Abstract
Meaningful interactions between students and host country nationals are integral to the study abroad experience. However, students face challenges that impede or hinder these interactions, such as the dynamics with their co-national groups, language barriers, and cultural barriers. Pre-departure training mitigates these challenges through various approaches, but interventions usually lack a comprehensive theoretical framework that focuses on intercultural interactions. Cultural intelligence specifically focuses on an individual’s effectiveness in intercultural interactions, serving as an applicable framework for structuring pre-departure training. By focusing on the metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral capacities that constitute cultural intelligence, students can be better prepared for intercultural interactions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of pre-departure training on students’ ability to interact with host country nationals during study abroad programs. Understanding students’ perceptions of how pre-departure training helped them interact abroad is necessary to assess the effectiveness of pre-departure interventions currently used. By better understanding how pre-departure training does, or does not, prepare students for interactions with host country nationals, institutions can implement specific interventions that meet students’ needs, improving the study abroad experience. The study utilized a quantitative research design to conduct research on students who previously participated in a study abroad program offered by a public, four-year university in Northern California within the last 10 years. An online survey was created by the researcher and distributed to 514 students. There were 145 respondents who participated in the survey, resulting in a 28.21% response rate. The research study concluded that current pre-departure training used by the study site addressed the four factors described by the cultural intelligence framework, suggesting that preparation improved students’ ability to interact with host country nationals. However, some sub-dimensions of the four factors were not addressed. Students reported that the most helpful features that would help them interact with host country nationals are the presence of, or communication with, previous study abroad participants or host country nationals as well as activities that would promote bonding between the co-national peers before departure. This correlates with the challenges that students experienced abroad, such as spending more time getting to know co-national peers rather than interacting with host country nationals. Activities that focus on self-efficacy, country-specific information, metacognitive strategies, and verbal and non-verbal communication strategies are recommended for future training. Future studies should use a control group and administer the Cultural Intelligence Scale before training, after training, and after students return from their study abroad programs.