The proposal “Moving From Culture Shock to Cosmopolitanism: The Position of Students Immersed in Educational, Cross-Cultural Experiences“ created by Kristen Hunsberger, with the guidance of Professor Elizabeth Guthrie and Glen Levine, was a grant recipient for SURP. This proposal is a well structured interactive experiment. It bases its conclusion on reported behavior and emotions through surveys of a more specific sample group of students who go abroad. This sample is to be compared to the researchers own experiences and those of others in this project, then drawn to conclusion by such comparisons. The research purpose is in studying the experiences of students studying abroad, acquiring a cross-cultural experiences, and reporting on how they expand their educational experience on an academic and personal levels. The type of data are reports of behavior through a series of collected survey data. The surveys used categorical and ordinal to create data based off the pre researched theories. The administering surveys, questionnaires, and interviews are to be past out on stages of pre-departure, arrival, mid-stay, prereturn, and post-experience. This data will then chart the personal progress of the focus group in their unique relations pre researched stages. Specific factors such as the Pedersonian Stages, and the Schumann’s Factors, are the basis of the interview questions given to the focus group. These factors will be monitored in the research to follow student progress and enable results to show patterns throughout the time abroad. In addition to taking part in the surveys and questionnaires the focus group, Kristen Hunsberger will be maintaining a personal journal. The specific collection sample and site will be monitoring the progress of 10-20 students who are studying abroad in France, along with a personalized data collection of Kirsten herself. As her data analysis method she plans to “organize all data in comprehensive manner to show variance of experiences in relation to Pederson’s “Stages”, interview participants about experience and conduct comparison of initial expectations with actual outcome of time abroad”.

http://www.urop.uci.edu/SURP/sample_proposals/SURP%20Humanities%201.pdf