Student Outcomes and Influencing Factors: A Case Study of Minerva University

This qualitative case study examines student outcomes and the enabling and constraining conditions of a globally mobile and digitally mediated higher education model through an in-depth analysis of Minerva University. Employing a single case-study design, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with students, alumni, faculty, and staff, triangulated with institutional documents, reports, and multimedia sources. The analysis is oriented toward identifying patterned experiences and the mechanisms and contingencies through which learning, development, and post-graduation trajectories are produced within a tightly integrated configuration of active pedagogy, platform-mediated delivery, global rotation, and lean organizational design. Rather than asking whether the model is effective in aggregate, the study examines how it functions under real-world conditions, for whom it appears to work, and at what cost.

Findings indicate that participants reported multi-domain outcomes spanning cognitive, behavioral, psychological, identity-related, and early career development. Cognitively, students described a shift toward self-directed and lifelong learning, supported by flipped preparation expectations, discussion-driven seminars, project-based assessment, and outcomes-based evaluation. Minerva University’s Habits of Mind, Foundational Concepts, and Learning Outcomes framework functioned not only as an assessment architecture but also as a shared educational vocabulary that facilitated metacognitive discipline and perceived transfer of skills across academic, professional, and civic contexts. Behaviorally, students reported growth in intercultural competence and communicative flexibility through sustained collaboration in highly diverse cohorts and repeated relocation, with cross-cultural interaction experienced as routine rather than exceptional. The depth of local immersion, however, varied by rotation duration, language feasibility, workload intensity, and the stability of local partnerships.

Psychologically, participants emphasized increased confidence, self-efficacy, and resilience, often describing the development of articulated agency in high-participation classrooms and an expanded capacity to manage demanding academic, social, and logistical conditions across repeated transitions. Identity-related outcomes included the emergence of a global citizenship orientation, self-formation, and strong cohort-based ties experienced as portable belonging and durable social capital. Alumni narratives and selected institutional indicators also suggested early career momentum, including internship participation and pathways into graduate study, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement, while also warranting caution due to self-reporting and selection effects.

Concurrently, the dissertation identifies emergent and unintended outcomes as well as structural vulnerabilities associated with sustained intensity and limited support capacity. Continuous high-visibility assessment, English-medium verbal participation, and discussion-dominant pedagogy generated uneven burdens tied to language proficiency, cultural norms, and differential preparation. Rotation-related fatigue, fragmented continuity of advising and mental health support, and mobility-related hidden costs contributed to stress, exhaustion, imposter feelings, and burnout risk. Governance and communication practices further shaped experience, as rapid policy adjustments and opaque decision-making sometimes eroded trust and shifted stabilization labor onto students through advocacy and emotional work. Access to linguistic capital, financial flexibility, and passport or visa mobility emerged as key stratifying conditions shaping who could most readily benefit from the model.

Conceptually, the study advances a structured precarity lens and a dosage-oriented critique of high-impact practices, arguing that when experiential learning and engagement become continuous rather than episodic, outcomes depend critically on pacing, recovery, continuity of care, and equity-oriented support. It also extends organizational perspectives by foregrounding co-authorship, showing how student participation in feedback, advocacy, and institutional problem-solving becomes constitutive of educational environments in distributed settings. The study concludes that globally mobile and digitally mediated higher education models can cultivate adaptive, reflective, and globally oriented graduates under carefully aligned conditions, but risk reproducing or intensifying existing inequalities when governance transparency, support infrastructures, and sustainability mechanisms are insufficient.

*This is the abstract of my doctoral dissertation, published in February 2026. For the full manuscript, please visit the Korea University Library academic archive.