First Draft Research Proposal!

If you've been following along in my Ph.D. journey, you might remember that in my post from July 2021, I shared a short, 300-word document outlining my very initial research idea. If that doesn't ring a bell, don't worry - I had to go looking for it.

Anyway, I'm now ready in the phase of the program where I need to present a semi-solid (like Jell-O) idea of the who, what, where, why, how, etc of my research. The deadline to submit my Jell-O draft is in about a week. But, I like to share as much as I can about the process with you all. So, I'm going to share it here for anyone interested in reading a yet-to-be-torn-apart-by-the-academic-board Jell-O draft of a doctoral research proposal in internationalization of higher education.

Here's a quick blurb from the introduction.
The link to the full proposal is at the bottom, just above our good friend Bart.

While COIL may initially seem to be a way for institutions to broaden their program portfolio and provide global opportunities to wider swathes of their students, a clear gap exists in the understanding of what contributes to a successful or failed COIL program.  In the recently published book The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange, Rubin tellingly notes that:

“Because COIL program development is still relatively recent and has largely occurred with institutions inventing infrastructure and professional development methods as they become necessary to each institution, there is, at least as of this writing, no single, clear path to programmatic success.” (Rubin, 2022, pp. 70)

Despite the lack of substantive scholarly work done on the model and absence of accepted best practices, numerous high-profile training programs have popped up for would-be COIL facilitators. Perhaps drawn in by claims of COIL’s built-in equity and accessibility or simply responding to the perceived need for mobility-free global learning, institutions and individuals are spending as much as $1,800 U.S. dollars per head to receive training in facilitating COIL programs (Florida International University, 2022). This has largely been a net positive in terms of growing development of more COIL programs, but these training courses are primarily informed by institutions’ own programmatic histories and using the successful programs as case studies for training participants. For COIL to truly become an impactful aspect of internationalization of higher education, this natural selection-inspired mode of training must give way to best practice informed by research.

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Communications, F. I. U.-D. (2022). COIL Virtual Exchange Leadership Institute: January 17- February 21, 2023. Global.fiu.edu. Retrieved January 21, 2023, from https://global.fiu.edu/coil/matching-training/virtual-exchange-leadership-institute/index.html
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Rubin, J., & Guth, Sarah. (2022). The Guide to COIL Virtual Exchange. Stylus.

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draft__full_research_proposal__1_.pdf
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As you can see, things have progressed FAR beyond where I was conceptually 18 months ago. Thankfully, there have been a bunch of great papers and studies on COIL/virtual exchange in that intervening period, and I've got much better at reading scholarly work. Thank goodness for reference managers.

Zotero is the one I use, by the way.

That's all for now! I'm heading to Europe for a few weeks of partner visits, so there won't be another post in that time. The next big things ahead of me are (1) the MAIE conference in mid-March, where I'm presenting two sessions on COIL (one is a half-day practitioner workshop!), and (2) the March CHEI Seminar in Brescia, where I will present on this Jell-O draft. Lots to do, still more to read.

Cheers!