Investigating the International Awareness of Students Meeting Their International Dimension Requirement through Course Offerings in a College of Agriculture

Abstract

Many U.S. universities are preparing their students to attain international awareness through various approaches. The College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) at Oklahoma State University offers three international dimension undergraduate courses intended to provide students a formal educational opportunity to learn about international issues in agricultural and natural resources contexts. The investigation was a non–experimental, pretest–posttest descriptive and comparative design study. The target population (N = 147) consisted of all undergraduate students enrolled in three international dimension courses during the Fall semester of 2010. The study’s findings revealed that students’ attitudes regarding CASNR’s role in developing their international awareness as well as general awareness of the impact of international issues and globalization on the agriculture sector changed favorably from pre course to post course. These results showed statistically significant differences (p < .05) in students’ attitudes. Comparing students’ attitudes, from pre course to post course, revealed that the international dimension courses studied did impact students’ views related to aspects of enhanced international awareness, including the agriculture sector and their college’s role therein. The attitudes of students who participate in international dimension courses can change positively if U.S. universities internationalize their curricula adequately.