Abstract
This study developed and validated the indicators of school internationalization in elementary and secondary schools in Taiwan to identify their level of internationalization and assess how the same has been implemented in these institutions. The data for the study was obtained from focus group interviews with 14 school internationalization experts and 176 school principals. Subsequently, 145 sample schools were recruited to complete an online questionnaire as part of a formal survey. The 20-item indicator scale regarding internationalization goals, campus internationalization, personnel internationalization, administration internationalization, curricula internationalization, and international partnerships proved suitable to orient elementary and secondary schools in Taiwan toward establishing international environments. Furthermore, results have important implications that the government should provide additional financial support and educational resources to reduce the teacher turnover rate and increase the willingness of schools in Taiwan to participate in international affairs.
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Introduction
With the rapidly advancing trends of globalization and global economics worldwide, connections between countries have increasingly intensified. Therefore, cultivating talented human resources with international competitiveness to meet the global industry needs is an important requirement for all countries (Guramatunhu Cooper et al., 2022). The development of globalization and educational competition facilitate student mobility, which has several benefits. Students enhance their international competitiveness by cultivating their cultural identities and values, gaining global perspectives, and raising their global awareness (Lenkaitis et al., 2019). In addition, schools establish an international environment where their pupils are immersed. To this end, education stakeholders should enhance their global perspectives and professionalize their ability to manage international affairs (Elnagar and Young, 2021).
The Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) published the “International Education for Primary and Secondary Schools White Paper 2.0” in May 2020 with the aim of providing funding support for schools in three dimensions, namely, school internationalization; curriculum development and teaching; and international exchange to achieve the goals of ‘Nurturing Future World Citizens,’ ‘Creating a Friendly Environment to Enhance Internationalization,’ and ‘Expanding Global Exchanges.’ School internationalization is the foundation that provides a global environment to cultivate and equip students with knowledge, skills, and attitudes of internationalization competency (Auld and Morris, 2019). An internationalization competency can be fostered and strengthened by integrating various resources through a global collaboration (Tarc, 2022). School internationalization includes offering international educational courses and activities, providing administrative services that support internationalization, and establishing the campus environment for global connections (Yemini and Cohen, 2016). Specifically, school internationalization involves establishing an appropriate environment to respond to the needs of cultivating global citizens (Auld and Morris, 2019). Furthermore, it is essential to create appropriate guidelines to orient the efforts related to improvements in internationalizing elementary and secondary school environments (MOE, 2021).
Internationalization indicators have been developed for analytical and evaluative purposes and comprise versatile features such as being straightforward, intelligible, and self-explanatory and relatively objective tools (Gao, 2019). In the past two decades, the development of school internationalization has mainly focused on higher education contexts (Nicola, 2021). For example, internationalization has been a common goal of tertiary education in Hong Kong since the 1990s, mainly by striving for English as the medium of instruction and student and teacher mobility (Hui, 2015). In Singapore, Singapore High, a non-religious fee-paying secondary school for boys, has been at the forefront of internationalizing education, influencing curriculum policy to promote the corporation with the global market and universities in other countries (Vidovich, 2004). However, the issue of education internationalization has extended beyond higher education and has become an increasingly common phenomenon in the K-12 education system (Elnagar and Young, 2021) for providing the youth with cosmopolitan capital and relevant capabilities for the future (Yemini, 2014). In addition, the school internationalization indicators for higher education may be inappropriate for elementary and secondary school settings (Yemini and Cohen, 2016). Moreover, no previous research has proposed a validated indicator for elementary and secondary schools thus far (e.g., Yemini, 2014; Yemini and Cohen, 2016). In order to fill this gap in the literature, this study aimed to develop school internationalization indicators for elementary and secondary schools, which could serve as a guideline for schools in Taiwan and other international contexts seeking to internationalize, especially in Asian countries and regions such as Japan, South Kora, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Singapore which share similarities of having curriculum controlled by the government and high examination intensity (Cheng, 2001). Additionally, it evaluated how internationalization has been implemented in these schools. The research questions are as follows:
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Do the developed indicators of school internationalization demonstrate validity and reliability for assessing the implementation of school internationalization?
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How has the performance of school internationalization been related to different school characteristics?
Literature review
Internationalization was defined as the “process of integrating an international and intercultural dimension into the teaching, research and service functions of the institution (Knight, 2004). Moreover, school internationalization implies cultivating an international atmosphere in terms of teaching, research, and outreach and entails exposing students to learn about and from the world’s other regions, as well as, educating them to converse and collaborate with individuals from other countries or cultures (Paige, 2005).
The development of school internationalization has mainly focused on higher education (Nicola, 2021). For instance, Gao (2019) proposed five dimensions of university internationalization: governance, student, faculty, curriculum, and research. Specifically, ‘governance’ includes the human resources and financial support for internationalization initiatives (Knight and de Wit, 1999), campus infrastructures and facilities (Knight, 2004), institutional cooperation, and global presence (Krause et al., 2005). The ‘student’ dimension is mainly focused on recruiting international pupils, enhancing student mobility, and providing overseas opportunities for graduate students (Adnett, 2010; Courtosi, 2018; Sharipov, 2020; Williams et al., 2021). The ‘faculty’ dimension involves the faculty team’s international profile (Carber, 2009) and global perspectives and experiences (PM and Aithal, 2021). Regarding the ‘curriculum’ dimension, the course design should have international components (Knight and de Wit, 1999), requirements for international studies, and more opportunities for pupils to partake in global studies such as joint/double degree programs (Watabe and Ota, 2021). The ‘research’ dimension emphasizes the need for cooperative research programs (Özturgut, 2021) and establishing research centers for increasing the participation of international faculty and students in the education system (Krause et al., 2005).
However, research on school internationalization regarding elementary and secondary schools remains scarce. Yemini (2014) argued that the dimensions of school internationalization developed in the higher education sector cannot fully apply to elementary and secondary schools since the contexts are relatively different. For example, according to Yemini and Cohen (2016), elementary and secondary education is compulsory in most countries that have considerably less autonomy in governance than higher education institutions. They argued that some school internationalization dimensions, such as “international students” would need further adjustments. However, since most elementary and secondary school students attend schools in their local environment, mobility or complete schooling in foreign countries is less common. Therefore, they adapted the school internationalization of elementary and secondary schools based on the students’ international engagement in online learning that includes the real and virtual participation of international pupils at school. Yemini (2014) adapted Knight’s (2004) and De Wits’ (2002) measures of internationalization for higher education systems to elementary and secondary schools and proposed four dimensions: governance, curriculum, operations (activities), and support services to investigate the internationalization occurring in the Palestinian-Arab secondary schools in Israel. He debated that regarding support activities, the government would need to provide scholarships, accommodation, and administration to promote mobility; however, secondary schools can achieve virtual mobility through technological solutions or other services that foster international cooperation to enable school internationalization.
Although both studies have proposed dimensions of internationalization for elementary and secondary education, the specific indicators and their validation remain unestablished. Specifically, there is a lack of research regarding the school operation and management toward internationalization in the elementary and secondary school contexts. Moreover, most dimensions and tools for school internationalization were framed solely based on Western perspectives (Gao, 2019), and thus, are highly Western-centered.
The “School Internationalization 2.0” proposed by the Taiwan MOE (2021) is based on the premise that the learning environment plays a critical role in cultivating students’ ability to adapt and communicate internationally. In order to encourage schools to establish an appropriate environment for education internationalization, the Taiwan MOE divided the executive tasks of schools into six specific dimensions: (1) internationalization goals, (2) campus internationalization, (3) personnel internationalization, (4) administration internationalization, (5) curricula internationalization, and (6) international partnerships. Taiwan MOE, however, has the executive tasks of schools and the definition of these six dimensions, but has not developed and validated the indicators under these six dimensions. Therefore, this study investigated school internationalization in elementary and secondary schools in Taiwan by focusing on the above six dimensions provided by MOE (2021) along with other related studies in response to the trends of school internationalization development in Taiwan.
Internationalization goals
Internationalization goals entail the school stating its identity and internationalization vision, as well as, proposing goals and strategies to promote the school’s internationalization (Taiwan MOE, 2021). According to the international assessment tool proposed by Yemini (2012), institutional support assesses a school’s management support and commitment to internationalization, including the school’s mission and vision statements, policies related to school staff of internationalization. In addition, the development of school internationalization involves an institutional transformation that requires strong leadership and direction to change the official stakeholders’ assumptions, values, and practices to the international perspective (Childress, 2009). Hattingh (2016) emphasized that the official policy provides guidelines ensuring that the procedures and practices followed are consistent with the school objectives. Moreover, Childress (2009) stated that the school internationalization plan serves as a roadmap for internationalization, a vehicle to encourage the engagement of the school’s stakeholders, and a mechanism for explaining the meaning and goals of internationalization to promote it.
Campus internationalization
The Taiwan MOE (2021) has defined campus internationalization as the responsibility of schools to create an appropriate and friendly international environment. According to Knight (1994), campus internationalization differs from other aspects of internationalization because it involves entities such as ministries of education, school culture, students, faculty, and staff. Historically, the “linchpin” of campus internationalization has been the presence of international students on campus. Over time, however, more schools have come to believe that local students, teachers, and administrators should also be targeted to increase international perspectives and have developed the theory of institutional transformation and campus internationalization (e.g., Braskamp, 2009). Research has demonstrated that a school’s infrastructure facilities directly affect pupils’ learning and their achievements (Nepal, 2016). In addition, Prior (2009) has emphasized the facilitation of students’ early writing and reading by providing environmental prints such as signs. Specifically, an international environment should be created by providing bilingual or multilingual inputs for students to not only experience language learning but also understand different cultural perspectives (Fan et al., 2015). On the other hand, it is important for institutes or schools to take visible actions, such as bilingual symbols around the campus, bilingual news on the school website, or the creation of new classrooms, to demonstrate that progress is being made in terms of internationalization (Eckel and Kezar, 2003).
Personnel internationalization
Personnel internationalization refers to a school that encourages its faculty and administrative staff to acquire internationalization competence and establish a core team to promote its internationalization (Taiwan MOE, 2021). According to the assessment tool for higher education and schools (ACE, 2022; Yemini, 2012), faculty and staff policy and support is one of the main categories to evaluate the internationalization of schools that demonstrate the need to develop the intercultural competence of faculty and staff and are able to incorporate these experiences into their teaching and service. Although globalization and internationalization have a powerful influence on schools, local contextual factors such as school resources and teacher perspectives play a significant role in shaping how schools engage with the development of internationalization (Hattingh, 2016). To facilitate internationalization, schools should provide their staff with workshops and professional development programs on international issues and encourage them to participate by providing incentives, such as recognition awards (Yemini and Cohen, 2016). Therefore, personnel internationalization assesses a school’s mechanism for providing international professional development programs and workshops and encouraging staff to participate in related events.
Administration internationalization
Schools should establish an international administrative support and service system to promote the international integration of courses, learning, and international exchanges (MOE, 2021). In order to establish international cooperation and create international exchange opportunities for teachers and students either physically or virtually, schools are expected to demonstrate internationalism in terms of providing bilingual official documents, international student support services (Yemini, 2012). Previous studies have shown the importance of providing administrative support, including student learning support, and school staff cooperation, to strengthen school internationalization. For example, Li (2004), in her research on high school foreign students, reported that pupils with different cultural backgrounds should receive quality education, and positive relations and support among teachers, parents, and pupils should be promoted by communicating effectively and providing support and care. Hattingh (2016) further proposed that the role of the school management in developing internationalization includes administering the legal requirements for enrolling students, providing services for cross-cultural competency, and organizing and managing staff collaboration. Thus, the administrative internationalization indicators is evaluated includes whether the school has bilingual official documents, provides students with learning support, and created international cooperation for teachers and community.
Curricula internationalization
The Taiwan MOE (2021) advocated the establishment of a support mechanism for international curriculum alignment, including teacher training, curriculum implementation, assessment methods, and teaching resources. Curricular internationalization includes the provision of international courses and experiences, as it refers to the internal activities of the school, including foreign language requirements and availability, international and global courses, and the use of technology for international curricular activities. (Yemini, 2012). In addition, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan established curriculum guideline of 12-year basic education for elementary and secondary schools to cultivate students’ social participation in the era of the global village. According to Leask (2015), the process of curriculum internationalization involves incorporating international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the curriculum, learning outcomes, tasks, teaching methods, and support services. For instance, integrating global issues and themes throughout the curriculum from the elementary to the high school level is a comprehensive approach to internationalization, with an emphasis on both teacher and student global competencies (Engel, 2019). Therefore, this dimension includes the school’s internal activities, curriculum design, resources, implementation, and evaluation that incorporate national policies to provide students with opportunities to engage in internationalized learning experiences.
International partnerships
International partnerships refer to the school actively participating in international exchanges and establishing and operating equal and mutually beneficial international cooperation relations (Taiwan MOE, 2021). In the context of education, partnerships can be defined as cooperative agreements between a school and another organization to coordinate activities, share resources, or divide duties related to specific projects or goals, such as student exchanges, joint programs, and faculty research, in order to promote international partnership (Obamba et al., 2013). International cooperation and partnerships are vital for developing both teachers’ and students’ empathy and the ability to collaborate (Eyal and Yarm, 2018). Moreover, apart from cooperation agreements between a school and another organization, student mobility is one of the most important measures of internationalization in higher education (Williams et al., 2021). However, actual mobility is not common in elementary and secondary schools. Yemini (2012) has replaced the actual mobility of students with virtual mobility, by assessing the international engagement of students in online learning courses and activities. Research has demonstrated that students who participated in internationalization programs developed relevant academic experiences and abilities such as cultural responsiveness, global competencies and intercultural interactions (Haughton, 2018).
Based on the internationalization assessment tool (e.g., Yemini (2012) proposed internationalization assessment dimensions to assess the internationalization of schools, adapted from assessment tools for higher education) and aforementioned studies of the six specific dimensions of school internationalization, initial indicators of school internationalization for elementary and secondary education have been proposed in this study for further development and validation.
Methodology
Procedures
This study developed the indicators of school internationalization in three phases. First, the preliminary indicators were drafted based on the literature review, as demonstrated in the previous section. Second, to measure the content validity of the indicators, focus group interviews were conducted with 14 school internationalization experts (2 members who plan, promote and supervise the development of internationalization in K-12 education administration from the Ministry of Education, 8 members who implement and supervise schools in the region from education bureaus across Taiwan, and 4 international education experts). and 35 school managers of elementary and secondary schools (10 schools from northern Taiwan, 9 from middle Taiwan, 10 from southern Taiwan, 3 from eastern Taiwan, and 3 from offshore islands in Taiwan), and the wording, clarity, appropriateness, and applicability of the indicators were refined accordingly. At this stage, the number of school internationalization indicators was condensed from 30 to 25 items for conciseness, simplification, and effectiveness (see appendix).
Lastly, to evaluate the construct validity of the indicators, a pre-test survey was implemented to perform the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a formal survey was applied to carried out the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In the survey, for each indicator item, the participants were requested to evaluate the extent to which the standards were being met on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = undeveloped, 2 = 25% developed, 3 = 50% developed, 4 = 75% developed, and 5 = fully developed) (Table 1).
Participants
Participation in this study was recommended by 22 education bureaus across Taiwan. Each education bureau provided a list of 2 to 10 schools based on the number of elementary and secondary schools, covering different types of schools, school locations, educational levels, and the status of developing school internationalization. The 150 schools recommended by the education bureaus were invited to participate. A total of 100 schools voluntarily participated in the pre-test. For the formal survey, 145 schools were recruited. The demographic information of the schools participating in the formal survey is shown in Table 2.
Validation of the developed indicator
First, the EFA was conducted with the pre-test data for factor structure extraction and construct validity testing using SPSS (version 28). Regarding the EFA, two criteria must be met. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value must be equal to or greater than 0.5 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity must be statistically significant (Field, 2000).
Subsequently, a CFA using Amos (version 28) was conducted on the formal survey data to further examine the construct validity of the developed indicators. The four indices of goodness-of-fit of the internationalization indicators were assessed. The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was applied to measure the approximate fit in a population while considering the approximation discrepancies (Steiger, 1990). The comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) higher than 0.95 reflect a good fit for the model (Hu and Bentler, 1995), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) less than 0.10 is considered acceptable (Hu and Bentler, 1995). In addition, the average variance extracted (AVE), construct reliability (CR), and composite reliability were calculated to ensure the indicator system’s internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.
Furthermore, a comparative analysis was employed to evaluate the performance of school internationalization in the six dimensions as related to the school type, school location, and educational levels.
Results and discussion
Exploratory factor analysis
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.93 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was statistically significant (χ2 (190) = 2245.70, p < 0.001), indicating that the data were suitable for factor analysis. Regarding the initial indicator system that comprised 25 items, the six dimensions explained 15.84, 14.40, 13.37, 11.44, 11.27, and 9.48% of the total variance. As shown in Table 3, after successively deleting items 14, 19, 20, 3, and 6 that had a factor loading lower than 0.30 (Costello and Osborne, 2005), a total of 20 indicators remained; the total variance explained by the dimensions was 15.96, 13.86, 13.44, 12.90, 11.94, and 11.29%, as indicated below.
Confirmatory factor analysis
To evaluate the factor structure of the 20-item indicator system, a CFA was conducted using the AMOS statistical software. In addition, four goodness-of-fit indices: RMSEA, CFI, TLI, and SRMR were used to examine the model-data fitness. Furthermore, the construct’s convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability were examined to ensure the construct validity of the developed indicator system.
Model-fit
The original model yielded RMSEA, CFI, TLI, and SRMR values of 0.097, 0.895, 0.874, and 0.0627, respectively, which did not meet the goodness-of-fit standards. To improve the model, the modification indices were examined to determine whether additional paths could be added to the model. As shown in Table 4, the correlations between the error terms of items 15–25 (model 2), 9–21 (model 3), and 4–11 (model 4) were added to the model successively. This study found that adding these correlated error terms was theoretically supported. Specifically, the correlation between items 15–25 confirmed the argument that administrative support is critical for schools to set a benchmark for teachers designing international curricula and establish collaboration and partnerships with foreign schools (Hunter, 2018). The correlation between items 9–21 reflected that the school’s international partnerships may be achieved through formal and informal curricula (Waterval et al., 2015). Regarding the correlation between items 4–11, item 4 emphasized the importance of establishing a foreign language school website, which would involve providing and regularly updating various administrative documents and forms in foreign language/bilingual versions, as suggested by item 11 in terms of providing services for cross-cultural competency such as introducing bilingual versions of documents (Hattingh, 2016).
After the above refinements, the model’s (model 4) fit improved, as evidenced by the following goodness-of-fit statistics: RMSEA = 0.089, CFI = 0.921, TLI = 0.902, and SRMR = 0.0594.
Construct validity
As shown in Table 5, the composite reliability of each dimension was greater than 0.75. Regarding the AVE, the values corresponding to international goals, campus internationalization, personnel internationalization, administration internationalization, curriculum internationalization, and international partnerships were 0.85, 0.68, 0.51, 0.62, 0.74, and 0.59, respectively, which meet the criterion of being greater than 0.5, the convergent validity of the construct is adequate (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
Discriminant validity
Table 6 summarizes the correlations and squared correlations between the indicator dimensions. If the constructs are conceptually distinct, Henseler et al. (2015) suggested a threshold value of 0.85. Thus, it was suggested that the developed indicator system of school internationalization has discriminant validity.
The six-dimensional indicator system developed in this study is the first validated school internationalization indicator developed for elementary and secondary schools. The results demonstrate that the new indicator system inferred adequate reliability and validity and could be employed to evaluate the performance of school internationalization.
It is noteworthy that the dimension of internationalization goals was included in the school internationalization indicator for the first time, thus confirming the need to define the internationalization vision, goals, and strategies to promote the development of internationalization in schools (Childress, 2009; Hattingh, 2015). Furthermore, indicator 1 stressed the “school-based” perspective to encourage school stakeholders and educators to pursue internationalization in a bottom-up manner to cultivate students with a sense of national identity and international perspectives simultaneously (Taiwan MOE, 2021). Accordingly, the construction of self-identification and positioning of international education in Taiwan could be assured in elementary and secondary schools.
In addition, the meaning and content of personnel internationalization, administration internationalization, and international partnerships were adjusted, as compared to the indicators assessing higher education internationalization. The fundamental reason for these changes was that student mobility is crucial in developing school internationalization in the higher education sector, however, not necessarily in elementary and secondary schools. Therefore, the indicator system developed in this study reflected Yemini and Cohen’s (2016) suggestion for adapting the concept of student mobility to pupils’ international engagement in online learning in elementary and secondary schools. Accordingly, the support activities for internationalization in terms of personnel, administration, and international partnerships would be more direct, as argued by Yemini (2014), at promoting virtual mobility using technological solutions or other services that foster international cooperation.
Evaluation of school internationalization performance in Taiwan
Descriptive Statistics
Table 7 shows the mean scores across the six dimensions of internationalization indicators. Among them, internationalization goals was the most developed (M = 3.61, SD = 1.31) indicator. However, campus internationalization (M = 2.52, SD = 1.30) and administration internationalization (M = 2.99, SD = 1.18) were reported as relatively less developed. Specifically, regarding campus and administration internationalization, only 25–50% of the indicators were met.
Campus internationalization focuses on creating an international environment by establishing foreign language school websites and providing news in foreign languages or bilingual versions. It has been found that a school’s infrastructure facilities can strengthen its students’ foreign language learning (Nepal, 2016). Administration internationalization includes administering the legal requirements for enrolling students, providing services for cross-cultural competency, and organizing and managing staff collaboration. Hunter (2018) indicated that schools should pay attention to the training of school administrators as they are the primary contact for international collaborations. The slow development of campus and administration internationalization constructs may be due to funding constraints. Further, the school administrators’ language skills take time to improve before the school can provide international administrative support and service system (Urbanovič et al., 2016).
Comparative analysis of school internationalization by school type, school location, and educational levels
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to identify the differences and similarities in the development of school internationalization of elementary and secondary schools based on school type, school location, and educational levels. Table 8 shows the detailed results of the same.
School type
The results demonstrated that there were no significant effects of school type on the internationalization goals (F(1, 143) = 0.15, p = 0.702), campus internationalization (F(1, 143) = 0.72, p = 0.398), personnel internationalization (F(1, 143) = 1.31, p = 0.255), administration internationalization (F(1, 143) = 0.07, p = 0.794), curricula internationalization (F(1, 143) = 0.21, p = 0.648), and international partnerships (F(1, 143) = 2.78, p = 0.098). School type having no significant difference in school internationalization might be two-folded in this study. First, the results might be the consequence of disproportionate numbers of participating respondents from public and private schools with a considerably lower number of survey respondents from private schools. Second, in some Western countries, previous research found disparities in the socioeconomic conditions that perpetuate a variation in the school quality across public schools (Rothstein, 2004). However, several Asian countries, such as Taiwan, do not have a great disparity between public and private schools (Lee, 2021), which might explain the reason for no significant difference between them in promoting school internationalization.
Educational level
Regarding the effect of educational levels on school internationalization, the results indicated that there was a significant effect of the educational levels on campus internationalization (F(2, 142) = 3.49, p = 0.003) and international partnerships (F(2, 142) = 8.34, p < 0.001). Regarding campus internationalization, high school (M = 2.80, SD = 1.48) performed statistically better than middle school (M = 2.08, SD = 0.99). Similarly, the development of international partnerships in high school (M = 3.82, SD = 1.04) was statistically higher than in middle (M = 2.88, SD = 1.21) and elementary (M = 3.00, SD = 1.38) schools.
Aside from participating in international exchanges, international partnership indicators included items related to establishing global partnerships and international exchange experiences on- or off-campus. Previous studies have suggested that most elementary and middle schools focus on designing cultural exchange curricula and activities, such as in the United States, Japan (Davidson and Liu, 2020), and Taiwan (Shih, 2020). This may be because elementary and secondary school levels are considered a critical stage for developing the concepts and competencies of cultural understanding. Shih (2020) pointed out that diverse viewpoints and critical thinking of students could be cultivated by engaging in a cultural exchange curriculum. Nevertheless, high school students are more suitable for attending off-campus exchange programs due to their age, a higher degree of English language proficiency, global knowledge, and attitudes (Lin and Kung, 2009). These results align with the Taiwan MOE’s report indicating that the number of high schools applying for international exchange funding was greater than that of elementary and middle schools (Taiwan MOE, 2021).
Moreover, the aforementioned studies revealed that high schools have more opportunities of forming connections and collaborations with international schools. This may lead high schools to put additional effort into establishing bilingual environments, such as having bilingual signs and bilingual school websites, as compared to elementary and middle schools.
Considering the importance of establishing partnerships with other schools to develop the academic experiences and global competencies of students (Haughton, 2018; Yemini and Cohen, 2016), a shift from a culture of exchange to virtual programs/online learning through technological support or other services has been suggested for elementary and secondary schools, particularly given that online learning is the new normal during the post-pandemic era. This adaptation may help overcome the constraints of age and mobility (Schnell and Podeschi, 2022) and provide greater opportunities for elementary school students to engage in cultural exchange activities. In addition, establishing multicultural environments is crucial for promoting international collaboration (Obamba et al., 2013), strengthening pupils’ language proficiency, and broadening their horizons (Fan et al., 2015).
School location
Regarding the effect of the school location on school internationalization, the results demonstrated a significant effect of the school location in international goals (F(1, 143) = 4.2, p = 0.04) and partnerships (F(1, 143) = 15.69, p < 0.001). Considering international goals, schools in metropolitan areas (M = 3.73, SD = 1.30) performed statistically better than those in rural areas (M = 3.18, SD = 1.26). In addition, the development of international partnership was statistically better in schools in metropolitan areas (M = 3.45, SD = 1.23) than those in rural areas (M = 2.45, SD = 1.21).
The results of this study confirmed that of Chen et al.’s (2012) study that found that most characteristics of rural schools could be hardly established due to the instability and low retention rates of teachers and insufficient financial support. In addition, a lack of educational resources and school staff may block opportunities for establishing international partnerships and conducting cultural exchange activities in rural areas (Poole et al., 2022).
To reduce teacher turnover rates in rural areas could be achieved in several ways. Previous studies have found that teacher’s workload, job satisfaction, school’s leadership, pay satisfaction, teacher collaboration, school culture, and school support to teachers such as professional development are associated with turnover rate (Edinger and Edinger, 2018; Ryu and Jinnai, 2021). Administrators play an important role in helping teachers develop job satisfaction and increase retention rate. Administrator should provide educational resources, such as offering professional development programs, building a supportive school culture, and fostering collaboration between teachers, to facilitate teachers’ development of self-efficacy and increase trust and satisfaction (Asif et al., 2016; Edinger and Edinger, 2018). Moreover, administrator should offer financial incentives (salary) and non-financial incentives to retain teachers (Ryu and Jinnai, 2021) and increase the willingness to participate in international affairs.
Application of school internationalization indicators
The validated indicators could serve as guidelines and procedures for schools to train administrators or the inter-school community to use the indicator system to evaluate and analyze the results of school internationalization and decide on the improvements that can be made. In addition, the indicators of school internationalization could be divided into primary indicators and selective indicators, which could be used to classify the level of internationalization of schools. The primary indicators are the basic requirements for school internationalization. For example, an indicator under internationalization goals, “Establish the school-based vision, goals, strategies and action plan for the development of school internationalization.” is the fundamental and critical elements of developing school internationalization; while the selective indicators are the indicators that could fit into each school circumstances. For example, “Serve as a training center/resource center and support for administrative affairs related to international education” is one of the selective indicators that schools could choose to serve as a training center if they have related resources. Additionally, Schools could be categorized according to their level of internationalization by collecting data and analyzing performance on these indicators.
Conclusions and future implication
This study aimed to develop and validate an indicator system for elementary and secondary school levels in the pursuit of school internationalization. The six-dimension indicator system demonstrated reasonable validity and good reliability. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically validate school internationalization indicators for elementary and secondary schools, which could serve as guidelines for internationalizing elementary and secondary school environments in Taiwan and other international contexts that seek internationalization in similar school levels. Moreover, this indicator system encourages a bottom-up practice of school internationalization by requiring schools to construct their own internationalization vision and strategies from a school-based perspective. Specifically, distinct from the traditional Western-oriented approach, this indicator system could enable a more localized conceptualization of school internationalization, simultaneously encouraging the self-identification and international education positioning of Taiwanese elementary and secondary schools. Furthermore, the proposed school internationalization indicators could potentially be applied to education systems outside of Taiwan to respond to globalization, especially in countries where Confucian schools in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea reveal a singular dedication to the high-stakes assessment (Bernstein, 2013; Hogan, 2014; Wang and Lin, 2005) because sole emphasis on standardized tests has led to excessive memorization of facts and procedures, which, in turn, has prevented the cultivation of valuable critical thinking and other 21st century skills to meet the challenge of globalization. In addition, Confucian schools have a rigid hierarchical system, the development and reform must be enforced from top to bottom. Therefore, schools must establish their internationalization vision, goals and strategies for the development of school internationalization. Schools must establish internationalization training mechanism to empower school staff. With the empowerment of school staff, the school has the ability to provide support and service to teachers and students to promote international courses, exchanges and cooperation.
However, the indicators would need to be modified and adapted to fit the unique context (e.g., the guidelines for the national curriculum) and needs of each country’s education system. That is, the school internationalization indicators developed and validated in this study could serve as a useful reference for other countries seeking to enhance their internationalization efforts, but careful consideration and adaptation, such as in curriculum internationalization dimension, developing courses that incorporate international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the curriculum, based on the country’s curriculum guidelines, would be necessary to ensure their effectiveness in different contexts. In addition, the indicators used to evaluate the internationalization performances of the schools in Taiwan indicated that the development of internationalization in schools was beyond the preliminary phases, based on the results shown in Table 7. However, campus and administration internationalization were reported to have relatively slow development, possibly due to funding constraints. Therefore, additional support and efforts in developing the second/foreign language proficiency of school administrators and diverse perspectives to promote the international integration of courses, learning, and international exchanges are highly recommended (Urbanovič et al., 2016). Although the schools have put some efforts into implementing school internationalization in terms of the six dimensions discussed, the findings revealed that metropolitan schools, compared to the rural ones, tend to establish more international cooperation relations with other schools and perform better in setting international goals. This may be due to the low retention rates of teachers and insufficient financial support (Poole et al., 2022). Moreover, the development of global partnerships and campus internationalization was statistically better in high schools than in middle and elementary schools. Therefore, creating a multicultural environment in elementary schools to strengthen students’ intercultural communicative competences (Heggernes, 2021), as well as broaden their horizons has been suggested.
Although the present study reveals important findings, it has some limitations. It is noteworthy that a sample of 145 schools may not be representative of all elementary and secondary schools in Taiwan. Moreover, school characteristics such as school size, district socioeconomic status, and teacher-level characteristics are important factors that may influence the level of school internationalization (Romani-Dias et al., 2019). In addition, the findings might not be generalizable to other schools or regions. Therefore, it is recommended that future research should incorporate diverse school characteristics to further validate the indicators of school internationalization at the elementary and secondary school levels. Furthermore, it is recommended to gather data from both primary and secondary schools throughout Taiwan using indicators for school internationalization. This would assess schools’ progress in achieving their internationalization objectives and identify areas where they could make improvements.
Data availability
The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/FIBOMZ and are available upon reasonable request by contacting the correspondence author.
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Cheng, M.-M.: writing—original draft preparation, data collection, analysis. Tang, C.-W.: data collection, data analysis, interpretation of the results. Wang, L.-C.: data collection, data analysis, assisted in writing the manuscript and discussion. Chuang, H.-H.: conceptualization, writing-revised meticulously the essential knowledge content, reviewing and editing.
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This study was conducted in accordance with the legislation of the Governance Framework for Human Research Ethics. According to these rules, approval from the ethics committee was not required because this study did not involve experimental manipulation and was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of public policies. This study was commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, to evaluate the effectiveness of international education policies. Therefore, permission was sought and granted from the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, and the principles of the sampled elementary and secondary schools.
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The participants in focus group interviews were notified and agreed that the interview would be recorded. The formal survey was collected via an online questionnaire. The first window of the e-survey consists of an information statement, “By entering the survey, I indicate that I have read the information provided and agree to participate.”
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Appendix
Appendix
Expert validity of the indicators.
Dimension | Indicator | Review comments | New |
|---|---|---|---|
Internationalization goal | 1. Establish the school-based vision, goals, strategies and action plan for development of the school internationalization. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 1. Establish the school-based vision, goals, strategies and action plan for development of the school internationalization. |
2. Perform annual evaluation of achievements and difficulties and suggest feasible improvement strategies. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 2. Perform annual evaluation of achievements and difficulties and suggest feasible improvement strategies. | |
Campus internationalization | 3. Set up foreign language/bilingual school signs. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 3. Set up foreign language/bilingual school signs. |
4. Establish foreign language/bilingual school website (webpage). | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 4. Establish foreign language/bilingual school website (webpage). | |
5. provide foreign language/bilingual information service | Delete: 14 (Similar to item 6) Accept: It is proposed to change to: | 5. Provide the latest news in foreign language or bilingual version. | |
6. Provide the latest news in foreign language or bilingual version. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | ||
Personnel internationalization | 7. Establish an incentive mechanism for internationalization training. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 6. Establish an incentive mechanism for internationalization training. |
8. Evaluate and analyze the current level and resources of the school’s manpower internationalization. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 7. Evaluate and analyze the current level and resources of the school’s manpower internationalization. | |
9. Establish a core team for the promotion of the school’s internationalization; define tasks and allocate responsibilities. | Delete: 0 Accept: 0 It is proposed to change to: Serve as a training center/resource center and support for administrative affairs related to international education. | 8. Serve as a training center/resource center and support for administrative affairs related to international education. | |
10. Set up an ‘internationalization office’ to handle the school’s internationalization affairs. | Delete: 0 Accept: 0 It is proposed to change to: Serve as a training center/resource center and support for administrative affairs related to international education. | ||
11. Invite foreign professionals to assist in teaching or conduct lectures using diverse teaching approaches. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 9. Invite foreign professionals to assist in teaching or conduct lectures using diverse teaching approaches. | |
Administration internationalization | 12. Establish an international education database for future use. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 10. Establish an international education database for future use. |
13. Establish systematic administration service to promote international education. | Delete: 14 (Similar to item 12) Accept: 0 It is proposed to change to: | ||
14. Provide and regularly update various administrative documents and forms in FL/bilingual versions. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 11. Provide and regularly update various administrative documents and forms in FL/bilingual versions. | |
15. Faculty, parents or community members actively participate in the school’s internationalization activities to enhance cooperation relationships. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 12. Faculty, parents or community members actively participate in the school’s internationalization activities to enhance cooperation relationships. | |
16. Provide foreign students or foreign teachers with FL/bilingual teaching or learning assistance and consultation. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 13. Provide foreign students or foreign teachers with FL/bilingual teaching or learning assistance and consultation. | |
17. Provide resources or opportunities for disadvantaged students to participate in international education courses and activities. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 14. Provide resources or opportunities for disadvantaged students to participate in international education courses and activities. | |
18. Schools and teachers join international education-related cross-school/city/country educational organization alliances to keep pace with the times and accelerate the internationalization of schools and international connection | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 15. Schools and teachers join international education-related cross-school/city/country educational organization alliances to keep pace with the times and accelerate the internationalization of schools and international connection | |
Curriculum internationalization | 19. Implement on-demand and regular professional development courses to improve teachers’ professional practice in the curriculum internationalization. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 16. Implement on-demand and regular professional development courses to improve teachers’ professional practice in the curriculum internationalization. |
20. Based on the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education, develop the curriculum for the school’s internationalization goals. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 17. Based on the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education, develop the curriculum for the school’s internationalization goals. | |
21. Develop international exchange courses based on the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education to provide students with an internationalized learning experience. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 18. Develop international exchange courses based on the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education to provide students with an internationalized learning experience. | |
22. Implement course evaluation to understand the effectiveness of the international curriculum. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: Establish evaluation standards for international curriculum.: | 19. Establish evaluation standards for international curriculum. | |
23. Establish international teaching resources based on the needs of the curriculum to enhance the quality of the international curriculum | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 20. Establish international teaching resources based on the needs of the curriculum to enhance the quality of the international curriculum | |
24. Establish a user-friendly online learning system and provide sufficient books and other media to enhance the quality of the international curriculum. | Delete: 14 (Similar to item 23) Accept: 0 It is proposed to change to: | ||
International partnership | 25. Establish international partnerships actively. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 21. Establish international partnerships actively. |
26. Sign agreements with international sister schools | Delete: 0 Accept: 0 It is proposed to change to:Sign agreements with international sister schools or international partnership. | 22. Sign agreements with international sister schools or international partnership | |
27. Establish partnerships regarding international curriculum and school systems. | Delete: 0 Accept: 0 It is proposed to change to:Sign agreements with international sister schools or international partnership. | ||
28. Teachers and students participate in online or in-person international exchange activities held in domestic. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 23. Teachers and students participate in online or in-person international exchange activities held in domestic. | |
29. Teachers and students participate in overseas exchange activities online or in-person. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 24. Teachers and students participate in overseas exchange activities online or in-person. | |
30. Attend international exchange experiences on or off-campus. | Delete: 0 Accept: 14 It is proposed to change to: | 25. Attend international exchange experiences on or off-campus. |
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Cheng, MM., Tang, CW., Wang, LC. et al. School internationalization in Taiwan: constructing assessment indicators and future application. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10, 349 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01844-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01844-2
