Political science undergraduate students often have a difficult time understanding the
processes and methods of social science research. The foci of courses in comparative politics
such as Latin American Politics or European Politics are typically descriptive information,
concepts and theories, and an overview of the principal debates and research findings. This
stands in sharp contrast to undergraduate pedagogy in the natural sciences, where laboratory
sections supplement classroom activities. For example, biology students learn the basics of
the discipline in the classroom, and simultaneously use the tools and methods of scientists in
the lab to replicate elementary experiments. This multi-method approach not only reinforces
the students' understanding of biological concepts, but also gives them an appreciation for
how their professors spend their time and the challenges, pleasures, and limitations of
academic research.
Study abroad provides a magnificent opportunity for students to learn about other cultures,
political and social systems, as well as the intersection of international and domestic
politics. We believe that study abroad also facilitates pedagogical advantages for comparative
politics courses, where students can be immersed in Kolb's “Experiential Learning Model.”
Kolb's learning model helps students “become effective thinkers and problem solvers” (Brock
and Cameron 1999, 3). The model's four stages, concrete experience,
reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, coalesce in a
method that strives to engage each student's different learning type. In this paper, we
describe experiential learning through undergraduate field-work and research activities that
were part of a study abroad program in Costa Rica and report findings from student generated
research.
The Growing Importance of Study Abroad and Suggestions for Establishing
Successful Programs
The number of U.S. university students participating in study abroad has more than doubled
in recent years, reaching 160,920 for the 2001–2002 academic year. The fastest growing
segment of international study is the short-term program lasting less than a semester. Since
1985, the number of students spending a summer or mini-terms in January in an international
program has grown by 463%, to more than 82,000 (Arenson 2003).
These short programs can provide many of the benefits of study abroad and democratize the
study abroad experience. In addition, summer programs more easily integrate full-time
on-campus faculty as study abroad directors. The potential weakness of short programs is that
they can exacerbate two traditional shortcomings of the study abroad experience: students may
have little interaction with local families and students create a virtual campus “bubble,”
spending all of their free time together (Engle 1995).
The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the Georgia Institute of Technology have
identified study abroad as an integral part of undergraduate education. The Institute has
established the notable goal that 50% of all students participate in one significant overseas
educational experience before graduation. As part of the menu of international education
options, study abroad programs have flourished at Georgia Tech. The Nunn School organizes and
administers overseas summer programs in Brussels, China, Argentina/Brazil, Costa Rica, and
Cuba. Georgia Tech's are largely summer programs organized and directed by Georgia Tech
faculty. Georgia Tech's programs provide the model for all Nunn School programs.
Having established three programs from scratch (Argentina/Brazil, Costa Rica, and Cuba), we
have some suggestions for faculty and departments interested in incorporating study abroad
into their menu of student activities.
There is money for study abroad. Seek it out
University officials know that American students have a widespread deficit in global
competence. More importantly, they know that the best job opportunities for their alumni
over the long haul will go to those with tangible international experience and skills. Many
universities have responded by offering substantial incentives to student and faculty to
participate in study abroad. At Georgia Tech, for example, non-resident students pay
in-state tuition for study abroad and all students are exempt from fees. In addition, there
are a number of scholarships available. At Georgia Tech, President's Scholars (the most
prestigious scholarship) receive study abroad grants.
Study abroad is also an endeavor that corporate America is willing to support. Somehow,
the private sector is more receptive to funding college students gaining global competence
than in funding research on the correlates of democracy in Central America. The Nunn School
obtained substantial support from the Coca-Cola Foundation for its range of summer overseas
programs. This support allows the programs to be affordable while still offering first-rate
enrichment experiences that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive. In Costa Rica, the “Coke
money” funded stays at the Smithsonian-built Arenal Observatory Lodge on the slope of the
active Arenal Volcano, as well as a five-night stay at the La Selva Biological Station.
The amount of money available to support study abroad could grow exponentially. The
Strategic Task Force on Education Abroad, co-chaired by former Secretary of Education
Richard Riley and former Senator Paul Simon, recently urged Congress to provide $3.5 billion
a year to fund fellowships for a half-million study abroad students annually (Fredrix 2003).
Incorporate strong cultural interchange in the programs1 For more on experiential learning and study abroad see Hopkins (1999).
Even in a six or eight-week social science or natural science program, students can
experience and absorb important cultural literacy. House students with local families or
local students. Encourage students to purchase local products, adopt local customs, try
local dance, and spend free time in small groups or with locals.
There is help out there for the administrative burden
One of the biggest fears of potential study abroad directors is the administrative and
time burden. Study abroad directors must recruit students, produce and submit numerous
forms, recruit other participating faculty, design the program, establish relationships with
in-country universities, make set-up trips, answer hundreds of emails from interested
students and worried parents, handle large sums of money, provide an accounting of expenses,
act as a travel agent, etc. etc. etc. If one is not careful, administering a single summer
study abroad program can consume a faculty member. Fortunately, there are mechanisms for
reducing, while not eliminating, this burden.
The first place to seek assistance is your department chair. Political science and
international affairs departments talk the talk when it comes to the global competence of
their students, make sure that they also walk the walk. The Nunn School supports study
abroad directors by giving a one-course teaching reduction and by providing staff support.
In addition, graduate student assistants can handle much of the administrative details and
are a good source for fresh ideas about recruiting and program design.
The study abroad office at your university is a good second source for administrative and
recruiting assistance. The study abroad director will likely be eager to walk you through
the process of establishing a program and share a gamut of existing campus models. Shower
your study abroad office with kindness and gratitude, and they will reciprocate with
assistance in filling out forms, producing flyers, recruiting, and designing the program. In
addition, the office of international education at the host-university can be very helpful.
Particularly in popular destinations such as Costa Rica and Spain, these offices have years
of experience and can be relied on to find housing, classrooms, transportation companies,
etc.
Professors who already direct programs offer a final source of assistance, particularly if
any are in your department. When we started establishing programs in Latin America, the Nunn
School already had successful model programs in Belgium and in China. The program directors
eagerly shared budgets, templates for applications, and strategies for recruitment.
Use study abroad to further research projects
The single greatest burden for study abroad directors is the loss of summer research time.
Political scientists can ameliorate this challenge by incorporating fieldwork into the study
abroad experience. Think of the study abroad participants not only as students, but also as
research assistants. In a few days, 25 students can administer as many surveys as a doctoral
student can in several months. We describe one of these efforts in the next section of this
paper.
Another research strategy is to piggy-back fieldwork onto study abroad. One can often
quite easily find small grants to spend an additional month or two in-county, as the airfare
is already covered by the study abroad. After the students go home, the faculty can conduct
interviews, research in libraries and archives, collaborate with in-county colleagues,
present works-in-progress, etc.
A third strategy to transform study abroad participation from zero-sum to positive-sum for
research faculty is to locate study abroad in countries that enhance your research program.
A Spanish-speaking scholar of Latin America could enhance research by spending consecutive
summers in a different sub-region or in Portuguese-speaking Brazil.
Study abroad is a labor of love, but directors deserve reasonable
remuneration
There is a considerable value to having faculty direct and accompany study abroad. Courses
are rigorous and integrated with existing programs of study. While the rewards of directing
study abroad go far beyond the financial compensation, faculty deserve and should demand to
be properly compensated. In addition to a competitive salary, study abroad should pay for
housing, airfare, and a per diem.
Demand high standards of conduct from students
A common complaint from study abroad directors is that the students do not take the
program serious enough, party too much, and cause major disruptions. We have found that the
vast majority of study abroad participants want a focused and rigorous program. Two simple
program features will greatly reduce troublesome students. First, let the students know at
all times during the recruitment process that the program is demanding, that it is not an
automatic A, and that faculty are not chaperones, but college professors. Make participation
a significant part of the final grade, and have any disruptions or behavioral issues
directly affect the participation grade. Second, maintain zero tolerance for student
disruptions that affect the program.
The Costa Rica Study Abroad Program
The Costa Rica Study Abroad began as a six-week program in 2000. The program is explicitly
interdisciplinary, featuring one course on tropical ecology taught by Georgia Tech biologist
Terry Snell, and one course on environmental politics taught by political scientist Kirk
Bowman. All program planning as well as course activities and content are jointly planned in
order to emphasize the interdependence of natural science (tropical ecology) and social
science (environmental politics and policies). The course activities not only include lecture
and discussion at the University of Costa Rica, but also the range of site visits, guest
lectures and demonstrations, tours, and interchange that are the hallmarks of study
abroad.
During the first iteration of the program in 2000, the two faculty observed one important
advantage in the biology curriculum. While the course had traditional lectures on ecosystems,
classes of animals, etc., as well as beneficial site visits to a range of places such as the
National Biodiversity Institute (INBio), the emphasis was on undergraduate student research.
During the six weeks, the program had extended stays in five distinct ecosystems; the Pacific
Coast, the Caribbean coral reef, the cloud forest (at the San Ramón Biological Station), the
lowland rain forest (at La Selva Biological Station), and volcanoes (Arenal and Irazú). At
Irazú, the students worked in groups to conduct a series of transects and measure plant
species diversity. And at the La Selva and San Ramón biological stations, undergraduate
student groups developed behavioral hypotheses, conducted biological fieldwork and
experiments, and presented oral and visual presentations of their findings. The four to five
member groups had four days to develop a hypothesis (for example, the calls of birds at the
top of the canopy will be of a different tone than birds of the same species at the bottom of
the canopy); get approval for a research design; conduct background research in the biology
station library; consult with other on-site researchers; collect and analyze data; organize
results; write a report; produce a PowerPoint presentation; and present the project in
public. These group research projects not only reinforced content from the classroom and from
written materials, but also provided a series of additional pedagogical benefits:
- experience with teamwork
- expertise in the specialized topic of
tropical ecology
- understanding of scientific research, including the importance
of asking good questions and the role of hypothesis testing
- experience with field
research tools such as microscopes, night-vision binoculars, microscopes, nets,
etc.
- appreciation for the difficulties and rewards of behavioral biology and
fieldwork (it rains a lot in the rain forest, watching leaf-cutter ants for 10 hours to
count the number of hitchhikers is only exciting for the first few
minutes)
- respect and in cases awe for the biologists (such as those that the
students interact with at La Selva) who spend years studying orchids, poison dart frogs, or
beetles
While the Environmental Politics course was a major success, the absence of an equivalent
research experience for the students was a difference with distinction. For the second
iteration of the program in summer 2002, and in accordance with Georgia Tech's increased
emphasis on undergraduate research, the study abroad directors/faculty decided to develop a
meaningful fieldwork and research component for the Environmental Politics course.
The 2002 Undergraduate Research Project
Twenty-five undergraduates from a variety of majors participated in the 2002 Costa Rica
Study Abroad Program. The faculty decided in advance that the social science research
question would deal with the causes of environmental values and attitudes. Costa Rica is an
excellent laboratory for studying environmental post-materialist value-shifts. Due to its
location on the land-bridge between North and South America, tropical climate, volcanic
activity, and two mountain ranges, Costa Rica's 13 distinct ecosystems contain a
disproportionately high percentage of the world's biodiversity. On the social and political
side, Costa Rica demilitarized in 1948–1949 (Bowman 2002), has been
a full democracy since 1958 (Bowman, Lehoucq, and Mahoney forthcoming), and achieves
impressive scores for basic social indicators and human rights. The country exploits its
biodiversity, political stability, and human capital through ecotourism. Unfortunately, given
the diesel smoke billowing from the country's vehicles and the ubiquitous litter strewn along
highways, rivers, and walkways, it appears that visiting ecotourists often have a stronger
commitment to Costa Rica's natural beauty than do some Costa Ricans (nicknamed
Ticos). After a decade-long campaign by NGOs, tourism industry actors, educators,
and the government to change Ticos' attitudes and behavior, one finds a wide range of
attitudes towards the environment. It is a country undergoing a palpable shift from
materialist to post-materialist values. The faculty wanted the students to engage these
attitudes in their research project.
We designed the environmental politics course to measure and understand the causal
processes accompanying this shift. To gain sufficient background, the students read Sterling
Evans' The Green Republic: A Conservation History of Costa Rica, the local
English-language newspaper the Tico Times,2
The
Tico Times is a weekly English-language newspaper with substantial coverage of
local environmental politics and issues dealing with tourism, environmental NGOs, and
biodiversity.
and a course pack with readings dealing with topics such as the
tragedy of the commons, the role of trans-national activist networks,
3 Much of these course materials come from Keck and Sikkink (1998).
current issues in environmental education in Costa Rica, and the
debates surrounding post-materialist value shifts.
4 This
literature includes Abramson and Inglehart (1987) and Inglehart
(2000).
Guest lectures from the faculty at the
University of Costa Rica and NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy provided additional windows
into the history and state of environmental values in Costa Rica.
The undergraduates were then charged with developing explanations for the wide variance in
attitudes toward the environment. After a wide-ranging discussion, the students settled on
the following potential explanations (causal variables) of “green” attitudes.
- Women would be greener than men. Women are biologically and culturally (in the Costa
Rican context) nurturing and men are more focused on materialist concerns.
- Young people who grew up with constant messages about the environment would be greener
than their elders who grew up when the dominant attitudes in Costa Rica were that forests
were to be cut down as part of progress and development.
- People who traveled abroad or spoke another language would be greener for two reasons:
a) It could be an indicator of higher socioeconomic status, or b) it could be correlated to
exposure to some attitudes in other countries (such as no littering) that are newly emerging
in Costa Rica.
- Biology students would be greener than economics students. The ideology of our field of
study affects our worldview. The biology department at the University of Costa Rica is the
genesis of environmental activism in the country and biology students study the flora and
fauna that needs protection. In contrast, economics reinforces the view of individual
material maximization, stressing materialist over post-materialist dynamics.5
This relationship and preliminary evidence for it from the university
setting are found in Steiner (1990).
- Supporters of progressive political parties would be greener than supporters of
conservative political parties.
Next, the students developed a survey instrument that would measure these independent
variables as well as several elements of the dependent variable—“greenness.” Course materials
and lectures introduced some of the basics of survey research. Through their understanding of
psychological surveying tendencies, students avoided using misleading questions and made sure
to utilize a variety of question types such as open- and close-ended questions. They learned
to use exhaustive and mutually exclusive options for multiple-choice questions, and to put
all the demographic information at the end of the survey so as to avoid bias in the
questionnaire. The survey was written in English, translated to Spanish, and vetted with
several bilingual Costa Ricans to best eliminate cultural and language biases from the
instrument.
With an 18-question survey printed, the students were ready. They decided to collect 550
surveys at the University of Costa Rica (concentrating on biology and economics students) and
an additional 550 surveys in downtown San José. The students did not have the time or
resources to conduct a truly random survey of Costa Ricans or even of the Josefinos that live
in the capital. We argue that a “random” survey of Costa Ricans in downtown is a reasonable
surrogate. One can argue that nearly all of the residents of the San José metropolitan area
regularly go downtown. The compact city center is the hub for all bus transit and home to a
high concentration of businesses, services, and government offices. In order to increase the
survey's randomness, students would invite every 7th adult that walked by to take the survey.
The survey instrument was administered only in a written format; there was no oral
component.
Before we discuss some initial findings, we would like to introduce some of the lessons
that the students learned from constructing and administering the survey. These include:
- an understanding of the role of theory in developing potential causal
explanations
- an appreciation of the difficulty in writing questions to measure
indicators and attitudes
- an enhanced respect for the cultural factors that may
bias a survey or study. Are people honest? Do they say what they think you want them to
say? Are older people in a foreign country suspicious of young Americans administering
surveys about their attitudes?
- a better grasp of concepts of reliability and
validity.
- first-hand knowledge of the drudgery of research, as each student was
required to administer at least 40 surveys and enter the data into 720 data
cells.
Future Steps and Preliminary Results
The Georgia Institute of Technology actively encourages undergraduate research through the
President's Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA). These awards pay undergraduates an hourly
salary to work with faculty on research. One of the undergraduate participants of the 2002
Costa Rica Study Abroad Program, Ashley Jennings, received an award for spring 2003 to
organize the data from the 1,100 surveys, create a scale of “greenness,” conduct a literature
review, help analyze the data, and co-author and submit both this article and an additional
paper to a conference and a peer-reviewed journal. This work is in-process and now includes
longitudinal data from a similar survey administered by another study abroad group in Costa
Rica in the summer of 2004. Figure 1 previews some of the
preliminary statistically significant findings for the causes of green attitudes in
contemporary Costa Rica.
Statistically Significant Findings in Student Surveys in Costa Rica
Conclusion
The study abroad experience not only educated students on issues of environmental politics,
but also opened their eyes to the challenges of environmental protection in a developing
country. Living in a country with some of the most diverse and unique ecosystems in the
world, students could experience firsthand the biodiversity and environmental beauty that
many Costa Ricans are organizing, educating, and volunteering to preserve. The Environmental
Politics course challenged students to identify solutions to the traditional zero-sum game of
economic development and environmental protection. One of the clear obstacles to
environmental protection in Costa Rica is the traditional ideology of progress and
development based on clearing the land and replacing rainforests with coffee fincas, banana
plantations, cattle ranches, and urban development. Fortunately, a number of educational,
cultural, transnational, and other forces are shifting Costa Rican attitudes away from
environmental conquest to conservation. Constructing and administering a survey designed to
measure and understand this ongoing culture shift helped a group of 25 students in 2002 (and
another 24 students in 2004) to grasp this phenomenon and simultaneously gain an
understanding and appreciation of social science research and the joys and challenges of
fieldwork. Perhaps most importantly students (and faculty) gained a deeper understanding of
the interdependence of our world. Ideas and attitudes travel, communities of activists are
borderless, and choices made in Atlanta (such as the type of coffee or bananas we buy) affect
Costa Ricans in the short term and all of us in the long term.
We are grateful to the PURA (President's Undergraduate Research Award at Georgia Institute
of Technology), the Coca-Cola Foundation, the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and
the Georgia Tech Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) for support
of this research. “Pura vida” is a Costa Rican expression that loosely translates to “life is
great.”
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