Exploring the incorporation of peer assessment of intercultural competence in a collaborative online international learning (COIL) exchange

Abstract

Collaborative online international learning (COIL) is a pedagogy primed for enhancing students’ intercultural competence (IC). With more than 40 instruments available for assessing IC, most tools focus on individual self-assessment and fail to consider how an individual’s IC is perceived by others. Limited research on peer-based IC assessment within COIL contexts hinders understanding whether students are experienced as interculturally competent by their peers. This case study uses pre-/post-surveys and semi-structured interviews to examine the inclusion of peer assessments in IC evaluation after a COIL. Using Deardorff’s Process Model (2006) and in vivo coding, qualitative findings are organized as participant-identified enablers and constraints to intercultural engagement. Findings reveal a wide variation in peer interpretations of the same interactions and demonstrate how students may rate themselves highly while being experienced by teammates in ways that constrain collaboration. On this basis, the article advances a relational extension of Deardorff’s model by framing IC in COILs as a dialogical, co-constructed process shaped by interactional conditions, positionality, and power. The study offers actionable guidance for COIL design and assessment, emphasizing early co-construction of shared principles for safe/brave engagement, structured critical self-reflection, and explicit attention to inequity and racism to support more equitable and transformative learning.