Curricular (Abroad)

Internationalising the Student Learning Experience: Biomedical Engineering Student Project Collaboration Programme with Overseas Institution – Dr. Hin Chung Lau (HKPU)

Case Summary: Enhancing intercultural communication skills and building confidence in speaking out using a second cultural language are crucial for students’ interpersonal/ personal development as well as knowledge transfer among themselves in this inter-disciplinary subject. The project would provide opportunities to selected local students, who would take two credit-bearing core subjects and would be selected through the selection process, to participate in the overseas visit to Imperial College London. We expected that the overseas visit would enable students to comprehend the scope of R&D in healthcare products for international markets, nurture their generic competencies, provide opportunities to experience cultural differences, raise awareness of intercultural interaction and develop skills in cross-cultural interactions. Students who have yet been selected would also gain intercultural and transnational learning experience through the use of online interactive pedagogies or through a face-to-face discussion when students from Imperial College London come to visit HKPU towards the end of their projects. A student selection process will be conducted involving a 3-minute elevator pitch competition. Data collected from the process can serve as baseline data to study students’ perception of internationalisation in the subject.  An evaluation survey will be conducted using survey form to collect students’ feedback on the performance and usefulness of lectures and briefing session arranged, and a pre-assessment survey will be conducted during the briefing session to examine students’ non-local learning experience.  Activity evaluation survey will be conducted using survey form to collect students’ feedback on the performance and usefulness of activities (including project sharing sessions, overseas visit, project presentation session at HKPU) arranged; Focus group interviews will be arranged with participating HKPU students to gauge their views on the impact of this project with respect to internationalisation and student integration; and Pre- and post-assessment will be conducted and data will be analysed to examine any change of students’ intercultural competence using a validated approach adapted from Ang, S, Van Dyne, L., Koh, C., Ng, K.Y., Templer, K.J., Tay, C., & Chandrasekar, N.A. (2007). Cultural Intelligence: Its Measurement and Effects on Cultural Judgment and Decision Making, Cultural Adaptation and Task Performance. Journal of Management and Organization Review, 3(3), pp.335-371. DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-8784.2007.00082.x. The key impact of the programme is to encourage students to pay more attention to ergonomics, cultural factors in different countries, and their effects on patient experience.