Multimodal Alignment in International Engineering Mobility: Mixed-Methods Evidence from 200 Exchange Students
The results of the GP_TIME project (Good Practices in T.I.M.E.), developed under the 2025 T.I.M.E. Call for Projects, have been published in the EDULEARN26 Proceedings, following their presentation in Palma, Spain, at the 18th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies.
Four engineering institutions took part: Universitat Politècnica de València, Polytechnique Montréal, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires and Instituto Superior Técnico. The study treats exchange students as privileged observers: having studied in two systems, they can compare teaching practices in a way few others can.
Two hundred engineering exchange students each named one course at their host institution as a good practice and explained their choice. Focus groups held at each institution were then analysed to interpret those answers.
Three findings:
Teaching. Good-practice courses combined several methods rather than relying on one. Lectures appeared in 46% of the courses named, alongside laboratory sessions and cooperative learning (24% each) and project- or problem-based learning (23%). Students described theory and application as being connected within the same session.
Assessment. Final examinations were present in 70% of these courses, together with group projects or reports (58%), oral presentations (55%), midterms (40%), and continuous assessment and individual assignments (30% each). What students valued was that grading was distributed: it gave them feedback, the chance to revise, and the possibility of improving.
Support. Among the reasons students gave for identifying a course as good practice, student-faculty contact came first (265 mentions), followed by cooperation among students (156) and active learning (139). The focus groups added detail: professor availability, mentoring, peer networks, and institutional arrangements that made participation possible. Students associated these courses with gains in autonomy, confidence, teamwork, communication and international adaptation.
The T.I.M.E. Association is a co-author of the publication.
Reference: A. Vallés Lluch, M. Sancho Fernández, J. Defretin, G. Moyano, R. Mendes, G. Guillerme, E.M. García Castelló, J. Sanchis Sáez, J. Cantin, F. Guibault, M. Perotti, L.A. Moreira, Multimodal Alignment in International Engineering Mobility: Mixed-Methods Evidence from 200 Exchange Students, EDULEARN26 Proceedings, art. 1349, ISBN 978-84-09-88444-5. doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2026.1349