Global health collaboration trips have been shown to improve skill development in students. However, global health collaboration trips also expose students to new situations and transformative experiences that may impact their understanding of the world and their position within society globally. Twenty-two Queen’s University students participated in the HSCI595 course in the 2025 winter term which involves an experiential learning trip to Moshi, Tanzania. To examine how participation in the course in Tanzania affected the perspectives and motivation for long-term career goals of the students, this study involved analyzing responses from mixed methods pre- and post-course surveys and pre- and post-trip surveys. Questions in the surveys involved perspectives surrounding power, privilege, global collaboration skills, cultural competence, and long-term career goals/motivations. Furthermore, daily activity reflections were analyzed to examine specific experiences that contributed to changes in perspectives surrounding these topics in conjunction with the surveys. By examining common themes within daily activity reflections that have the potential to cause changes in perspectives and long-term goals/motivations, this study aims to provide evidence-based guidelines to optimize the impact of future experiential learning trips at Queen’s University and beyond. Furthermore, through focus groups conducted in the future with students who participated in service-related trips (ex. Operation Smile) and non-bachelor of Health Sciences students to help establish a baseline for changes in perspectives and motivations. In the future, follow-up surveys will be conducted 2-years and 5-years after experiential learning trip participation to examine trends in persisting long-term career goals, progress on said goals, and transient effects.
Jeffcoat et al. (Thu,) studied this question.