, in a dual process of systematically mapping the entire material against the three quality perspectives (presage, process, product), as well as other interesting features of the data which did not immediately fit into these categories. For instance, an unexpected recurring theme concerned how interviewees often experienced a gap between their ideas about quality and relevance in the stay abroad, and students’ aspirations and motivations for it, which was often linked to a particular geographical destination. The coding process resulted in several themes and sub-themes which were reviewed and refined against each other to make sure they provided a comprehensive account of the whole data set. The key themes identified structure the presentation of findings in the following and concern (a) a clear vision of quality as linked to individual and professional aspects; (b) an ambiguous conceptualisation of the learning experience underlying the outcomes, and (c) constraining contextual aspects impacting on its organisation and perceived value in TE.

Findings

This section presents the findings of the analysis in relation to the three dimensions of the analytical framework. Table 3 provides an overview of the key findings and the various quality claims and perspectives which are discussed in the article.

Table 3. Overview of findings.

Quality perspective	Key findings
Product	The prevailing explicit conceptualisation of quality across interviews It relates quality to the purpose and outcomes of mobility Direct personal outcomes and transformative/professional outcomes are foregrounded; academic outcomes are relativised against these
Process	The learning experience is key for supporting the achievement of outcomes (i.e., quality) The learning experience builds on a pedagogical idea about complementarity between domestic/abroad programme Complementarity is itself an ambiguous idea that relativises educational quality to cultural/social aspects associated with particular destinations for mobility
Presage	The preconditions for supporting the envisioned outcomes of mobility are challenged by structural and cultural aspects Organising/quality assuring mobility is shaped by varied interpretations of the aims of TE and how mobility “fits” within … as well as more non-educational considerations such as institutional strategies

Product: envisioned personal and professional outcomes of mobility

The product quality perspective refers to students’ learning outcomes after having completed the teaching and learning process (Biggs, 1993). In relation to student mobility, this perspective includes the underlying justifications for, and purpose of, this particular educational activity, and the envisioned outcomes from it. When directly asked how they considered international student mobility to contribute to quality in TE, most interviewees provided answers related to the overall purpose or outcomes of mobility, whether for the individual, the future professional, or the programme more generally. While perspectives on the purpose of student mobility may differ from the actual outcomes in practice, the point is here that the most direct and prevailing conceptualisation of the relationship between mobility and educational quality among interviewees concerns the product dimension of it. In particular, interviewees’ reflections on potential outcomes from mobility include direct effects on, for instance, students’ level of self-confidence, maturity, abilities to handle stress and empathy. Moreover, all these personal outcomes are perceived as having more indirect transformative effects on students’ professional competencies, such as confidence in managing the classroom, abilities to differentiate teaching, and general respect for cultural differences. Outcomes relating to specific subject competence or language development were rarely highlighted as aspects of quality by interviewees. Rather, more of them expressed the view that the academic dimensions of mobility were less tangible compared to the personal or professional dimensions. Notably, interviewees’ reflections on the product dimension are closely intertwined with the learning experience supporting it, as the personal experience associated with immersing oneself in another country and culture is foregrounded as the prerequisite for the outcomes of mobility. The following extract is very illustrative of this general idea:

“I think the most important outcome of student mobility is about being outside one’s comfort zone, travelling, experiencing another culture … It is useful for the ability to reflect in new ways about what we do here, new thoughts on our practices, what and why we do it … And that is also what students say when they return home, they are more self-confident because it was crazy scary being on your own in that way! It is a powerful way of getting to know yourself and to reflect on what is different.” (Interview A3)

As evident, there is a shared belief that the personal experience of going abroad and “standing on one’s own feet” can have transformative effects on students’ professional competencies. As such, this is the prevailing notion of how student mobility contributes to quality, irrespective of whether exchange mobility or international practicums are being considered. However, the “transformative” outcome is particularly clear when interviewees reflect on practice teaching abroad. It often takes place in developing countries, where students are confronted with different education systems and conditions for practising as a teacher. The following extract is a good example of how the specific outcomes of undertaking practice teaching abroad are described among interviewees:

“It is very clear when students have been abroad, they communicate and lead the classroom differently than before. Maybe they had to handle 200 pupils at the same time, and how do you organise teaching then? Well, you have to be very clear, speak differently, you have to use your body because you can no longer hide between a PowerPoint! It is things like these I think students benefit from, although the subject as such may not be in focus, or where they learn the most. But it is in fact in their role as a classroom manager” (Interview B3)

It is interesting to note how the interviewee here makes a distinction between enhanced professional competence and subject-specific competence as different outcomes of mobility. This distinction is invoked by more interviewees and seems to be crucial for how they justify the value of student mobility in TE – even in relation to exchange mobility, where one could expect other more academically oriented outcomes, such as improving subject competence, to be more prominent. This is reflected in the following extract where an interviewee describes the underlying considerations of finding a relevant mobility offer for TE students:

“To support students in going abroad, we have to be a bit flexible in how we do things in relation to the academic aspects … We consider which content and courses will be relevant in relation to being a teacher, and some places may be very similar to our teacher education, some very different, but still relevant … I mean, besides the academic competencies and perspectives students gain from studying or doing practice teaching abroad, you grow as a person. You gain new perspectives which will affect your academic performance” (Interview B2).

As evident from the extract, compared to the personal and professional outcomes, academic outcomes emerge as fuzzier and more difficult to determine. The analysis reveals several examples of how this challenge leads interviewees to further emphasise personal and professional justifications for mobility as a sort of “pragmatic” approach to what can be expected from it. In particular, this appears to be related to difficulties in determining what constitutes a relevant (international) substitute for Norwegian TE, that is, aspects pertaining to the presage quality perspective. Additionally, it apparently has to do with how the envisioned outcomes can be achieved, i.e., what kind of learning experience mobility represents. Thus, as indicated in the extract above, whether the quality of the learning process abroad (practice teaching or exchange) is supported by providing a similar or different experience from that at home, emerges as a somewhat contested issue. This will be further explored in the following section.

Process: student mobility as a learning experience building on ambiguous ideas about complementarity

The process quality perspective refers to the quality of what is going on in the teaching and learning process and how it impacts students’ learning (Biggs, 1993). From the analytical adaption in this article, this perspective involves the learning experience more generally in terms of the pedagogical considerations which frame mobility as an educational activity. As described in the preceding section, the prevailing conceptualisation of quality relates to the envisioned outcomes of mobility, which is intimately linked to the physical and personal experience of removing oneself from the familiar learning context at home to a different environment – not only in terms of the educational setting (such as a university or a school), but culturally, socially, or linguistically. In relation to this, a recurring theme in the interviews relates to the pedagogical function of complementarity as key to the learning experience, meaning that the quality of student mobility in terms of outcomes, is supported by the configuration of the learning experience abroad as different but useful in relation to the home programmes’ curriculum. When interviewees were asked to reflect on what they considered to be supportive factors for achieving the envisioned outcomes from mobility, an array of ideas about complementarity was prompted. More implicitly, then, the idea of complementarity also presumes different ideas about educational or pedagogical quality in an offer abroad in intricate ways. It involves ideas about the relative degree of similarity/difference between the home programme and the offer abroad, both in terms of content (curricular aspects) and context of mobility (destination). In that sense, interviewees’ considerations about what supports the learning process associated with going abroad are both shaped by educational aspects linked to the quality of the offer abroad as such, as well as their imaginaries about culture, pedagogical traditions, and school systems beyond the Norwegian borders.

An illustrative example of the ambiguity of the pedagogical idea about complementarity concerns Australia as a destination for mobility – not in the sense that the quality of the Australian HE system is questioned, but in terms of its contribution to complementarity being evaluated against other destinations. For a long time before the Covid pandemic (and thus also at the time interviews were conducted), Australia has been among the most popular destinations for student mobility from Norwegian HE institutions, including TE (HK-Dir, 2023). Yet, its value for complementarity, and thus for supporting the quality of the learning process, is contested among interviewees. The analysis reveals that arguments about cultural differences and cultural similarities can be invoked as different justifications for a particular destination for mobility. In the following extract, the interviewee expresses the view that cultural difference is key to the learning process associated with mobility and that the relative cultural similarity between Australia and Europe makes it less interesting as a destination for student mobility:

“It is an experience which is not significantly different from the experience you would get in Europe. I mean, if students are indeed going to travel far away, I think they should have a much more exotic experience. Then you should go to Korea or Japan, right? And experience a completely different education system. But I don’t think you get that in Australia. So, I encourage people not to go to Australia.” (Interview B1)

The interviews contain more examples of similar points made in relation to practice teaching abroad; the more different the school system and culture are from the Norwegian system, the stronger the potential for learning and pedagogical reflexivity will be. Yet, there are also more examples of the opposite viewpoint, as more interviewees emphasise similarity as the key to supporting the learning process, and as an argument for staying closer to Norway (in particular within the Nordic countries with similar TE models). Describing the programmes’ overall strategy for student mobility, an interviewee says:

“We focus strongly on the Nordic and European cooperation. There are several reasons for this, I mean, with everything you can learn from studying abroad within Europe, maybe you don’t have to go to Australia if you can have the same here?” (Interview A2)

In contrast to the relatively similar views on the envisioned outcomes of mobility, the above examples of considerations of Australia illuminate the complexity involved in conceptualising qualities of the learning process enabled by student mobility. While complementarity appears to be key to understanding the process and how it contributes to quality, it also seems to be shaped by social or cultural ideas and less by purely educational aims of TE. Moreover, students may also be guided by such cultural imaginaries in their choice of destination, and more interviewees for instance claim that students’ motivation for going to Australia is often strongly shaped by social or leisure-oriented motives such as the climate, the opportunity to travel far away, language etc. In that sense, another challenge illustrated by “the Australian case” is that there may be significant gaps between ideas about educational quality in mobility held by academic staff and students respectively. In many instances, this seems to reinforce the situation where those organising exchange mobility justify the exchange stay with reference to generic outcomes at the expense of the educational content.

Presage: student mobility with an uneasy position in TE

The presage quality perspective involves the “input” of the learning process, such as aspects of teaching context related to resources, curriculum and regulations. These aspects contribute to framing, enabling and constraining the process and outcomes (Biggs, 1993). Adapted and applied to student mobility, it involves how mobility is organised and planned in accordance with the aims and structure of TE – how mobility “fits” within TE. While the preceding sections have described envisioned outcomes as the prevailing quality perspective, and complementarity as the main supportive factor for it, aspects pertaining to the presage quality perspective were articulated by interviewees when asked how they go about planning and quality assuring student mobility. Many interviewees reported that though they may have specific ideas about the envisioned outcomes and ways to support them, their work with mobility is also shaped by aspects pertaining to the presage quality perspective; that is, aspects such as institutional aims and strategies concerning environmental issues (reducing climate impact associated with air travel), or economic incentives (such as specific funding schemes). Moreover, the course structure, curriculum, regulations, and culture in Norwegian TE influence their work with “finding” quality abroad. In short, the analysis uncovers a range of tensions between how quality is perceived from “within” and in relation to educational aims, and its role as a more externally imposed management concept to direct this work ground-level.

As such, most interviewees agree that models for TE around the world differ greatly and that this makes it challenging to find an equivalent to Norwegian TE abroad. As for the destination of mobility, this invokes a challenge of conceptualising how the idea of complementarity may become productive in finding an “educational fit” abroad. Notably, according to more interviewees, the quality of a stay abroad has traditionally largely been conceptualised along the lines of what counts as domestic quality, and not linked to the offer abroad as such. This means that if the outcomes of the stay abroad differ too much from what students should have learned at home, it has not been accepted as adding value to TE. This tension is well described by an interviewee with a long experience of organising practice teaching abroad:

“I think teacher education is a bit normative in the way it perceives of what is not a part of its core purpose, everything that doesn’t fit within the box is just noise in the system. For instance, if it is a goal for students during practice teaching to do parent consultations and they don’t do that because they are abroad … Well, there are two ways to handle this: either you say, well, then you just write a paper about parents’ role in that school system, or you say, no, you can’t pass this practice period, because you haven’t done parent consultations. There has been quite a strict attitude to what teacher education should be, which I think has been damaging to practice teaching abroad, it is not accepted as a positive thing.” (Interview C1)

The interviewee describes a culture in TE characterised by a rather narrow interpretation of the overall goals, and where a perceived lack of relevance, or similarity, associated with mobility, has been viewed by some as detrimental for students in terms of achieving the centrally authorised competence goals for TE stated in the framework plan – and thereby the quality of TE. A similar reflection is raised by an academic international coordinator explaining the challenges of preparing students’ exchange agreements:

“When the programme is so pre-defined, it is difficult to find something which amounts to our way of doing teacher education. Now we have found a sentence in a governmental circular which states that we must be very flexible when sending students abroad. For the last three years, we have been quite strict in trying to make sure that students get something similar to what our framework plans state, especially when we have asked specific subject teachers for help because we don’t know their subject, they have been even more conservative than us … But now we will stop with that! Now we will just send them abroad and say that almost anything amounts to it, very few restrictions … So, that should no longer be a hindrance for us.” (Interview B1)

As evident from the two extracts, a significant tension underlying the organisation of student mobility concerns the relevance of the learning opportunities students are offered abroad in light of what they should be learning at home. Beyond the common agreement that the physical experience of going abroad is key to the learning experience involved in mobility, the tension sketched above demonstrates a basic challenge of describing the nature of this learning experience, i.e., what and how we expect students to learn, in relation to how we envision the outcomes. Whether the opportunity for students to learn from complementarity is a matter of difference or similarity to the domestic study programme may therefore be a relevant question for all actors in HE involved with sending students abroad. Yet, in professional programmes such as TE, where the purpose and learning outcomes are quite defined, this question may result in an uneasy positioning of mobility as an “uncontrolled” learning activity, where justifications for its contribution to quality need reinforcement by emphasising the generic outcomes (i.e., personal and intercultural development) at the expense of academic/TE competence more specifically.

Discussion: international student mobility as an ambiguous learning experience in the pursuit of malleable aims of educational quality

Biggs’ original 3P model emphasises the compatibility and interaction between the three dimensions are crucial constituents as key to supporting educational quality; not only must they be of quality themselves, but must also somehow be consistent and aimed at the same goal – the quality of students’ education (Biggs, 1993). Based on the nature and design of the study, it is beyond the scope to assess the alignment between the three quality perspectives and whether educational quality is in fact achieved by current practices. Rather, conceptualising relations between quality and student mobility within the three quality perspectives has allowed for a complex account of how mobility is made sense of in relation to the educational aims of TE. As the study is situated against the current Norwegian policy discourse on quality, the analytical framework has proven valuable for unpacking how the seemingly straightforward concept of quality promoted by policymakers involves a range of challenges and complexities in the recontextualisation of it which takes place at the micro-level of HE institutions.

However, the heuristic nature of the analytical framework also poses limitations for distinguishing clearly between the different elements involved, and for unpacking other potentially relevant dimensions of educational quality. In particular, given the findings that the culture and traditions in TE (here analysed as part of the presage dimension) play a key role in interpreting the goals and purpose of the education, and thereby the role of mobility for quality, a relevant avenue for future research would be to employ analytical resources that could shed more light on this dimension. Thus, more focus on the unifying elements of a discipline and its educational ideology (Becher & Trowler, 2001) would be relevant for showing what happens when quality as a political/management concept meets educational practice and the structural conditions around it. Situating student mobility in relation to quality work and “the various kinds of organisational processes and practices that are undertaken under the quality label” (Elken & Stensaker, 2018, p. 190) may yield interesting analytical possibilities for unpacking the impact of disciplines on the issues studied in this article.

A key finding of the study is the prominence of personal and professional justifications for student mobility and, in particular, how they are reinforced by distinguishing them from academic or subject-related aspects of mobility. The challenges in conceptualising equivalent academic TE content often lead to a “pragmatic” justification of mobility as something which will, all other factors aside, contribute to the personal and professional development of the student. That is, a framing of student mobility as a pedagogical activity with generic benefits in terms of a transformative potential for all students (Nerlich, 2021). In the introduction, it was argued that TE is a deviant case for studying issues of student mobility and quality. On the one hand, the challenge of conceptualising the academic contribution of mobility may reflect that Norwegian internationalisation policy is framed by an academic discourse linking mobility to broader cooperation and research aims which may hold a less self-evident status in contexts of professional HE (Pedersen, 2021). In that sense, the nature of the ambiguous relationship between academic and professional aspects in TE contributes to crystallising some issues arising from the encounter between current policy ideas and practices of student mobility. Thus, current Norwegian policy discourse emphasises that academic quality and relevance should be the guiding principle for mobility and that generic outcomes are important but cannot alone serve as a justification for it (see for instance Meld. St. 7, 2020-2021). At the same time, professional programmes in HE are asked to display a less strict attitude towards what counts as a relevant mobility offer, and rather evaluate it against the generic competence achieved by going abroad (Meld. St. 7, 2020-2021, pp. 56–57). It is interesting to note how a (too) narrow interpretation of what constitutes educational quality from a domestic perspective is seemingly in the process of being replaced with a more broad and generic approach to what is considered relevant mobility in TE.

On the other hand, insights from other studies suggest that this may be a far more general issue cutting across HE, irrespective of the levels of mobility. For instance, Courtois argues that the massification of student mobility programmes has led to a devaluation of academic aspects and an over-emphasis on the social and professional value of going abroad, that is, generic outcomes (Courtois, 2018). Indeed, the indirect academic effects linked to increased self-confidence, maturity and study motivation facilitated by the stay abroad may be stronger than the direct academic effects, such as improved knowledge base, acquiring relevant skills etc., and therefore also likely more tangible to describe (Cardwell, 2019). The challenges and risks identified in this article concerning how student mobility is at risk of becoming somewhat detached from the study programme and end up being perceived and promoted as mainly a kind of “educational tourism” (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010), are arguably relevant beyond TE. As such, more contextualised perspectives on the micro-level effects of the largely taken-for-granted policy assumptions about the quality-enhancing effects of mobility and their recontextualisation in practice are important for aligning current policy expectations and practices in realistic and feasible ways.

Arguably, the findings of this study illustrate the malleability of using the quality concept as something which can be used as a “solution to all problems” in policymaking (Pechmann & Haase, 2021). While it is neither desirable nor possible for policymakers to operationalise what educational quality is, the findings of this study are in line with those of other researchers who have raised critical questions about what (collective benefits) we can realistically expect from individual mobility experiences (Cairns & França, 2021; Frølich et al., 2016; Papatsiba, 2006; Pedersen, 2022). Though the envisioned outcomes of mobility may be strong, the preconditions and processes underlying them are complex. Hence, the article provides a call for all actors involved in the work with student mobility in TE and beyond to contribute to a critical discussion about current policies and practices, and what we can (hope to) achieve by sending our students abroad instead of (unintentionally) reinforcing a taken-for-granted view on mobility as automatically implying quality.

Concluding remarks

The article points to a range of connections and tensions between quality perspectives which underlie the planning, learning process and envisioned outcomes associated with mobility. On the one hand, quality is predominantly understood in relation to envisioned personal and professional outcomes, but at the same time constrained by ambiguities in terms of which learning process is perceived to underlie such outcomes, as well as the (practical) possibilities for supporting both the process and outcomes. The study reveals an immanent risk of student mobility losing its educational value as an effect of uncritical assumptions in both policies and practices about automaticity in what we can expect from it as a learning experience. The article contributes with much-needed empirical perspectives on a largely taken-for-granted policy issue and points to the need for conscious reflection among practitioners and policymakers alike about for which purposes and under what conditions student mobility may contribute to (different kinds of) quality.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all participants for sharing their views with me, and my supervisors and colleagues, as well as the anonymous reviewers, for constructive feedback and comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Norges Forskningsråd [grant number 283545].

Notes

1 It was recently decided to introduce student fees for incoming non-EU citizens to Norway from 2023. This reflects a stronger orientation towards financial rationales. However, as this concerns incoming student mobility, it is beyond the focus and scope of this paper to discuss further.