Online Collaboration Tools and International Students’ Sense of Belonging in Group Work

Abstract

Group work has been widely used as a pedagogical practice in higher education institutions in the United States. Nevertheless, few studies have looked into the processes of collaboration for group work involving international students who speak English as a second language. This population of students, which is increasing at my university, is usually at a disadvantage linguistically and culturally compared to their American peers in group work, which might pose challenges in their communication and interactions with group mates and lead to a lack of a sense of belonging in the group and also in the class. Part of a larger research project on international students’ learning experience with group work, this study focuses on three international students’ experiences using online collaboration tools for group work. Pedagogical implications for using online collaboration tools in group work to enhance international students’ learning and sense of belonging are discussed.