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Our PhD team

Weiwei Li
Weiwei Li

Weiwei Li

“We need diversity if we are to change, grow, and innovate”

Weiwei’s PhD research is about what happens when international students are introduced into a small learning group in higher education. Specifically, whether all students are satisfied or become smarter (e.g., social identity development, critical thinking, cross-national collaboration skills) in nationally diverse groups? If not, understanding the factors that influence teamwork processes and quality has implications for theorizing diverse group behaviours as well as for institutions seeking to improve international collaboration and associated learning outcomes.

Elok Malay
Elok Malay

Elok Malay

Elok’s project aims to understand the role of cultural distance and cultural intelligence on international students' adjustment using several empirical studies. The project proposes and tests the moderation model of CQ in the relationship between perceived cultural distance (PCD) and international students' psychological, sociocultural, and academic adjustment.

Rachael Merola
Rachael Merola

Rachael Merola

Rachael’s dissertation investigates factors that shape the student experience. One avenue of this research explores differences in satisfaction among international students, identifying predictor variables. The other avenue looks specifically at the academic experience offered by transnational education, particularly international branch campuses. Her studies draw on both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and her research has been published in academic journals and presented at academic conferences. LinkedIn

Grada Okken
Grada Okken

Grada Okken

Grada is a practitioner-researcher who is passionate about international and intercultural aspects of education. She seeks to explore the concept of diversity in the context of education and investigates how this is viewed and responded to by educators. She aims to link perceived long-term outcomes of study abroad as a transformative learning experience to elements of diversity competent teaching.

Ingrid Pleschberger
Ingrid Pleschberger

Ingrid Pleschberger

Ingrid’s project addresses the gap between reflection and development of intercultural competence (ICC) by discussing concepts of reflection and their constitutional elements. In Ingrid’s research she presents prominent ICC models and discuss how they explicitly and implicitly relate to reflection. Based on these insights, she introduces reflection about intercultural experiences (RIE) as an integral component of ICC and its development. Practical implications of RIE in higher education are investigated with empirical methods. This includes the development of an interview and analysis guideline to assess RIE and the comparison of RIE results with established ICC assessment instruments.

Nico Evers
Nico Evers

Nico Evers

Studies about global citizenship education and global learning outcomes assessment in study-abroad vary a lot in sample size, methods, scope, and have methodological shortcomings. Reviewing the literature, it becomes clear that – despite the variety and the methodological shortcomings - there is general evidence for a positive impact of study-abroad – even short-term - on global learning outcomes, such as global citizenship development. However, it is still largely unclear how this impact is achieved. This study will investigate the factors in design, implementation and assessment that enable or impede global learning for global citizenship development through study-abroad, specifically looking at the programming of faculty-led short-term study-abroad programs.

Marloes Ambagts
Marloes Ambagts

Marloes Ambagts

What do lecturers need to support and leverage their students’ cultural diversity in inclusive, purposeful international classrooms? What does this mean in the context of urban universities of applied sciences, accommodating a culturally diverse domestic student population - and in the light of the rapid transitions in higher education, spurred on by the COVID pandemic? In her PhD project, Marloes explores the competences lecturers need to capitalize on their students’ cultural diversity in international classrooms within Dutch, urban universities of applied sciences. In a consecutive exploratory qualitative study, mixed method case study and comparative action research, she will identify a lecturer competence profile and revisit and adjust it, incorporating lecturers’ and students’ perspectives.

Pouned Eftekhari
Pouned Eftekhari

Pouneh Eftekhari

Pouneh’s research aims to understand the impact of disciplinary affiliation on the internationalization of teaching and learning by exploring how academics from different disciplines conceptualize internationalization, how they judge its relevance to their discipline and which strategies are used to internationalize the curriculum. The outcomes of Pouneh’s research will benefit university leaders in better understanding why internationalization efforts may vary across their organization. The findings will also be of interest to education developers and international educators as they collaborate with academics influenced by different disciplinary cultures.

Kelly Henao
Kelly Henao

Kelly Henao

The lack of resources and programs to stimulate mobility flows as well as the absence of environments enriched by significant numbers of international students and scholars challenge Latin American HEI to innovate and re-create environments that offer global learning opportunities to students at home. Recent developments in teaching and learning seem to have that potentiality. By studying a broad sample of teaching and learning practices in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, this research is addressing the question: How emerging teaching practices enhance student’s global learning in Latin America.

Iris van Werven
Iris van Werven

Iris van Werven

The research of Iris focuses on global teaching competencies for primary education and the development thereof. Research methods include a Delphi study with experienced teachers and teacher educators, a curriculum analysis of several teacher education programmes who aim to develop these teaching competencies and a cross-sectional study of the student teachers in exemplary programmes.

Franka van den Hende
Franka van den Hende

Franka van den Hende

Franka’s research is about the perceptions and experiences of academic staff with internationalization in four bachelor programs. With a resource-based change perspective, she investigates how tensions with curriculum internationalization can be explained through the management of human resources into processes of change. Her research involves a comparative case study with a literature review, 30 in-depth interviews and documents over a period from 2010 until now.

Saskia Jensen
Saskia Jensen

Saskia Jensen

Saskia's research explores migration patterns and trajectories in higher education, mainly focussing on China and the UK. The research seeks to provide a greater understanding of students’ motivations to move, their expectations, and experience abroad; and to identify determinants of their mobility in the light of altering circumstances in central and local government, and in HEIs strategic plans for internationalisation.

Herb Terry
Herb Terry

Herb Terry

Herb's research explores the social and cultural capitals gained through higher education abroad by the beneficiaries of publicly funded scholarships as well as the transferability and uses of these capitals upon return to their home country. His project, centred on the Ecuadorian case, seeks to illuminate the possible social returns on this national investment and under which conditions more transformative outcomes might be encouraged.

Last modified:26 May 2021 11.18 a.m.