山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

論文
論文

What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An
Exploratory Study
Stephen M. Ryan1)

Keywords: Study Abroad, Culture, Learning
What do students learn when they study abroad? A trite answer would be“whatever courses they sign up for at the host institution” but that really misses thewhole point of being abroad. Students go abroad, driven by the human predilection for
novelty, precisely because “abroad” is not like “here.” They may be forced by homecampus curricular constraints to study “there” pretty much what they would havestudied “here” but the main experience they sign up for is the difference inherent in being“there.”
The answer, then, lies not in the formal, classroom-based learning governed bycurriculum, syllabus and credit-transfer agreements, but in informal, experiential
learning, which could also happen in a classroom, or in a train station, a supermarket,
or anywhere where the difference of “there” can be observed, noted and reflected upon.
A university course conducted abroad which does not require any classroom-based study
but gives students time to watch and think affords an opportunity to investigate whatkind of informal learning occurs. Such an investigation, motivated by a desire to firstunderstand and then enhance learning abroad, forms the core of this paper.
Background to the Study
The value in a Study Abroad programme, for students, is assumed to be that bybeing in a different place, a place where things are done differently, they will learnsomething. Exactly what they are expected to learn and how they are expected to learn
it will depend on the particular paradigm which informs the design of the programme.
Vande Berg, Paige, and Lou (2012a) and Bennett (2012) identify three paradigms,
or “master narratives” (Vande Berg et al., 2012a), underlying the design of Study Abroad
programmes: A positivist, or Newtownian, paradigm posits that there is an external and objective
world which can be experienced through the physical senses, usually by observation.
Part of this objective reality is a “foreign culture” of which students studying
overseas can experience significant elements simply by being in the foreign culturalenvironment. Typical of programmes based on this paradigm would be thenineteenth century European Grand Tour (Vande Berg, 2004) in which participants
travelled to foreign countries to acquire knowledge by visiting famous landmarks
and attending university lectures given by revered scholars.
 A relativist, or Einsteinian, paradigm abandons the idea of an objective reality in



山陽学園大学総合人間学部言語文化学科

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Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory Study

favour of relativistic experience. People can experience and make sense of the world
only in terms of their frame of reference. Encounters with people whose frames ofreference are significantly different from their own enables participants to expand
their worldview and grow. Ideally, they will come to recognize not only how others’
perspectives differ from their own but also the commonalities between people whichconstitute a shared humanity. To facilitate such learning, Study Abroad programmes
drawing on this paradigm insist on the relativity of experience (“It’s not bad or good,it’s just different,” Bennett, 2012, p. 98) and provide as many opportunities as
possible for immersion in the daily life of the country being visited.
 The constructivist, or Quantum, paradigm insists that the only reality is that which
a person creates through interaction with his/her environment. The change inenvironment occasioned by travelling to another country, then, is only one of theelements involved in cultural learning. Equally important is what a learner brings
to the experience: habitual ways of seeing and knowing, resulting both from genetic
factors and from previous experience (Wexler, 2006). It is the interaction of these
two main elements that produces, for each student, a unique series of learning
experiences. Study Abroad programmes based on this paradigm usually involve
extensive pre-departure priming of students to become aware of what they arebringing to the experience, together with substantial “support” while the students
are abroad and, ideally, after they return home, to help them to consolidate andintegrate their learning.
The expectations for student learning created by each of these paradigms are clear.
A programme based on the positivist paradigm should give students declarativeknowledge about the target country, its famous people, high cultural achievements,
political system, etc. A relativist paradigm seeks to expand participants’ worldview sothat it comes to include, minimally, the perspectives of the country visited, maximally,
an appreciation of how ways of living and interacting might vary from place to place.
Ideally, participants in such a programme will come to see the foreign country not as a“target” country but as a “sample” country (Greenall, 2003), an example of how
worldviews might vary. The third, constructivist, paradigm targets participants’personal growth: their awareness of how they make sense of the world, interact withothers, deal with difference, etc. and of their ability to respond appropriately to others.
Each paradigm also implies its own learning modality. Under a positivist paradigm,
learning occurs through observation. The relativist paradigm privileges experiential
learning: learning followed by a period of reflection and adjustment (Kolb, 1984). The
constructivist paradigm sees personal growth both as the means and the outcome oflearning. Harvey (1979) presents an empirically-based four-stage model of how learning
during Study Abroad occurs: the “tourist” stage, in which participants are both charmed
and fascinated by their new environment, is followed by the “deviance” stage, when allthat is new in the changed environment appears grotesquely deviant. Then comes the“intellectualization” stage in which participants seek explanations for the differences
they are experiencing. Finally, comes “assimilation,” when the participants begin to feel
comfortable, though no longer euphoric, about living in the new environment.

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山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

Importantly, Bennett (2012) adds the caveat that Study Abroad programmes seemto be particularly susceptible to “paradigm confusion”: drawing means from one
paradigm in the expectation of achieving ends from another paradigm. By doing so, hewarns, we are setting up our students for confusion and failure. This mixing ofparadigms makes general statements about learning outcomes from Study Abroad
programmes difficult to make with any certainty that they will apply to more than one
programme. As a result, the researcher interested in learning outcomes is obliged tointerrogate programmes one by one. This paper presents one such interrogation.
The Programme
The programme is run for humanities students at a small, co-educational, fouryear university in Western Japan. All participants were enrolled, as a supplement totheir B.A. studies, in a series of fifteen courses leading to a certificate in Teaching
Japanese as a Second (or Foreign) Language, issued by the university (履修, 2017, pp.
67-68). The final course they take in the series is a practicum in Teaching Japanese.
Students may choose to take their practicum in Japan or overseas. To facilitate the latter
option, the university organizes chaperoned trips to sister schools overseas and provides
a financial subsidy to those who take part in these overseas trips (履修, 2017, p. 68).
As an optional, credit-bearing, part of the Japanese Teaching certificate
programme, students doing their practicum overseas may also participate in a course
called Intercultural Understanding Practice A (履修, 2017, p. 68). Though there are noformal lessons for this course, participants are required to: study the history culture andsystems of the country they will visit, before going there; participate in tours of historicbuildings, school and/or campus visits, international exchange events, activities
involving local people and exchanges with students from the sister school, while in the
country; and produce a written report on their encounter with the host country, after
returning home ( 授業概要, 2017, p. 91). Most Japanese Teaching practicum students
choose to enroll for this course as well as the practicum. Effectively, it is a way for themto earn credit for the parts of their overseas experience which are not related to theteaching and learning of Japanese.
In school year 2015, there were two overseas trips organized by the university forstudents choosing to fulfill the requirements of their Japanese Teaching practicum
outside Japan (日本語教員養成プログラム, 2016). The trip to South Korea lasted ninedays and involved: opportunities to teach and/or observe lessons and interact withstudents in a junior high school, a high school and two universities; visits to akindergarten and a Japanese Culture Centre and two days of sightseeing at places ofhistoric interest, one of which included interaction with local university students. Eightstudents participated in this trip, of whom seven submitted reports for Intercultural
Understanding Practice A. The trip to Poland lasted twelve days (eight days in-country)
and involved: opportunities to teach and/or observe lessons and interact with students
in a university, two days of sightseeing and interaction with local students in two
different cities, and a further day of pure sightseeing. Five students took part and allenrolled in and submitted reports for Intercultural Understanding Practice A.
In school year 2016, there were also two trips: one to Australia and the other to- 37 -

Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory StudySouth Korea (日本語教員養成プログラム, 2017). Four students took part in the twelveday (ten days in-country) Australia trip, all submitting Intercultural Understanding A
reports. They taught and observed lessons and interacted with students at a university
and a high school, had a brief homestay, participated in a campus tour at one university
and an intercultural exchange activity at another, visited a Japanese Culture Centre andhad a day and a half of sightseeing in two different cities. The South Korea trip lasted
for nine days and had ten participants, all of whom submitted Intercultural
Understanding reports. They observed and taught lessons as well as interacting withstudents out of class at one junior high school and two universities, visited another juniorhigh school and a Japanese Culture Centre and spent two days sightseeing.
Most of the students taking part in the four study trips were Japanese students on
their first trip overseas. However, there were some exceptions. Two participants in the2015 trip to Korea had been there before: one (#1) was visiting for the third time, hadrelatives there and was a Chinese national of Korean descent, the other (#3) had
previously studied there for three weeks. A third (#4) was a Chinese student visiting
Korea for the first time. On the 2016 Korea trip, one student (#20) had previously lived
in Korea for “a long time” and another (#21) had made an earlier four-week trip there.
It is the post-experience reports written by participants in Intercultural
Understanding Practice A in school years 2015 and 2016 that form the focus for the
analysis in this paper. Although all the reports are available from published sources (日本語教員養成プログラム, 2016, 2017) which also included the students’ names, in orderto protect the anonymity of the participants, names will not be used in this paper. Instead,the students are referred to by a coding number (see Table 1).
Instructions to students about the reports they were to submit were given in two
different documents as follows:
Submit an Intercultural Experience Report of 2,000 characters or more (日本語教員養成プログラム, 2017, p. 8)
A report on your experience in the country where you did your practicum(including the results of your readings in preparation for the visit) (授業概要, 2017, p. 91)
Students were also told that the report will count for 50% of their grade for the course,
the rest of the grade being based on the extent of their participation in activities incountry (授業概要, 2017, p. 91).
Rationale for Studying this Programme
The programme, then, presents unusual opportunities for the investigation oflearning outcomes as:a) It is not a language study programme, unlike many operated by Japanese
universities. This frees both the participants and the researcher of the need tofocus on language learning and allows a clearer view of other things they might
be learning.
b) It does not involve taking lessons in the host county. Although participants dospend time both observing and teaching Japanese language lessons at the hostinstitution(s) as part of their Japanese Teaching practicum, they are not present- 38 -

山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

in the classroom as students: rather, their time in the classroom and interactions
with host-country students before and after lessons are treated by theIntercultural Understanding course as experiences from which to learn about thehost culture. This focus on learning from the experience of being in the hostmilieu affords an opportunity to analyse learning outcomes that arise fromimmersion, rather than instruction, in the host culture and language.
c) Overt instruction and preparation for the programme focus mainly on theJapanese teaching practicum rather than on intercultural learning opportunities
it presents (日本語教員養成プログラム, 2017, pp. 5-8). In general, thorough predeparture orientation to notions of intercultural understanding is considered to
be a vital element in the success of Study Abroad programmes (Vande Berg, Paige,& Lou, 2012b). However, in this case the paucity of such preparation reduces thepossibility that participants will be primed to report on the kind of learning they
think the assessor of their reports is looking for, and strengthens the assumptionthat their reports represent unprompted reflection on what they have learnt.
d) The instructions for writing the reports are couched in the broadest possible
terms. Apart from the general title of “Intercultural Experience Report” they are
not prompted to focus on anything in particular. This should encourage
participants to write about whatever is most salient in their experience, insteadof beginning from a pre-conceived notion of what they should be writing about.
The Study
The study consisted of a close reading of the 26 reports submitted by students who
participated in the programme in 2015 and 2016. These reports have been published (日本語教員養成プログラム, 2016, 2017) and are therefore in the public domain.
Normally, a content analysis of documents produced by participants would require
triangulation of analyses by several independent readers in order to remove the bias
inherent in the subjective understanding of a single reader (Krippendorff & Bock, 2008).
However, as this is a preliminary, exploratory study, analysis by only one reader is used
here. Future studies will seek to verify understanding by reference to other readers.
The reports were first read through to provide general impressions and anunderstanding of students’ perspectives on what they had learnt. Closer attention wasthen paid to both explicit and implicit claims by participants about things they hadlearnt, which were categorized and tabulated. Categories were suggested naturally by
the contents of the reports themselves, with any student reflection which appeared tostraddle more than one category being coded for each of the relevant categories. Several
further readings of the reports were then conducted in order to improve reliability.
Although the reports were produced by participants in four different programmes
visiting three countries over two years, it was decided to regard them as forming a single
data set, rather than four, three or two separate ones. This is because the focus of thisinvestigation is not on what participants learnt about a particular country or at aparticular time, but on learning in Study Abroad contexts in general.

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Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory Study

Results

Overall Impression
The looseness of the instructions for compiling the reports, seen as an advantage
for this research project, appears to have presented a challenge for many of theparticipants: there was no consensus across the reports on what they should write about.
While some recounted a chronology of lessons taught, visits to museums andintercultural exchange events, others engaged in analysis of their own strengths andweaknesses as teachers in training. Most reports do contain observations of the host city,
country or university and reflections on those observations; some linking together aseries of observations on a single topic while others record reflections apparently at
random. A few show evidence of research into particular aspects of the host society (#17
– traditional clothes, #18 - food culture, #23 - manners) which goes beyond simple
observation and reflection, and appears to have been conducted post-experience.
In general, the reports follow the usual conventions of a kansobun (感想文 –sometimes called “reflection papers” in English), the only form of modern-day writing inJapanese that is explicitly taught and practiced in Japanese schools (Hirose & Sasaki,1994). In this genre, the writer records observations about an event (a movie, a lecture,a school trip) and then comments on it, using a very restricted vocabulary for thecommentary (Ross, 2002): よかった [“It was good.”], 面白かった [“It was interesting.”],
楽しかった [“It was fun.”], 勉強になりました [“I learnt something from it.”]. Large partsof many of the reports analysed here consist of chronologies of experiences interspersedwith one or more of these evaluative terms (with the addition of 美味しかった [“It wasdelicious.”], a reflection of the attention paid to food in the reports). While the use of
these stock terms fulfills the expectations of a kansobun, they do not necessarily reveal
the writer’s true feelings about an event, nor do they provide the kind of detail that would
be useful to this analysis. In many ways the use of these terms represents an avoidanceof reflection, or at least an avoidance of reporting on any reflection that has taken place.
From the overall tone of the reports, however, it is clear that, for all participants,
the Study Abroad experience was a positive one. Almost all of them go beyond the
expected 楽しかった [“It was fun.”] to say とても楽しかった [“It was great fun.”]. Only
one (#4) reported being homesick. Two (#18 and #21) said that their enjoyment of theexperience came as a surprise to them: they had not expected to enjoy it. Furthermore,almost all the participants said they would like to travel overseas again, most to re-visit
the country of their practicum but several also adding “and other countries.”
While all reports record observations about the country visited, some also makecomparisons with the home country (usually Japan, but in one case China). These
comparisons sometimes extend to participants’ viewing themselves, their abilities andattitudes in the light of people they meet overseas.
More Detailed Analysis
Table 1 gives an overview of the things that each participant commented on in thereports. Across the top is the code for each participant and information about where andwhen their programme took place. Down the left side is the code for each of the categories(see sub-headings below for a key to the coding). These are divided into two parts:- 40 -

山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

comments about the host environment; and comments about themselves. A check markin a particular cell of the table represents one or more comment by a participant that fell
into that category.
Table 1

Participants Commenting on Each Topic
2015

Korea
1

2

3

4

5

2016

Poland
6

7

8

9

10

11

Australia
12

13

14

15

16

Korea
17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Comments about the host environmenta ✅

✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

b

✅

c

✅

d

✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
✅

✅

✅

✅

✅

✅ ✅

✅

✅

✅

g

✅ ✅

✅

✅

✅

✅ ✅
✅ ✅

✅

j

✅

✅

✅

✅

✅

✅
✅ ✅

✅

✅
✅ ✅

✅

✅

m

✅

n

✅

✅
✅

✅
✅

o

✅

✅

✅

✅

✅

✅

k
l

✅

✅

✅

h ✅ ✅
i

✅
✅

e ✅ ✅
f

✅

✅

✅

✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

✅

✅

✅ ✅

Comments about themselves

p

✅ ✅

q ✅

✅

r

s

✅
✅

✅ ✅ ✅
✅

✅

✅ ✅

✅

✅
✅

✅

✅

✅

✅ ✅ ✅

The first thing to note from the table is that, while some participants reported
learning many different things, others’ reports cover quite a narrow range of topics.
There are two reasons for this: in some cases (eg., #24 and 25) the reports focused somuch on what the participant did that very little attention is paid to what they might
have learnt from it; in others (eg., #6) the report includes in-depth comments on one
particular topic so that the observations/reflections are deep rather than broad. Most
participants, though, eschew depth to offer reports on a wide variety of topics.
The other salient point about Table 1 is the recurrence of similar topics in many of- 41 -

Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory Study

the reports. Eighteen of the 26 reports deal with (a.) food and foodways; ten with theforeign language abilities of the local people; nine with impressions of local students. So,
while the majority of the reports are broad rather than deep, a lot of them do coversimilar territory, regardless of the country visited by the participants.
Comments about the host environment.

a. Food and drink.

Over two thirds of the reports mention food and/or drink, and many of them deal
extensively with the topic. Several reports (#1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 17, 18, 22 and 23) list specificdishes eaten by the participants. These are usually characterized as 美味しかった (“Itwas delicious.”), a stock kansobun term, although some participants say it took several
days for them to begin to appreciate food in Korea (#5 and 17) and one (#23) reported
severe gastric distress.
The variety of new food and drinks available, while attractive to some (#1 and 6),
was overwhelming for others (#21). Participants in the Australia programme wereparticularly challenged by what they saw as a lack of fresh vegetables (#14 and 16), a
preponderance of fried food (#16) and a diet based on bread rather than rice (#14 and 15).
#6 complained of the lack of moderation in Korean food which was either very spicy orvery sweet. #14 was distressed at having to buy carbonated water in Poland, while #6
was impressed by the size, colour and variety of fruit juices available in Korea. The issueof Koreans’ eating dog meat is raised by only one participant, #20, who had previous
experience of living in Korea. She says that other participants asked whether it was truethat Koreans eat dog meat and looked at her differently after she confirmed that it is.
Attempts were made to generalize from specific dishes to national cuisines. Korean
food is often characterized as “spicy” (#1, 4, 6, 7, 17, 18, 22 and 23); Polish food as “oilyand sweet” (#9) and Australian food as “oily” (#16) and as “strong tasting and high calorie”(#15). #18 presents a history of Korean cuisine which appears to be based on researcheither before or after her visit to Korea. Similarly, #17 writes at length about the historyof kimchi, referencing a kimchi museum in Seoul.
Several participants extended their observation from the food itself to tableware,with comments on the availability of spoons (#22) and their use when eating both riceand soup (#18), the size of chopsticks and the material from which they are made (#22
and 18). The writer of report #18, again apparently drawing on her research, offers ahistorical explanation for this.
Serving customs in restaurants and bars also attract attention. A number ofparticipants (#4, 6, 7, 17, 21 and 23) commented on the Korean restaurant custom ofadding various condiments (especially, kimchi) and, in some cases, coffee and dessert (#7)
free of charge when a main course is ordered and supplying as much of these extras as
the customer wants. Another Korean food custom commented on was eating rice andsoup together (#18 and 22). #6 reports that serving staff in restaurants in Korea cut foodinto bite-sized pieces, but this is not mentioned by any other participants The Korean
taboo against picking up plates or dishes to eat from them caught #22’s attention. #20,
who had previous experience of living in Korea, commented at length on Korean custom
surrounding who pays for what when a group eats out together. #11 reports that in bars

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山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

in Poland only drinks are served and customers bring their own food.
In comments about the price of food and drink, in general the participants foundthings to be inexpensive (eg., #11), but #13 writes about the high price of bottled water,and even higher price of fruit juice, in Australia. Portion sizes occasioned several
comments from participants in the Poland and Australia programmes (#9, 11 and 14),all of whom found they were served more than they could eat. The Korean custom ofserving as much kimchi and other condiments as the customer wishes left several
participants with very full stomachs and a number commented that, unlike Japan, in
Korea it is possible to have a very filling meal for little money (#4 and 21).
Comparisons with Japan are quite common in the references to food. The spicinessof Korean food is said to be unlike anything that can be experienced in restaurants in
Korean restaurants in Japan (#4, 17, 18, 22 and 23). Similarly, Polish drinks were said
to be stronger than those in Japan (#11) and Australian desserts sweeter (#15). This leftseveral participants craving Japanese food (#14 and 23) and led #6 to assert that
“Japanese food is best.” #14 mentions the joy of eating an “emergency” pot of ramen
noodles brought from Japan. However, some saw similarities with Japanese food (#4, 6
and 18) and one participant concluded that both Japan and Australia are likely to havea high rate of diabetes (#15).

b. Foreign language abilities of local people

A lot of students commented on the foreign language abilities of the people they
met and overheard. All of the comments were positive. Participants in Korea (#4, 21 and23) were impressed by the amount of Chinese and Japanese they heard on the streets.
#23, who had visited Korea previously, commented that the main foreign language on
the streets was now Chinese, as opposed to four years ago when it was Japanese, andattributed this to an increase in Chinese tourists. In Poland, what impressed
participants was the ease with which people they met used English (#8, 9, 10 and 11)
and the number of foreign languages they study (#12). In Australia it was the dedicationthat students of Japanese brought to their studies (#14 and 16).

c. Students

Participants encountered students in their host country, from junior high school touniversity age, both in classes they taught or observed and out of class at cross-cultural
exchange events or as companions as they explored the city. They spent more time withstudents than with other members of the host community.
They found the students to be friendly (#7), active and responsive in class (#7, 13
and 21) and full of energy (#1, 19 and 24). They were impressed by the students’ Japaneseability (#11, 13 and 26) and their passion for studying it (#11), as well as their knowledgeof manga characters (#19). #1 noted that Korean junior high students wore red lipstickin class, something not allowed in Japan.The Australian students’ active engagement inlearning Japanese caused #13 to reflect on the way he had been taught English and towish the classroom atmosphere at home had been similar.

d. Cities

Perhaps not surprisingly for study trips that allocated time to sightseeing, several
participants commented on the cities and buildings around them. Comments (#2, 5 and- 43 -

Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory Study10) tended to be that they were 美しい [beautiful], another stock kansobun term.
Comparisons abounded here. There was agreement that buildings in Korea wereunlike those in Japan (#4, 5 and 18) or China (#4). Buildings in Poland were said to be“European- looking” and “Western” (#9). Two visitors to Australia (#14 and 15) were able
to contrast the atmosphere they felt in Sydney with that in Melbourne. Only one
participant (#18) tried to explain the reasons for the differences in atmosphere felt inforeign cities, saying that Korea was part of a continent, unlike Japan which issurrounded by sea.

e. History

For some of the participants (#1, 2, 15, 18, 20 and 25), visits to museums as part oftheir study trip gave them an opportunity to learn about the history of the country they
were staying in. None of them was specific about what they had learnt there, althoughboth #20 and #25 mentioned seeing a different side to Korean wars with Japan while
visiting the Korean Independence Museum. #2 expressed an interest in the daily life ofpeople long ago, but beyond admiring a house made of grass, again gave no specifics. #18
was prompted to muse on the similarities of Stone Age societies and how migration andoutside influences affect the way people live now.

f.

War

Alongside the comments about history were some pertaining to the dark side ofhistory: wars, torture and cruelty. Both #2 and #25 write about visiting sites that told
them of suffering and cruelty resulting from wars between Korea and Japan. #2
concludes that war is so unimaginably cruel that there should be no more war. #25
comments that it is best to know of such history. #12, who visited a war-damaged but
rebuilt Polish city, echoes #25’s sentiment that it is best to know of such things. #24
simply says that visiting a war museum made her think a lot. #20 also refers to learning
about damage done to Korea in wars with Japan but makes no further comment.

g. Shopping

Relatively few comments referred to shopping. Those who did comment were pleased
with the interesting things they found to buy (#4 and 5) and with the inexpensive prices(#5 and 22). There was surprise that department stores were located in tourist areas (#4
and 22) and that they stayed open late into the evening (#22).
Two customs regarding shopping occasioned comment: the practice of selling
plastic bags at stores in Poland (#9), rather than providing them for free, and theprovision of extra goods for free in Korea (#22): “In Korea, whichever shop you buy things
at, they give you extra things for free” wrote the participant.

h. Traditional culture

Four participants commented on the traditional culture of the countries they
visited, all on the basis of visits to museums. #1 and #3 reported being impressed bytraditional clothes, with #3 also mentioning traditional buildings. #20 was similarly
appreciative of traditional handicrafts. #17 gives details of the historical development of
Korean clothes, the writer having apparently done some research on the topic.

i.

PeopleThere were only a few comments about the people the participants met in each- 44 -

山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

country, though this section should be read in conjunction with the section about“Students” since most of the people the participants met were students. Threeparticipants (#1, 22 and 23) found the people they met “lovely” and “friendly” while #23
also reported they were energetic. #15 noted that people in Australia were multi-ethnic.

j.

Transport

Only three participants commented on transport. #1 found the Seoul subway easier
to use than the one in Beijing; and #12 felt the buses in Poland maneuvered very quickly.
#20 tells the story of a taxi that set off while its trunk, loaded with suitcases, was open
and the driver thought nothing of it.

k. Interest in Japan

Three of the participants (#12, 13 and 21) expressed their surprise that the people
they met were interested in Japan and things Japanese.

l.

Manners

There were three comments about local manners. Two of them related to smoking:#1 was surprised at the number of people in Korea smoking outside restaurants andstores; #8 was similarly struck by the number of cigarette butts thrown away on Polishstreets. #23’s comments on Korean manners are more extensive, including not picking
up dishes while eating from them, the correct posture for honouring superiors when
drinking or travelling with them, and conformity with rules about giving up train seatsto the elderly. The detail of #23’s comments suggests research into Korean manners.

m. Toilets

Two participants (#4 and 22) commented on toilets they had used in which toilet
paper could not be flushed. A third (#9) mentioned having to pay to use a public toilet.

n. Communication styleThree participants made comments about the communication styles of people intheir host community. #4 perceived the Korean communication style to be more direct
and less humble than that in Japan. #22 also remarked that Korean students, evenapparently shy ones, did not hesitate to give their opinion when asked. #11 commented
on the Polish custom of greeting people with a hug.

o. Education

After spending time in classrooms, it is not surprising that some of the participants
had comments about education. They all noted things that contrasted with Japan: freekindergartens, both public and private, with good facilities (#7), science lessons in which
students actively take part in experiments (#13) and foreign language lessons that arefun (#14). Only #7 extended her thinking beyond the classroom to wonder what effect theprovision of free kindergartens might have on taxation.

Other thingsThe following topics were mentioned by only one or two of the participants:
Japan-Korea relations. #3 reflected on the troubled history of relations between
Japan and Korea and realized that in Korea she had met only people who liked Japan.
Customs. #12 noticed that people in the street in Korea walk closer together than inJapan and commented that customs differ from place to place.
Public WiFi. Both #9 and #22 commented on the availability of free public WiFi.

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Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory Study

Landscape. #12 found Poland very flat.
Origami technique. #5 encountered a new technique for folding paper in Korea.
Water use. #13 discovered that water is a limited, expensive resource in Australia

when told not to use too much when bathing or showering.
Comments about themselves

p. Personal growth

Altogether, eight of the respondents noted that they had grown or developed
personally as a result of their Study Abroad experience. Three of them (#14, 15 and 16)
simply noted personal growth but without elaborating on it. Two others (#16 and 24) said
their ability to communicate had grown, but again without elaboration. #19 expressed adesire to grow and to discover a new self by talking with people from other countries.
It was #20 who provided the most detailed account of personal growth. Noting in
general that she had learnt things that would help her in living in a Japan that is open
to the outside world, she explained that she had first understood that to interact withothers it is necessary to talk about many different things, not that topics of interest toherself. Further, she realized that she had previously avoided interacting with people
who had different values to her own but now understood how to talk and come to anunderstanding with them. #21 expressed something similar, but more self-critically,saying that he was ashamed of how narrow his worldview had been.

q. Wanting to know more

Several of the participants said they would like to know more after completing
their study trips. Four of them (#1, 10, 12 and 26) wanted to know more about the history
and culture of the place they had visited. One (#26) also wanted to know more about
Japan. Another (#5) wanted more interaction with local people to get to know them better.

r. Communication strategies

Five participants noted changes in their own communication strategies brought
about by contact with people they met. #26 simply noted that she learnt how tocommunicate across languages and cultures. #13 commented that this was difficult but
could be achieved by using short sentences. #24 said she had made friends without using
words. #4 said she spoke more directly than she would in Japan.

s. English ability

Four of the participants, including three who visited Australia, made comments
about their English abilities. Although one (#16) said she had become more confident in
her English by using it to communicate with native speakers, the other three (#2, 14 and15) had become aware of their lack of ability and wrote about their determination to
study English harder. As to why, #14 said that with more English he would be able tostay longer in Australia, #2 said it would make it easier to travel internationally and #15
wanted to use English to tell foreigners about the good things in Japan.
Discussion
The participants in these four programmes clearly had little difficulty identifying
physical elements of the host environment that were different from things they had
encountered before, especially when these things were placed in front of them, as withfood in a restaurant (18 respondents), students in a classroom (nine respondents), or- 46 -

山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）

buildings on a city tour (eight respondents). The preponderance of comments about foodis a natural consequence of the need for a human body to be fed: like it or not, a Study
Abroad participant is going to encounter local foods several times a day. In this light, it
is surprising that comments about transport are not more prevalent, as the need to move
about is almost as basic as the need for nutrition. It may be that participants focused on
their destinations rather than the environments in which they were making journeys.
Beyond food, though, there is a strong focus on the visual: cities, buildings,
traditional cultural artefacts, stores, toilets, all physical objects that can be seen and do
not require any interaction. The most frequently mentioned aspects of behavior in thehost environments were also things that can be readily observed: use of foreign
languages, behavior in classrooms, manners.
Things that require interaction beyond the visual and gustatory, such as history,
interest in Japan, communication styles, and education, attract fewer, but morethoughtful, comments. While eight participants identified Korean food as “spicy”, only
one presented information about the history of kimchi. While several noted differencesin eating instruments in Korea, only one investigated the stories and traditions thathave led to the use of metal chopsticks.
All of these observations belong to a positivist paradigm (Bennett, 2012; Vande
Berg et al., 2012a) as they constitutive declarative knowledge. Based on the assumptionthat there is such a thing as “Korean (or Polish, or Australian culture,” they allow
participants to move effortlessly from “I ate some kimchi. It was spicy.” to “Korean foodis spicy.” or from “The Australian students responded well.” to “Australian students are
so positive and full of energy.”
The danger here, of course, is over-generalisation, the much-maligned stereotyping
which leads short-term visitors to extrapolate from their limited experience to makestatements about the lives of millions of people, most of whom they have never met.
There is a hint of this, for example in #22’s statement that: “In Korea, whichever shop
you buy things at, they give you extra things for free.” As evidence for this, she cites freekimchi in restaurants and free sample bottles when buying cosmetics. Similarly, #16’s
assertion that “Australians like sweet things.” suggests over-generalisation.
In terms of Harvey’s progression, almost all the comments would be classified as“tourist.” Participants are almost universally charmed and fascinated by theirencounters with difference. The strongest exception is #20’s distaste at the taxi driver
who knowingly drives with the trunk open. However, #20 is reacting here as an insider
to Korean society, where she has previously spent some time, feeling shame at the
impression the taxi driver’s behavior will have on her classmates. Apart from several
reports of difficulty digesting foreign foods, the only other negative emotions registeredin these reports are directed not to the host environment but to aspects of life in Japan,such as #14’s wish that foreign language lessons in Japan were active and interesting
like those in Australia, or #22’s wish that Japanese students were more out-going andable to express their opinions, like the ones she met in Korea.
In the short time the participants spent in the host environment, then, they havenot entered Harvey’s (1979) second stage of “Deviance” (finding the host society’s ways

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Stephen M. Ryan ： What Do Students Learn When They Study Abroad? An Exploratory Study

deviant). However, there is evidence of what Harvey calls “intellectualization”, seeking
for explanations of what they observe. It is not clear whether #17 and #18 researched
Korean foodways, #17 traditional clothing and #23 before, during or after their time in
Korea, but their comments on these topics go beyond what could be observed in “tourist”
mode and suggest an interest in understanding these topics. Most of the participants did
not pursue deeper understanding of what they saw, as evidenced by the rather anodyne
reaction of all but one participant (#18 again) to information presented in museums: 勉
強になりました [“I learnt something from it.”]. Three of the 26 students, then, do show
signs of Harvey’s “intellectualization” and another four (#1, 10, 12 and 26), who express
an interest in knowing more about the host country show the potential for reaching sucha stage. It would be unreasonable to expect that, in such a short period in the hostenvironment, any of the participants would progress to Harvey’s “assimilation.”
Not all the comments in these reports reflect the positivist paradigm. The relativist
paradigm expects learning in the area of participants’ worldview: that they will come tosee the host environment as an alternative way of seeing the world and, by extension,that their own worldview is only one of many possible ones. There is evidence that thisbroadening of perspective has occurred, to a limited extent, for some of the participants.
While #6’s assertion that “Japanese food is best” is the most egregious example ofethnocentrism, more positive comparisons also indicate a single worldview. When #1
says that the subway in Seoul is easier to use than the one Beijing, or #22 that Korean
food is delicious “unlike Japan”, they are still assuming that there is a single yardstickfor ease of use or deliciousness against which subway systems and food can be judged. A
relativist perspective would see multiple yardsticks, none any better than the others.
#3 appears to glimpse the possibility of an ethnorelative position when she
comments that, during a visit to the Korean Independence Museum, she realised that so
far she had interacted only with Koreans who liked Japan. The acknowledgement that
there were good reasons why some Koreans might not like Japan puts her on thethreshold of seeing the world from multiple perspectives (or two, at least). Similarly, #25
reports having seen Japanese-Korean relations from a different side when visiting thesame museum. #16, who ate at a Japanese restaurant in Australia and says it gave her
an appreciation of how Japan is seen from overseas also stands on the threshold.
Two participants appear to have crossed the threshold and viewed at least some
aspects of life from an ethnorelative perspective, although their accounts of thisperspective are short and constitute musings rather conclusions. #18, in the Korean
National Museum, noticing the similarities between Stone Age artefacts from Japan and
Korea, sees the two societies as having developed from similar roots, their paths
diverging as a result of different migration patterns. #4, observing Korean students
studying Japanese, realises that different countries promote their own ways of living
and try to defend them against each other. There is no evidence that either of theseparticipants has applied this kind of relativistic thinking beyond the context in which it
occurred, but the seeds have undeniably been planted.
As for the third paradigm in Bennett (2012) and Vande Berg et al.’s (2012a) model,
the constructivist paradigm, the comparatively large number of participants reporting- 48 -

山陽論叢 第 24 巻 （2017）that they underwent personal growth as a result of their Study Abroad experience isencouraging. It is also in line with self-reports from other Study Abroad programmes
throughout the world (Pellegrino, 1998). However, Vande Berg et al. (2012a) warn thatsuch impressions, however strong, are often illusory and are usually not supported bypsychometric tests. Disappointingly few of the participants in the current study offer
details of their personal development, so this may be the case here, too.
Three of the participants do attempt to describe their growth. #10 writes ofchanging from being a person who avoids contact with people who see the world
differently to one who now sees that communication and mutual understanding ispossible. #21 says he has had a narrow worldview but has learnt to expand it. #6’s growth
seems to be more aspirational than real: she wants to discover herself through further
interaction with people from other countries with different values.
Do these three self-reports represent a real change in the way their writers try to
make sense of themselves and the world? An answer to this question is beyond the scopeof this study, but there is at least a hint here of the kind of personal growth made possibleby these Study Abroad programmes.
Conclusion
What do students learn when they study abroad? The answer depends very muchon the design of the programme. Programmes were selected for this study precisely
because of the laissez-faire nature of their design. To a greater extent than with manyother programmes, students were left to their own devices in writing reports about theirexperiences. The things that they thought worthy of comment in their reports loaded
heavily on the kind of learning outcomes expected with a positivist paradigm, but withstrong hints that some learning had occurred for some students that would fit both
relativist and constructivist paradigms.
The implications for future programme design are:a) Learning will occur naturally, regardless of the intentions of the designer.
b) There is a danger that experiential learning, based as it is on observation andreflection, will lead to over-generalisations and potentially dangerous stereotypes.
Intervention by a teacher or chaperone could reduce this risk.
c) Even in a relatively unstructured, short-term programme, some participants willlearn not only declarative knowledge about the host community, but also how totake a relativist perspective on ways of living and being, and to develop and growin understanding themselves and the world. Deliberate support of students’personal and psychological development before, during and after a programmeshould make these latter two goals attainable for a larger number of participants.
d) Many students return from Study Abroad programmes with unansweredquestions the answers to which could help them to deepen and broaden theirunderstanding of the host environment, the home environment, themselves andthe way they make sense of the world. Some of these are questions need factual
answers that will lead to new knowledge, others are matters for exploration andthought, perhaps resulting in a changed worldview or sense of self. It is importantto support participants and nurture their questions after they return to the home

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country so they may continue to grow and benefit from their time abroad.
The exploratory nature of this study means that conclusions presented here should
be seen as tentative and suggestive. However, they do illuminate a path for further
research into Study Abroad programmes, their participants and what they can learn.
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