Selected Philippine Higher Education Institutions‟ Perspectives on Internationalization of Education: Initiatives and Guidelines

This is a qualitative study where grounded theory was used as a research method. The generative questions guided the researchers in the identification of relationships between core theoretical concepts and data. The key analytic strategies used were coding for categorizing data in providing the implications and details of the identified themes/patterns and integrative diagram to inductively collect all the data which helped in “making sense of data” with respect to the emerging theory. Further, in-depth interviews were conducted to the key informants such as university presidents, deans, department chairs for pertinent data collection. Aside from in-depth interviews, documents such as articles and newspaper clips served as additional sources of data. The transcribed data were based from identified theoretical concepts where Higher Education Institutions’ (HEIs) Strategy Formulation Framework emerged. This model is composed of three key factors that serve as mechanism for internationalization of education namely; reformed organizational programs (policies, mission-vision), responsiveness to global needs (accreditation to international standards), and active/strong linkages (student and faculty exchange, visiting professors). Since the three factors are within the control of HEIs, change can emanate from within themselves. Thus, they can strategize to aim for change in research, instruction and extension while the stakeholders in government agencies are working on reforms and policies at the national level.

Keywords – global needs, grounded theory, internationalization of education, linkages, organizational programs