Through the use of the Program for International Student Assessment's (PISA) Global Competence results, the Economic Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Democracy Index ratings, and centralization-decentralization spectrum rubrics, this dissertation shows the association between level of democracy and education system, and the association of these variables…

The current study attempts to investigate the potential benefit of using a custom-designed virtual reality experience to reduce the social distance between the students and the speakers of the target language. This virtual reality experience provides opportunities for students to acclimate to the Spanish culture and at the same time practice and…

Innovation has taken place in education as a necessity to respond to a rapidly changing world. In their commitment to contribute to the creative and healing mission of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit School Network of Catalonia created HORIZON 2020 to envision a new school to effectively educate in the 21st Century and adapt the Ignatian…

This study examined the experiences of faculty members from U.S. universities who led students on a short-term summer study abroad program that incorporated the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route in Spain. The study sought to understand how faculty leaders engaged in sensemaking (Weick, 1995) of these experiences in the context of…

This naturalistic inquiry case study examined the experiences of five college men participating in a two-week, summer study abroad course administered by a Midwestern, public land-grant university. The short-term program model is popular with students and universities in the United States as an affordable and convenient way to increase the number…

Many scholars have researched reading-to-writing relations, some of which found reading to be an effective enhancer of writing (Al-Jarf, 2004; Asencior, 2006; Lee, 1986a; Lee & Riley, 1990; Perez-Sotelo & Gonzalez-Bueno, 2003; Shang, 2007). Similar beginner college student samples were used previously by Asencior (2006), Perez-Sotelo and…

Concerns about bilingual and multilingual programs have been an issue all over the world. Efforts to improve the educational achievement of students from different language backgrounds have created educational settings where teachers are now teaching in a language that is not their own. In the 20th century, many groups have expressed their rights…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how short-term study abroad programs transform college students' perspectives. The study examined attitudes about host country and international outlook, as well as intellectual, social and personal understandings. Short-term programs were defined as programs of less than a semester or a…

It is generally believed that study abroad (SA) is the most efficient and successful way to acquire proficiency in a second language (L2). SA is a crucial component of students' second language acquisition (SLA) process, for it puts them in situations in which they can use the language on a daily basis and interact with native speakers. More than…

The design and validation of a classroom observation instrument to provide formative feedback for teachers of EFL in Spain is the overarching purpose of this study. This study proposes that a valid and reliable classroom observation instrument, based on effective practice in teaching EFL, can be developed and used in Spain to enable teachers to…