PhD Research Proposal

2019

Title: The effectiveness of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) in higher

education

PhD Researcher: Simone Hackett

Supervisors: Dr. Jan van Tartwijk & Dr. Jeroen Janssen
Department Education and Pedagogy
Faculty Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University

Global Learning Lectorate, The Hague University of Applied Science The Netherlands
Lector: Dr. Jos Beelen
September 2020 – 2024/5

Abstract
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), an inclusive way of internationalising the curriculum which is becoming a popular
approach used by educators to help students develop intercultural competencies. However, there is relatively little empirical
evidence on the use or effectiveness of COIL. Given this, this project proposes four studies: 1. define COIL and determine its teaching
and learning characteristics 2. examine the effectiveness of the approach in developing intercultural competencies 3. explore how
students learn through COIL and 4. explore the factors that influence the use of COIL at institutes of higher education in the
Netherlands.

Key words
Internationalisation; Online Learning; Virtual Exchange; Collaborative Learning; intercultural competencies

Introduction and research questions

Internationalisation of education is high on the agenda of The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands. As
outlined in the Dutch government’s vision on the international dimension of higher education, the goal is to ensure that all students
in the Netherlands have obtained intercultural competencies upon graduation (OCW, 2014, 2018). Intercultural competence (IC)
can be defined as the “ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural
knowledge, skills and attitudes" (Deardorff 2006, p. 247).

Given this ambition, many Dutch Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) have developed internationalisation strategies which include
practices to help students develop IC. Most HEIs internationalise the curriculum through mobility, i.e. offering students the
opportunity to study abroad at an international partner university or an international internship abroad during their studies.
However, this traditional approach does not support inclusive education as due to personal or financial reasons, only 10% of
graduates within most European countries have had an international experience abroad (Teichler, 2017). Recent figures by Statistics
Netherlands show that, on average, only 22% of students in Dutch higher education go abroad (CBS, 2018). In Dutch-taught
programmes, the percentage of students going on abroad is probably much lower as the aforementioned percentage is mainly due
to students in English-taught programmes. Given this, HEIs cannot rely on physical mobility alone to give all students an
international experience and ensure students develop IC.

With this realisation, HEIs have started exploring alternative strategies to ensure that all students have access to an international
experience through which they can obtain IC. These strategies fall under the term “Internationalisation at Home” (Beelen & Jones,
2015). One of these strategies, which is recently gaining increased popularity within the Netherlands and Europe, is Collaborative
Online International Learning (COIL, cf. SUNY COIL, 2019).

COIL is a shared-syllabus teaching approach, whereby students are given an assignment which they must complete by collaborating
online with international students of the course of several months. It adds an international dimension to regular face-to face classes

June 2020
and can be applied to any discipline. The focus is on collaborative (online) learning which is a keystone to developing IC (Guth &
Rubin, 2015).

COIL falls under the social-constructivist educational approach of Collaborative Learning (defined as a joint intellectual pursuit of a
common goal, cf. Janssen, 2014; Dillenbourg 1999). The term “COIL” falls under the umbrella term “virtual exchange” which has
been defined as “technology-enabled, sustained, people to people education programs” (Exchange 2.0 coalition, 2017, para. 1).
Earlier use of virtual exchange has focused on language proficiency but has since become a popular teaching and learning tool
across various educational disciplines and in this context has been commonly named as COIL.

Since 2013, COIL has received widespread interest in Europe, particularly within the Netherlands. Utrecht University of Applied
Sciences and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences started with COIL in 2014 (COIL Consulting 2017). Maastricht University,
HAN, VU, HANZE have followed. With this growing interest in COIL, The Hague University of Applied Sciences hosted the first
European COIL conference in 2016 (H|News, 2016). However, despite its popularity, very little research is done on the
effectiveness of COIL or on the learning process for developing students’ intercultural competencies and none has been carried
out within the Netherlands.

Therefore, the main research question of this project is: Is COIL effective in developing intercultural competencies? Additionally,
this research will consider how students learn through COIL and what factors influence the effectiveness of COIL courses. In
conducting this research, I hope to contribute to the ongoing research on COIL by providing educators with additional grounding
for further implementation and better practice of COIL. This study aims to do this by answering the following research questions:

1. What defines Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)? (What is it?)

2. Is COIL effective in helping students develop intercultural competencies? (Does it work?)
3. How do students develop intercultural competence through the COIL process? (How does it work?)
4. What factors influence the development of intercultural competence through COIL? (What influences it working?)

Potential contribution of the research to science

1. Defining COIL
There is a need for a clear definition on what COIL is and what it entails. There are many terms used to describe international virtual
exchange activity (O’Dowd, 2018). However, with so many terms circulating, ambiguity and confusion has arisen for educators who
are not familiar with the field and this can result in terms and approaches being misunderstood. This is reason for concern as the
student experience and learning outcomes of the various approaches differ while sometimes branded as the same activity.
Considering this, there is a need for clarification on the characteristics specifically of COIL. So far, there has been no research-based
definition of the term. This study offers to provide one.

2. Effectiveness of COIL
Although it is assumed that COIL is beneficial in intercultural competence (IC) development, there is a lack of empirical evidence
on the effectiveness of the approach. Literature can be found on development of IC through Collaborative Learning within the
physical classroom in the Netherlands (e.g., De Hei et al., 2019) but not on COIL. The literature that is available on COIL consists
mostly of case studies and descriptions of best practices (COIL Consulting 2017; Guth 2014). Research Studies that have been carried
out on COIL (Esche, 2018; Marcillo-Gómez, 2016; Kayumova, & Sadykova, 2016) are exploratory, small scale and have failed to
clearly measure whether students’ IC is developed or increased. In addition, most studies have been done in Anglo-Saxon/English
speaking countries and none in the Netherlands. The fact that the effectiveness of COIL is not confirmed through research is
dangerous as students might miss out on developing skills needed to succeed in their professional careers.

3. How do students learn through COIL?

By participating in a COIL course, it is assumed that students engage in a process of learning which is constructed through social
(online) interactions. However, research has scarcely addressed what happens during these collaborative learning processes
students engage in during COIL-based assignments. This project aims to study these processes, as they have been shown to predict
student learning in other collaborative learning scenarios (De Hei et al., 2019, Lou et al., 2001). As a result, this project will
contribute to our theoretical and empirical understanding about how COIL can be effective.

4. Influencing factors

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There is a lack of knowledge about the factors that influence the development of IC in a COIL setting. Research has shown that
several factors affect the success of a course and influence the intercultural development of students, e.g. students’ language
proficiency and culture (De Hei & Tabacaru, 2019; Martin & Meares, 2015; Brake 2015), computer literacy (Dodd, 2001; Brake,
2015), technological inhibitors (Kramsch & Malinowski, 2014); the role and activities of the instructor (De Hei & Tabacaru, 2017).
All of the abovementioned studies are based on either collaborative courses in the physical classroom (not online) or on
collaborative online courses aimed at language proficiency. There is very little research done on whether these factors also affect
the development of intercultural competencies through COIL courses across diverse educational disciplines. This study aims to
fill this gap by exploring these factors.

Potential contribution of the research to society

1. Inclusive Education
Not all students within the Netherlands have access to an international experience. De Wit and Leask (2019) have highlighted that
the current approaches to internationalisation have created new forms of inequality. Ruiz-Corbella and Alvarex-Gonzalez (2014)
stress there is a need for alternatives to help students develop IC to promote equal opportunities for all students. COIL, if proven
to be effective, can offer this alternative.

2. Travel Restrictions
According to Shields’ study (2019) on Greenhouse Gas emissions associated with international student mobility, the gasses
produced from mobility are equivalent to the total emissions released by countries such as Latvia or Tunisia. Considering this, it is
not unthinkable that in the not so far future study abroad will be capped by either CO2-restrictions of universities, or price-increases
of flying due to carbon taxes. In addition, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, many travel restrictions are currently in
place. According to ESN, 25% of student mobility has been cancelled (ESN 2020) with some universities cancelling all mobility for
the foreseeable future. Given these restrictions and developments, universities have been forced to look for alternatives at home
to help their students develop IC. If COIL is proven to be effective in the development of IC, it could offer an alternative way to
develop IC at home instead of travelling abroad to acquire it.

3. Policy to practice
Even though there is a growing increase of virtual exchange projects within Dutch HEIs, this is not reflected in internationalisation
institutional plans or in their strategic priorities (Rubin 2016; Van Gaalen & Gielesen, 2014). If this research can prove COIL’s
effectiveness and can provide additional grounding for further implementation and better practice, HEIs will be more inclined to
include COIL in institutional policies and practices.

Research design, research approach and methodology

To generate a comprehensive picture of COIL, a mixed methods approach was taken when designing this research. In this section,
four studies, which answer the proposed research questions are described.

Study 1
Part A
Question: What defines Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)?
Method: A systematic literature review will be conducted
Analysis: Published studies and articles which contain descriptions of COIL will be analysed. Characteristics and findings of the
results will be analysed systematically using qualitative synthesis (Van Wesel et al., 2012) to form a definition of COIL and its
teaching and learning characteristics.

Part B:
Goal: To get an overview of COIL activities within the Netherlands and compare these activities to what COIL should be (Part A of
this study)
Sample: COIL Coordinators and educators working with COIL at Dutch HEIs.
Method: At least 12 semi-structured interviews will be conducted, or as many as necessary to reach saturation of the data.
Questions will be based on the COIL practices which will be found through the literature study (Part A).
Analysis: Educators’ statements will be analysed qualitatively and compared to the definition and characteristics that have been
found in Part A of this study.

Study 2
Question: Is COIL effective in helping students develop Intercultural Competencies (IC)?
Hypothesis: students will further develop IC by doing a COIL assignment.
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Sample: 250 (4-5 classes of 25-30 students) students from a Dutch HEI. The group of students will be split into 1. an experimental
group and 2. a control group. Each group will be randomly assigned.
Learning environment: Both groups will follow the same course i.e. project class. Both the experimental group will be assigned a
COIL assignment to complete and the control group will be assigned a regular assignment. They will work on this assignment
together for a duration of 10 weeks. This is the standard duration of a COIL course.
Methods: Pre and post course survey and focus groups
Instruments: an Intercultural Readiness Check (IRC) pre and post course survey will be used to assess IC. The IRC consists of various
dimensions to test IC which are also included in Deardorff’s Process Model of Intercultural Competence (Deardorff, 2006, 2009).
Interview questions within focus groups.
Analysis: Surveys: Multilevel analysis will be used to determine differences between the experimental and control group in relation
to students’ IC and to take the hierarchically nested data structure into account (students nested within collaborating teams). Focus
groups: content and thematic analysis will be used to analyse the data.

Study 3
Question: How do students develop IC through the COIL process?
Sample: 90 students (three groups of approx. 30 students) following COIL courses at Dutch HEIs
Methods and instruments:
1. to assess students’ attitudes toward online collaborative learning, a pre and post course questionnaire (Thompson & Ku,
2006) will be used.
2. to get insights on how students are perceiving COIL, in terms of the collaborative and intercultural aspect, focus groups
will be conducted.
3. to observe how students collaborate to complete the COIL assignment, recordings of the COIL video sessions will be
made.
4. to get an insight into students’ perceptions on the COIL process and their IC development, students will be asked to
write up weekly reflection reports on their experiences.

Analysis:
1. Surveys: statistically analysed in SPSS to see if there are differences in attitudes pre and post course.
2. Focus groups will be transcribed. Grounded theory analysis will be used to identify patterns regarding students’ IC
development through COIL.
3. Video recordings will be transcribed. Content analyses will be performed using Hathorn and Ingram’s (2002) approach
which measures participation, interdependence, synthesis, and independence in collaborative learning to determine the
degree of collaboration. A tool, based on the Behavioural Assessment Scale for Intercultural Communication (Ruben
1976) and Deardorff’s model of intercultural competence (2009), will be used to assess, through observation, the
students’ IC development.
4. Student reflections: Content analysis will be performed, and categories determined. Patterns will be identified to
determine how students develop IC-.

Study 4
Question: What factors influence the development of intercultural competence (IC) through COIL?
Sample: Students who have participated in COIL courses. Lecturers who have taught COIL courses (both at Dutch HEIs)
Method: This study builds on the previous studies. Lecturers and students who were involved in study 1, 2 and 3 will be interviewed
based on factors such as the role and activities of the instructor; language of instruction; language proficiency; course discipline;
the given assignment; the student group; affordances and inhibitors of technology.
Instrument: Focus group & semi-structured interviews.
Analysis: grounded theory analysis to identify patterns

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