Students’ perceptions of multicultural group work in international engineering classroom

The rapid internationalization of engineering leads universities to change their education in ways that meet diverse students’ learning needs. The ambition behind the internationalization policy at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is that the multicultural experiences will improve the quality of educational experiences for all students. In a small-scale interview study, we explored how domestic and international students perceived the challenges and gains in their multicultural student group work experiences in master programs at TU/e. In addition, the factors that influence multicultural group work were explored based on students’ experiences. Key challenges that were identified are different communication styles and language issues, whereas key gains are mainly related to complementary knowledge and skills for domestic and international group members. In the group process, factors in which they were similar were found, for example both domestic and international students preferred to work with someone they already know. Difference in students’ perceptions of group work behaviors, such as division of task and disagreement solution were found between domestic and international interviewees. The factor of culture seems to play a role in interpreting the above differences. Based on the results, we concluded that the vision of an international classroom has not yet been achieved. The results suggest that inclusion at the university still needs to be taken a step further, and this paper provides a basis for discussion on how to move the vision forward.