Student Engagement in Internationalization of the Curriculum: Vietnamese Domestic Students’ Perspectives

Internationalization in higher education has shifted to focus on home initiatives that engage and benefit all students rather than cross-border mobility activities. The qualitative case study reported in this article employed Kahu’s model of student engagement (SE) to investigate SE in internationalization of the curriculum (IoC) from the perspectives of 23 domestic Vietnamese students taking an internationalized program in a Vietnamese university. From three focus groups and 23 individual interviews, this study found that SE in IoC varied according to diverse internal and external factors. The students’ awareness of the benefits of their engagement in the program, their acknowledgment of the program’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as their desire to have more SE revealed a possibility for students to act as partners in the program. The potential partnership between students and their lecturers as well as other institutional bodies, in both the formal and informal curriculum alongside more sustained engagement opportunities, could enhance consequential student experiences and outcomes. The findings suggest that students are prospective resources to cultivate diversity and inclusion in IoC because their engagement can offer multiple insights and possibilities to enhance IoC. We argue that SE is significant in informing the development of IoC and is possibly integral to effective IoC.