Cultural Immersion in Freshman Courses Using Virtual Exchange: Empowering Students Through Local and Global Engagement

Abstract

This mixed-methods research study focuses on the efficacy of virtual exchange (VE) in promoting authentic cross-cultural immersion, critical awareness of social issues, and collective engagement in local and global communities among undergraduate students. The partner institutions in this VE project were a large public US university and a small private university in Hong Kong. Discussions focused on access and opportunity issues in the US and Hong Kong for various communities, leading to a deeper analysis of the distribution of power and privilege in both countries. I analyzed the impact of VE on the US students (n = 45) through pre- and post-test surveys using the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS), which measures cross-cultural competence and thematic analysis of student artifacts. VE students’ competence significantly increased from pre-test to post-test on the ISS, while the students in a similar course without VE (n = 28) showed no change. Analysis of student artifacts revealed a shift in global awareness, an appreciation of authentic insights about another the culture, a critical understanding of social structures, and a need for collaboration concerning global issues among youth. Overall, VE offered powerful and enriching experiences for students by integrating international immersion into college education courses.

1. Introduction

In the last five years, international virtual exchange has gained immense popularity as an innovative approach for providing international experiences to students. This trend particularly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic when international travel was restricted (Stevens Initiative 2022; Vásquez 2022; Zak 2021; Zhang et al. 2025). Recent advances in interactive technology portals, a general increased competence in online teaching and learning, and research on the effectiveness of virtual exchange (VE) as a high-impact practice has led to new networks of instructors and learning communities all over the world who want to take advantage of VE to provide cultural immersion to students at minimal cost (Zhang et al. 2025). VE is a cost-effective approach for expanding cultural exchange opportunities to students across the board, especially students who may be financially disadvantaged and underrepresented in study abroad communities (Lee et al. 2022; Commander et al. 2022; Zak 2021). Research has suggested that VE promotes diverse perspectives and connections to peers across international universities and can provide numerous college-to-career benefits to students (Whatley 2024). Thus, it is important to consider how universities can grow and sustain such inexpensive and high-impact initiatives (Commander et al. 2022; Zhang et al. 2025). Additionally, VE has been shown to enhance career readiness, promote intercultural competence, help overcome language barriers, and promote the use of technology portals to engage in teamwork (Meleady et al. 2020; Zhang et al. 2025).

This manuscript details how VE was integrated with coursework to enhance collaboration among students in cross-cultural teams, promote critical thought about issues of access and equity in the two contexts, and facilitate virtual learning using various technology portals. This research investigates the impact of VE on the cultural competence of freshman undergraduates and outlines implications for future VE incorporation in undergraduate courses.

Context and Approach Used for Virtual Exchange

The context of the study is a large, urban, Research 1 university, located in the south-eastern United States. The university boasts a diverse campus and focuses on building an international community of learners, both on campus and through global immersion practices such as VE and study abroad. About 60% of the students in the university are Pell grant recipients, and a large proportion of the students are first-generation college attendees facing financial challenges (U.S. News Index 2024). Aligned with the university’s mission to provide authentic international immersion to students at no cost, I initiated a collaboration with a small, private university in Hong Kong. We chose an Introduction to Education course to integrate VE. A total of 69 students participated: 45 students from the US and 24 students from Hong Kong. This course enlisted freshmen students from diverse majors like education, business, law, journalism, and medicine, and is a graduation requirement for undergraduate students.

The VE embedded course in both universities explored similar content about access, opportunities, privilege, and social and economic hierarchies, as well as the role of education in facilitating positive change. Instructors from both contexts collaborated to create multiple structured activities, prompts, and videos to model expectations for various VE assignments. Experiences were designed to be progressively sophisticated in order to elicit a deeper understanding of social issues in both countries, portray parallels in human experience, and provide opportunities for international partnership to address global issues.

Given the 12 h time difference between the US east coast and Hong Kong, the two sets of students and instructors were not able meet as a whole group on a video call. Instead, students were placed in small groups for the entire semester; each group consisted of three to four students from the US and two from Hong Kong. The expectation was that students would interact informally, by following each other on social media platforms like Snapchat or Instagram, and formally, by meeting over video call each week (for a minimum of 10 meetings total) on a platform of their choice. While students had in-depth conversations within their small groups, they read and commented on other groups’ weekly posts on Padlet. In this manner, all students in both countries received an insight into the discussions and perspectives of students who they were not directly interacting with. Student learning outcomes for VE focused on developing college-to-career competencies in all of the diverse majors represented (Stevens Initiative 2022; Zak 2021), with a focus on

• Developing a critical understanding of their own culture and the culture of the partnering country;
• Developing cross-cultural communication skills and building collaborations;
• Enhancing perspective-broadening skills by exhibiting curiosity, empathy, and compassion for others’ contexts or ideas;
• Recognizing the interconnectedness of the world and understanding complex global relations, cultures, and perspectives;
• Developing technological skills and literacy for effective intercultural communication.

Since VE is a relatively new field, research is needed to understand how courses that are focused on promoting critical thought around historic and societal structures can be enriched further by integration of VE (Constanza-Chock 2020; Freire 1970; Hoon et al. 2020; Lee et al. 2022; Zhang et al. 2025). This research study employed a quasi-experimental design (Shadish et al. 2002) and compared freshmen students at the US university from two course sections that had similar demographic profiles and similar reading and assignment expectations. The difference was that one course section embedded VE while the other did not. The research questions were as follows:

• What was the impact of VE on the participating students’ intercultural competence, based on the pre- and post-study ISS ratings and VE assignments?
• How did the intercultural competence of the VE and non-VE group compare based on the pre- and post-study ISS ratings?

2. Materials and Methods

In this VE collaboration, both instructors engaged in extensive planning to develop an implementation which would be beneficial for students in the US and Hong Kong to engage in a dialog centered around equity issues. We planned VE activities spread over a 10-week period, culminating in two large assignments. Using detailed rubrics and video exemplars we modeled expectations for students to engage in collaborative work with their international peers. A collaborative page on Padlet.com was also used for students to upload their assignments and comment on the work completed by other groups. Students were given the autonomy to decide which conferencing portal and time was best suited for their synchronous meeting with their international peers; most of the groups used WebEx, Zoom, Discord, or Google Hangouts.

2.1. VE Assignments

2.1.1. i-Witness Story

US and Hong Kong students came up with one societal issue in their respective cultures and made a presentation to their international peers in their small group over a video call. They sought feedback from their international peers at the end of the presentation to explore if the other culture also had similar issues. Some examples were social and ethnic hierarchies, lack of access to higher education, and disparities in the funding of public schools.

2.1.2. Problem/(Re)Solution

In their small groups, the US and Hong Kong students identified an issue which had global implications and brainstormed possible just and humane solutions. Students explored avenues for personal action and generated ideas for international collaboration and advocacy. Some examples of issues were the dangers of misinformation, global warming, reducing plastic waste, and preventing future pandemics.

2.2. Pre- and Post-Study Survey on Intercultural Sensitivity

Instructors in both countries integrated a research component in their respective courses to study the impact of cross-cultural immersion on students, using the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) as a pre- and post-study assessment. The ISS is a 24-item instrument developed by Chen and Starosta (2000) that assesses students’ general appreciation of global issues and their skill in intercultural communication. This scale has been widely used in studies of collaborative learning in the US, China, and other countries and demonstrates high internal consistency, with a 0.86 reliability coefficient and concurrent validity with the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale and the Intercultural Communication Attitude Scale (Chen and Starosta 2000). Students provided self-ratings on the ISS five-point Likert scale (one being the lowest and five being the highest competence) on attitudes and perceptions related to intercultural competence. Research has shown that a high score on the ISS is aligned with a higher level of sensitivity in intercultural interactions (Chen and Starosta 2000).

The 45 students enrolled in the VE course took the pre-study ISS survey at the beginning of the semester and the post-study ISS survey at the end of the semester. Similarly, the pre- and post-study ISS survey was completed by students on a non-VE course that enrolled 28 students and served as the control group. To elicit honest reflections on students’ cultural competence, the pre- and post-study surveys in both courses were anonymous.

The ISS survey had 24 questions and for each question I averaged the student responses from both course sections. Next, I conducted a paired-samples t-test for the VE and control group’s means from the pre- and post-study ISS ratings. This allowed me to observe changes in the various aspects of intercultural competence over a period of 10 weeks between the two course sections, one with VE experience and the other without VE experience (Howell 2013).

2.3. Qualitative Analysis of Student Artifacts

For the qualitative analysis, I analyzed student artifacts using constant comparative analysis (Strauss and Corbin 1990). My positionality as an Asian American, female, university faculty member makes me seek opportunities for international collaboration and to incorporate cross-cultural understandings in my teaching as well as in my research. My multicultural identity played a role in designing the course, assignments, and prompts; however, while engaging in the analysis of student artifacts, I managed my potential bias by conducting detailed data logging and using student voice in describing the impact of VE.

The initial design of this project included collaborative research and the two VE partner instructors were co-PIs. However, because of data sharing issues, I became the sole researcher in this project, and my data was limited to artifacts from the US students only. Using a priori coding, I created three broad themes: authentic insight into another culture, understanding social structures, and collaboration on global issues. The three themes were aligned with the goal of informal interactions between the students and with the two VE assignments. The a priori themes were also defined in a progressively complex manner because reflections and student artifacts became more in-depth and sophisticated as the semester progressed. I uploaded the assignments and reflections from the US students into Nvivo-14 and coded them according to these broad a priori themes, but I also noted the various codes as they emerged. I maintained a codebook to define each code for consistency and to avoid overlap or redundancy. Initial codes were redefined as-needed to collate data in a systematic manner. Finally, through multiple reads of the data segments and codes, I consolidated codes, considered their frequency to identify the most significant codes, and finally summarized the findings, as supported by the exemplar quotes.

3. Results

The results showcase comparisons of the pre- and post-study survey results for the two course sections (VE and control group) and the qualitative analysis of the VE assignments and reflections to determine if students found the VE experience impactful.

3.1. Quantitative Results

The paired samples correlation and the t-test for the pre- and post-VE ratings for the VE group were significant.

r(45) = 0.831, p < 0.001.

This indicated that overall, aggregate ISS scores on intercultural competence increased from the beginning of the semester to the end, as the students engaged with their Hong Kong peers for 10 weeks. There was a significant difference between the pre- and post-test means on the 24 items of the ISS (see

Table 1. Paired samples t-test—VE group.

	Mean	N	Standard Deviation	Standard Mean Error
Pre-test	3.4375	45	0.80261	0.16383
Post-test	4.5442	45	0.52765	0.07880

).

t(44) = −10.275, p < 0.001.

For the control group, the pre–post paired samples correlation was non-significant

r(28) = 0.275, p = 0.204

The paired sample t-test indicated no significant increase on the ISS for the control group over the semester (see

Table 2. Paired samples t-test—control group.

	Mean	N	Standard Deviation	Standard Mean Error
PreTest	3.2310	28	0.96523	0.16383
PostTest	3.3387	28	0.91273	0.18345

)

t(27) = −0.713, p = 0.479

Thus, the results for the paired samples t-tests showed that the VE experience was impactful and the intercultural competence as measured by the ISS pre- and post-study surveys showed a significant increase over a 10-week period. The control group did not have VE experience; therefore, their means over the 10-week period remained unchanged.

3.2. Qualitative Results

Using constant comparative analysis, three major themes emerged from student artifacts. The themes were authentic insights about another culture, understanding social structures, and collaboration on global issues.

3.2.1. Authentic Insights About Another Culture

Authentic insights were defined as culturally grounded understandings that students gained through regular interactions with their Hong Kong peers over the 10-week period. Students obtained insight on values, norms, and lived experiences of people from the other culture through the lens of similar-aged peers in their VE groups. This broad theme also included students’ reflections on their own stereotypes and cultural assumptions about the other society (Constanza-Chock 2020).

The student assignments and reflections highlighted how VE provided a “window into another culture”, which helped them understand the people, norms, and customs beyond the stereotypes. Students expressed curiosity, enjoyment, and even surprise, on receiving a “personal tour” into the other culture through their international peers. Numerous reflections from students mentioned that following their Hong Kong partners on social media offered them a peek into the interests and daily lives of peers in another country. Additionally, listening to the presentations of issues in Hong Kong was a valuable experience, as this student mentioned,

“I felt like so many of my stereotypes were challenged! First off, English was not an issue. [Hong Kong students] were a bit conscious in the beginning about speaking with us, but we got over that quickly. Then, our daily rituals looked similar, our taste in music, and also the craze for KPop! I honestly had no idea about what Hong Kong’s history was and their dynamics with people from the mainland. Learning all this from two real people from Hong Kong was so much more amazing than watching a documentary on this topic!”

Many students similarly mentioned that they had not read any news stories or other cultural details about Hong Kong prior to the VE interactions. Their initial hesitation about a language barrier as well as the 12 h time difference did not pose a major hurdle in their interactions. Students mentioned that they would stay in touch beyond the semester and VE assigned work, “I would love for a trip to that part of the world and meet with these new friends I have made”. Students shared other common joys and talents that they shared across two different parts of the world, “it was way too cool to find out that we had made a TikTok on the same song!”

First-hand lived accounts of the VE partners were especially powerful in developing empathy, respect for the thoughts and norms of another culture, and for appreciating the similarity in human experience in two very different parts of the world, as one student mentioned, “I thought things were getting expensive here, then I saw the cost of living in Hong Kong! [Hong Kong partner] also works as a barista like me, 20 h a week.”

Students also mentioned that hearing personal insights about the other culture through this interaction helped them think about, “pausing judgment”, as one student said, “we are pretty quick to judge others, without even knowing the full picture! I am sure they do too, it is a human tendency. But asking follow-up questions and generally talking with them helped a lot!” Thus, learning about the routines of their international peers in the other context, connecting with them at a personal level, and finding parallels in their lives as well as in their societies was a fulfilling and enlightening experience for students.

3.2.2. Understanding Social Structures—“Understanding Self by Looking at Others”

This theme was defined as a critical examination of their own as well as the other society’s institutional and relational frameworks that impact life for various groups of people in that country (Freire 1970). Students reflected on norms, distribution of resources, power structures, and other forms of stratification in both contexts, and they examined various similarities or differences.

For the first VE assignment, student presentations focused on issues that impacted them, while unpacking impact of societal systems on their individual lives. Students shared insights about school funding, distribution of economic and higher education opportunities, and other avenues for upward mobility for people from different backgrounds. For example, students from the US shared stories about their neighborhoods, jobs, and other challenges arising post-pandemic. Some students shared data about funding of public schools in different areas—rural, urban or suburban—and disparities in support systems at home and school, all of which are necessary for student success. Similar insights were presented by Hong Kong students, who shared how children attended a variety of public and private schools.

Students observed a parallel between both contexts; children from already well-resourced families tended to attend well-funded and high-performing schools, which put them on a trajectory of success early on in life, as one student mentioned,

“most of [Hong Kong students] had attended public schools just like us. We saw pictures of some fancy private schools there, which are only for the ultra-wealthy, just like over here! The difference in resources is mind blowing, the networks, and the life that is possible for only a few!”

These interactions also inspired critical thought among students about the patterns of behaviors and norms observed in different societies,

“I was surprised to hear about how much hesitation there was to talk about politics among the students there. That helped us think about what might be triggering this, why certain societies might restrict free expression, and how people in different countries cope with it.”

Students reported a shift in their global perspectives and a valuable knowledge of global points of view on various issues in real time, beyond what they typically learn through US media,

“it was kind of embarrassing how much more [Hong Kong students] knew about the US, than we did about them. Why don’t we ever hear anything about that part of the world on the news? Yes, we are different in our cultures but the problems are pretty similar!”

This also prompted a discussion among students on the attention that the US commands globally, while in the US, “we can go through our lives never learning about other countries, only learning about them when something’s bad there.” Since such authentic insights are not usually available through the media, students mentioned that following actual people on social media and building connections with them at a personal level was extremely valuable.

Despite cultural and ethnic differences in the two countries, the similarity in resource distribution was enlightening for students in the US. They also noted that examining these issues in another society helped them develop critical understanding of the structures and problems within their own. As one student noted,

“I feel like looking at someone else’s cultures holds a mirror to your own self! All the things that they do over there might be different from what we do here, but it surely helps with understanding self by looking at others.”

3.2.3. Collaboration for Global Issues

This theme included collaborative engagement by US and Hong Kong students on issues of mutual interest for the two countries and other parts of the world. Once again, using critical inquiry, students analyzed how global phenomena like pandemics, climate change, human rights concerns, and socioeconomic disparities play out in different societies. Students explored organizations that specialize in providing impactful interventions for complex global issues and reflected on effective ways to use their voice to promote collective well-being.

As students compared contexts, circumstances, social inequities and possible avenues of advocacy over the semester, they learned of issues that were of significance globally. For example, students identified real-time issues such as freedom of expression in the two countries, as well as around the world, and conflicts going on in different parts of the world and their impact on vulnerable communities. At that time, hard lockdowns in response to COVID-19 were happening in some parts of the world. Students mentioned receiving an authentic window into the freedom of expression of similar-aged peers in different countries. As part of the second collaborative assignment, Problem/(re)Solution, the cross-cultural VE teams explored solutions to these problems and brainstormed their role as global citizens. Some students mentioned that they had been actively involved in social media campaigns at a local level, but engaging with international peers helped them recognize how to be advocates on a broader scale.

In this assignment, students reported forming global alliances with organizations that work in different parts of the world, signing petitions to increase global cooperation, and posting on their own social media to garner global attention on these issues. A US student whose group worked on the issue of global warming mentioned,

“I had never thought that I could possibly be a part of a larger movement that works to study [global] warming patterns and learn from their research. Our group joined their social media page and learned some amazing things that we could each do at the individual level and country level. It was eye opening to learn that we [US] produce way more garbage per capita than any other country and recycle way less than everyone else!”

Students also mentioned that cross-cultural exchange of ideas helped them recognize the importance of a collective voice, especially voices from diverse perspectives and cultures, which are much more impactful than individual voices. For example, one student mentioned that,

“these discussions helped us see each other’s humanity, the compassion that we had for people suffering in other parts of the world for no fault of their own. It inspired us to speak out on their behalf, because they cannot!”

These experiences also helped them recognize the interconnected nature of humanity and global issues, as one student expressed, “if COVID has taught us one thing, it is that what happens anywhere else in the world, can easily upend our lives here! So, we have to pay attention, their problem is our problem too!” Many students spoke about reliability of information in various countries, for instance,

“we have to stop consuming news through social media and become more smart about facts. We found many international news sources that rely on high-quality journalism and also ways to identify mis and disinformation!”

Another group mentioned, “there are so many aspects of our society that we don’t value because we didn’t struggle for it. Learning about other countries with high level of censorship was truly eye-opening!” Students came away feeling that international perspectives and collaboration on various issues were critical to not only obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the problem, but also developing meaningful solutions. Additionally, this interaction with peers from a different culture helped them understand their own country and its issues in a new light. Overall, students expressed how collective advocacy helped with developing humility about their limited insight, appreciating their role as global citizens, and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships to advocate for the good of humanity.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

The VE experience was impactful for the US students, as seen by both the increase in cultural competence ratings on the pre–post ISS survey analysis and the qualitative analysis of the assignments and reflections. One drawback of this study was that I was unable to obtain any data from Hong Kong students due to unforeseen circumstances. My initial research design included a comparative study of VE impact on the students in both contexts, US and Hong Kong. However, considering data sharing challenges, I had to limit this analysis to the impact of VE on the US students only. The quasi-experimental design allowed me to compare two freshmen course sections, one that included VE and another that did not. Although the section without VE also included readings and reflections that focused on critical awareness of US society, its history, and the current day disparities in opportunity, the VE course section offered a layered insight into these issues through authentic immersion into another culture. The VE group’s purposeful interactions not only gave them critical insight into the social structures of their own country, as well as their impact on individuals’ lives, but also helped them to recognize similar patterns in other countries. Because of the absence of such an immersive experience in the non-VE course, it is understandable that their growth on the ISS indicators of cross-cultural competence was not significant.

There are several implications for the effective implementation of VE emerging from this study. First, equal levels of commitment to the goals and outcomes of VE from both partner institutions and instructors. The instructor from Hong Kong and I spent numerous hours prior to the semester to brainstorm assignment focus, listing individual and group expectations for students, as well as aligning our calendars so that assignments would be due at the same time in both universities. Second, enough immersion time for the cross-cultural groups to interact with one another, including time for icebreakers and ongoing meetings. In this course, 10 weeks were assigned for the VE, with regular formal and informal interactions embedded. These sustained interactions had a positive impact on the students’ experiences and their intercultural competence, as was also confirmed by previous research (Commander et al. 2022; Zhang et al. 2025).

The US students mentioned having never met or interacted with another person from Hong Kong or having ever heard anything about Hong Kong through US media. Multiple interactions with international peers over the semester enabled students to become more observant and sensitive to others’ values, norms, languages, customs, and perspectives. Learning cross-cultural perspectives, partnering to address world issues, and immersing themselves in critical analysis of their own context was empowering for students, as mirrored in other studies (Behari-Leak 2020; Hoon et al. 2020; Meleady et al. 2020; Zhang et al. 2025). The VE experience inspired a renewed recognition in students that inequalities and injustices are rampant in the world (Freire 1970; O’Dowd 2021) and that partnerships among the youth and equality-oriented organizations are necessary now, more than ever, to address global issues (Behari-Leak 2020; Zhang et al. 2025). In a post-COVID-19 world, air travel costs have risen steeply and financial barriers remain for students’ study abroad opportunities, especially in universities like mine that have a high proportion of students facing financial hardships (U.S. News Index 2024; Whatley et al. 2025). As shown by this study, VE offered an immense addition of value, helped students recognize the interconnected nature of the world, and enabled effective use of technology portals to share ideas and create collaborations to bring about positive change at a global level (Stevens Initiative 2022; Whatley 2024; Whatley et al. 2025) Overall, the growing body of literature on VE, as well as this study, have shown that VE is a powerful, authentic, and cost-effective avenue for providing students with international immersion, fostering empathy, and forging meaningful connections with similar-aged peers across the globe (Stevens Initiative 2022; Zhang et al. 2025).