Challenges Faced by Jesuit Worldwide Learning Students: Piloting a Mixed Methods Investigation

In 2017 a Creighton University Global Initiative grant provided 20 scholarships in its online B.S. in Leadership Studies for Jesuit Worldwide Learning graduates of the Diploma in Liberal Studies. In 2018-19 the first cohort of scholarship students living in Afghanistan and Jordan were enrolled at Creighton University (CU). In spring 2019, three Creighton University students collaborated with two of the co-authors to develop and to implement a research project to explore barriers faced by Jesuit Worldwide Learning students enrolled in Creighton’s B.S. program. The purpose of this project was to test if Group Concept Mapping, a mixed methods research approach integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, combined with the analysis of narrative course evaluations and interview texts with students, faculty, and staff adopting the Grounded Theory approach can lead to insights that further our understanding of barriers and struggles faced by Jesuit Worldwide Learning students and their instructors, can help strengthen institutional gaps in international learning, and can be used for a future study. The process and the results strongly suggest that the methodology is indeed appropriate to systematically study this or a related research question.