American Students Abroad: Professional versus Personal Development*

Abstract

Interview and questionnaire data from approxi mately four hundred American students in France and from over five thousand Fulbright and Smith-Mundt grantees pro vide information concerning the sojourners' overseas interac tion and postaward communication experiences as well as their evaluations of the personal development and professional con sequences of their work abroad. Multivariate analyses of the survey data reveal that evaluations of professional develop ment and prestige are closely related to the lecturers', research scholars', and exchange teachers' appraisals of personal de velopment and over-all satisfaction with their sojourns. For students, however, professional and personal development appear to be alternative outcomes of study abroad: those reporting more extensive interaction with host nationals and greater personal development and satisfaction tend to be less settled in adult roles and less committed to academic goals; whereas those indicating that study abroad furthered their professional development and advancement tend to be older, advanced graduate students who incorporated data gathered abroad in dissertations for advanced degrees, enabling them to obtain college faculty positions. Implications of these findings in terms of the goals of agencies sponsoring inter national educational exchange are discussed.

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