Collaborative Development of Textile and Apparel Curriculum Designed to Foster Students’ Global Competence

Abstract

Textile and apparel industry professionals must be capable of dealing with cultural differences and diverse perspectives on a multinational scale. To address the challenges involved in educating students for the global industry workforce, a 3-year collaborative project was conducted through partnerships between faculty at three U.S. universities and five universities in Thailand, Australia, and Russia. The project was designed to create learning modules based on real-world industry issues to foster global competence among students in textile and apparel programs. Tested in existing courses, module effectiveness was assessed using pre- and post-tests that included closed- and open-ended questions designed to measure students’ “cultural intelligence” as an indication of global competence. Results suggest that exposure to the modules helped to improve students’ global competence. However, further development and testing of the modules is needed to include students in programs and countries in addition to those represented by this study.