Assessing Global Citizenship

Overview

A central tenet of the UNSW approach to graduate capabilities is that all UNSW programs aspire to develop globally focused graduates who are rigorous scholars, capable of leadership and professional practice in an international community. Graduates of UNSW are expected to be “global citizens who are:

capable of applying their discipline in local, national and international contexts;
culturally aware and capable of respecting diversity and acting in socially just/responsible ways;
capable of acting in environmentally responsible ways”.

These capabilities include not only knowledge and skills; they also represent dispositions or ways of thinking and behaving. As such, they present their own challenges for assessment, and all the more so when they are being assessed as an embedded element within the diverse contexts of disciplinary knowledge and skills.

When to use

Given the centrality of global citizenship to the UNSW aspirational goals for its graduates, "global competence", defined by (Hunter, 2004, p.2) as “having an open mind while actively seeking to understand cultural norms and expectations of others, leveraging this gained knowledge to interact, communicate and work effectively outside one’s environment”, is likely to be an almost ubiquitous learning outcome prescribed across courses of study contributing to academic programs.

However, even if not explicitly defined as a learning outcome within a course, the development of global perspectives and a commitment to global citizenship are often unintended learning outcomes, particularly where group and team based learning, group discussion and oral communication skill development enable students to reflect on their own and other cultures in the context of global diversity. Providing an inclusive learning environment is an essential pre-requisite for enabling students to engage in developing their global citizenship skills, and for demonstrating their growing capabilities through the design of assessment as learning.

Benefits

Assessing the graduate capability of global citizenship enables the characteristics of a ‘global citizen’ to be made more explicit and meaningful for students in the context of the disciplinary and professional learning outcomes of courses and programs.

Global perspectives and inter-cultural communication skills to enhance the notions of social justice and critical inquiry can be explored through broader perspectives of the concept of global citizenship. For example, Oxfam depicts a global citizen as someone who:

is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen
respects and values diversity
has an understanding of how the world works
is outraged by social injustice
participates in the community at a range of levels, from the local to the global
is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place
takes responsibility for their actions.

Incorporating such dispositions into learning and assessment activities can promote critical thinking about diversity, and the questioning of ‘eurocentric’ or other dominant ideological viewpoints. Through focusing on social justice and community action, students can give greater shape and voice to applying their disciplinary knowledge with a global perspective and, with this, a stronger sense of agency and purpose to their studies.

The potential for encouraging more holistic and integrated thinking across domains of learning can be exploited in assessment designs that incorporate opportunities for students to examine their changing sense of ‘belongingness’, and the permeability of traditional borders (disciplinary, cultural, professional, political, and so on).

This includes exploiting the affordances of technologies in learning and assessment designs to enrich learning in a way that recognizes Buonfino’s (2007, p.5) suggestion that, “as travel becomes within reach of most people and communication technologies enable people to be immersed in cultures located elsewhere, and to cultivate multiple identities, the question of belonging becomes more complex and more central to the debate on how we live together”.

Challenges

Where assessment design shifts from an emphasis on disciplinary content knowledge towards a focus on the development of broader graduate capabilities, this shift can open up challenges for both students and teachers. Assessment needs to be framed around the more complex, seemingly nebulous, and ever-changing meanings of these broader capabilities and dispositions, whilst also recognizing their inter-relationship with the relevant discipline(s) and field(s) of professional practice.

In the context of a standards-based approach to assessment, the defining of standards related to global citizenship at different course levels, and at different levels of student performance within courses and particular assessment tasks, may be an unfamiliar exercise for many staff. Criteria and standards should be established that reduce as much as possible the impact of subjectivity in interpreting and grading students’ work.

Strategies

The following represent diverse ways in which the design and conduct of assessment can highlight students’ development of the graduate capability of global citizenship.

Aspects of assessment design	Strategies for focusing on assessing global citizenship
Align learning outcomes with assessment design	Clarify how learning outcomes embody global citizenship, and make explicit the relationship to assessment design. For example, the EdSteps ‘Global Competence Matrix’ outlines a framework of learning outcomes which could be used to underpin assessment design for global perspectives. See also: Aligning Assessment with Outcomes
Establish assessment standards	Develop standards that revolve around more measurable and verifiable descriptors of learning, to reduce the extent of subjectivity in assessment. For example, rather than trying to assess students’ positional ‘stance’ regarding globalization, assessment criteria could focus on the quality of their analysis of and/or solution to a defined problem with a globalised perspective. See also: Standards-Based Assessment
Prepare assessment rubrics	Adapt existing rubrics that highlight global perspectives, for example, based on the AAC&U ‘Value Rubric’ relating to civic engagement, or the CIEL Global Environmental Literacy Rubric. See also: Using Assessment Rubrics
Exploit students’ diverse backgrounds and experience	Design assessment tasks that enable students to contribute from their own personal background and experiences, critically evaluating theories and concepts in terms of relevance to their backgrounds, and undertaking research that includes information about many countries. See also: Responding to Cross-Cultural Diversity
Situate assessment tasks in content and settings that are global	Ensure that assessments engage students in considering global settings and implications, for example, that require students to: compare one or more international approaches to a topic, discipline or profession, including comparative professional contexts, expectations or accreditation requirements compare different ways in which a professional activity is carried out in different countries, analyzing this in terms of practical, cultural, historical, religious, and legislative perspectives explain an aspect of their study area or future professional field of practice to an audience (real or imagined) from a different cultural background present the outcomes of a project setting out the implications for diverse groups in terms of their diverse cultural, religious, linguistic or political contexts refer to material from international journals, inter-governmental organisations, overseas newspapers, etc. examine ethical issues in globalisation, such as social justice, equity, human rights, immigration, and other social, economic and/or political issues that involve a broad awareness of world trends identify and critique their own cultural assumptions and the impact of these when investigating topics and problems See also: Selecting Assessment Tasks
Set problem-solving assessment tasks in authentic professional practice contexts	Use case studies, scenarios, simulations, or role plays that engage students in authentic (or quasi-authentic) settings involving global perspectives. For example: Students in health and medical sciences from different cultural backgrounds work in groups to construct case studies of problems that can occur communicating with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in particular professional fields. Students role-play these scenarios to their tutorial group. Student’s work together to decide how these problems can be overcome and role-play the effective communication scenario. Law students examine landmark international cases dealing with human rights issues and discuss how international and national legal frameworks impacted on the results of each case. Students compare relevant international legislation to that of Australia. Business students complete a reflective log over the semester on challenges they face in dealing with people from other cultures and societies. Students reflect on their own cultural norms and what they have learned from classmates from culturally diverse backgrounds. Issues for discussion include norms around greeting people, spatial distance, business norms and workplace relations. Environmental Engineering students investigate sustainability through a critical essay on how electricity generation is designed and regulated in different countries and what cultural factors determine the type and volume of electricity generation. Students engage in simulated professional environments based in diverse countries – See Example in Case Studies See also: Assessing Authentically
Engage students in group–based assessment	Ensure that assessment design includes the opportunity for students to work in teams and/or groups: Rather than allowing students to form their own teams, allocate students to syndicates, ensuring that there is a mix of international and 'local' students in each team, and a mix of social, cultural, religious backgrounds. Make explicit in assessment tasks and criteria the requirement that students work with others, consider the perspectives of others and compare them with their own perspectives. See also: Assessing by Group Work
Engage students in interactions across the globe	Build into assessment designs the opportunity to engage in a global community: Require students to engage in discussion (for example, via email, videoconference, chat groups, and discussion board forums) with students or professionals in other countries and reflect on these discussions in their assessment outputs in terms of global perspectives. Students’ participation in and contribution to such discussions can themselves represent the assessment task, or can be used to provide the key input for subsequent assignments. Schedule presentations by high profile professionals on the global stage in academia, business, international relations, government, and non-profit sectors, in conjunction with networking opportunities for students to collaborate with key speakers, other academics, and their fellow peers. Assessment tasks could entail for example preparing appropriate questions, summarising key concepts and ideas for other audiences. Base assessment tasks on live or digital recorded interviews with migrants, community members or ethnic minorities, requiring students to discuss current controversial issues or practical work-place issues. Require students to prepare brief video snapshots for real or imagined audiences in other countries, for example, a class studying a similar course in another country. See also: Assessing by Discussion Board
Incorporate technologies to support assessment design	Exploit the benefits of technologies to melt global boundaries by creating online learning communities around assessments: Establish groups based on cultural and social beliefs in the LMS for group work projects to help ensure that group memberships reflect the diversity of the class. Enable your students to communicate about assessment tasks with students studying the same material in another university via blog or online community space, or even in another country. This can foster a more global and cross-cultural perspective. Invite students from another cultural background to join a synchronous virtual classroom with local students. This can enable the teacher to provide generic feedback on assessment and learning while students break out into small discussion groups to discuss similarities and differences around the task. See also: Using Technologies to support Assessment

Case studies

MGMT 2106: Developing cultural literacy and positioning discipline knowledge in intercultural and international contexts

Ricardo Flores, ASB r.flores@unsw.edu.au

MGMT 2106--Comparative Management Systems is an introductory course surveying ‘management systems’ across the world. The course builds upon a generic framework helping students to think about different relevant aspects of contexts (e.g., national level institutions) that affect how management is practised globally. In particular, it explores key differences among the practices of management in North America, Oceania, West Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa & some Muslim nations.

In addition to focusing on this ‘discipline-specific’ knowledge this course seeks to develop cosmopolitan perspectives and cross-cultural competences by focusing on the experience of the students. The opportunity for experiencing the foreign is created and reinforced weekly by a sole focus on tasks intensely linked to the work of each student in a (purposely created) culturally diverse group. Following precepts of the action learning theory, students face:

First-hand experience with their own team (i.e., teams are required to reflect on their experiences) and a set of activities is linked to those reflections with the objective of creating personal understandings on how to ‘become’ a better cross-cultural teammate and/or leader;
Others’ experiences after observing and evaluating the performance of others (i.e., audience ‘learns’ from ‘seeing how others perform’, including open discussion with the audience of the team leading the tutorial on what they have learned and what challenges they faced in working on the assigned task);
Audience’s evaluations (via clickers) and personalized feedback on individual and team performance (i.e., they experience the diversity of opinions and expectations from a culturally diverse audience).

Assessment example: Country Report

In most weekly tutorial classes (i.e., specifically tutorials classes from week 4 to week 10) an assigned team of students (Please check the country assigned to your team) will present their applicationof the generic framework discussed on lectures (for a region) to a specific country. A debate open to the whole audience will follow this team’s presentation. In preparing for this debate, those students that are not presenting are expected to prepare their own analysis of this country and compare their assessment with their home country (i.e., country chosen in the background form). You are required to submit ONE of these individual analyses in the form of a formal business report. This report must be submitted through Blackboard/Turnitin site (due the week of your choice up to date TBN). Students are required to submit only one report (i.e., one country) for the whole semester. The length of the report CANNOT exceed two pages (font size 12). All other aspects of the formatting the report should follow the format guidelines. In writing this report, I would recommend that, at minimum, you address the following issues:

What are the common and divergent aspects of the institutional environments of the two contexts? (i.e., country under study vs. your country). What are the unique and common ‘functional’ aspects of the practice of management in the two contexts being compared? (i.e., country under study vs. your country)
What would all of these mean for you as a manager if suddenly you have to move there to work? (Here, at minimum, you need to compare your management style/preferences with the specific knowledge you just uncovered about this foreign context; what kind of things would you do differently than in your country?

Additional information

External resources

EdSteps. Global competence matrix: https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/upload-files/Global%20Competence%20Matrices.pdf

‘Globalisation and the law’ Role Play: encourages participants to explore the influence of globlisation on laws and legal institutions from the perspective of various stakeholders in globalisation. The specific tasks participants are required to complete are tailored to the topic area under consideration. http://enrole.uow.edu.au/repository/OLRP_Globalisation_and_the_Law.pdf

Internationalisation at home: Enhancing intercultural capabilities in business and health teachers (Office of Learning and Teaching, Australian Government https://sites.google.com/site/internationalisationathome/home/links

Value Rubric for Civic Engagement: Association of American Colleges and Universities http://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/index_p.cfm?CFID=41785461&CFTOKEN=88368191

Acknowledgments

The contributions of UNSW staff who engaged with the preparation of this topic are gratefully acknowledged.