This study aims to explore students' decision-making on studying abroad for an exchange through a dynamic process framework. The recent update of Open Door data from the Institute of International Education (IIE) indicates that 280,716 US students study abroad for academic credits in the academic year 2022/2023, 36% of which spent a quarter to one year (30.5% of the total amount students spent one semester). The Report of Education at a Glance 2022 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) addresses that the EU proposed to reach 20% of EU graduates with completion of credit mobility abroad by 2020, and finally, 10% was reached. Their later versions (Education at a Glance 2023 and 2024) do not include relevant sections. The benefits of short-term international mobility are recognised for its enhanced cultural, personal, and career outcomes, especially for the longer duration (compared between 12-16 weeks and 3-4 weeks) of international study (Roy et al., 2019). Since the mid-1960s, studying abroad has been well-studied; however, primarily in full degree rather than exchange programmes. Compared to full-degree programmes, international exchange allows for study abroad experience with less cost and time and mostly lasts for one or two semesters. Trower & Lehmann (2017) studied the decision nature of the international exchange, which is prominent with its voluntary aspects (as students still 'stay in the game' and are concerned about non-instrumental benefits, e.g., novelty seeking), and it is a "now-or-never" kind of experience. Hence, further study to explore individual-level decision-making for international exchange could provide evidence to those countries or the union to improve their rate and benefit prospective students who may take international exchange. 

       When exploring the student’s decision to study abroad, “variance theory or model” was often used in education literature, such as the push-pull model and world-system theory. The study abroad destination is predetermined by evaluating the negative push factors, positive pull factors and interventions according to the push-pull model or by choosing an educational core country according to World System Theory. However, individuals’ subconsciousness and emotions are not included in decision-making. Second, there is a lack of study on the effect of interaction between influential micro-, meso- and macro-level factors.

       Researchers have argued that “variance theory” emphasizes the relationship between variables interacting with temporal order and probability. In comparison, “process theory” offers a deeper understanding of phenomena under the evolution of events. Therefore, to bridge the gaps in the existing literature, this study proposed a dynamic decision process framework, which focuses on an individual-level approach of interactions between external factors (such as cultural and campus effects) and internal factors (such as past travelling abroad experience and perceived risks).

       This study adopted the dual-process theory to explore the subconscious and emotional mechanisms in students’ decision-making for international exchange. The dual process theory postulates two types of individual cognitive processes in decision-making. Type 1 processes are autonomous, belief-based and usually faster, whereas Type 2 processes are deliberate thinking, require working memory, and are usually sequential and slower. The subconscious and emotions align with the features of the Type 1 mental process. The two types of mental processes provide underpinnings to segment the patterns of the dynamic decision-making processes.

       Here are the research questions:

• What is the process of students’ decision-making to study abroad for an exchange?
• What external and internal factors affect students’ decision-making to study abroad for an exchange, and how do the factors interact with each other in the process?
• What is the value of applying the dual process theory to explore the intuitive and analytic aspects of the decision-making process of studying abroad for an exchange?

This study aims to uncover students’ decision-making process to study abroad for an exchange with varying pathways and clarify the influential factors behind the process. This study conducted qualitative research because it is an inductive approach to building a framework for understanding specific phenomena. The constructivist paradigm has guided my research on ontology and methodology. My epistemology is a blend of interpretive and constructivist perspectives. Here are the reasons: •The students’ decision model or experience is not pre-determined but investigated through interaction with others, e.g. parents, schoolmates, and university staff. (Interpretivism or constructivism) •Individuals provide their views on describing their experience. (More toward Interpretivism) •The reviewer actively engages in the theme generation and labelling of Type 1 or Type 2 mental processes in the data analysis. (More toward Constructivism) This study conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews to collect data to grasp the process of decision-making. The Critical Incident Technique was used to mitigate the weakness of retrospective interviews by helping interviewees recall their decision-making details. The purposive sampling was used to look for both outbound Chinese and inbound international students to China who were either in an international exchange or had been on such exchange at least once. Snowball sampling was used to identify and invite potential interviewees with the help of initial interviewees. 53 interviews were conducted in two Sino-foreign cooperative universities (SFCU): 35 Chinese students and 18 non-Chinese students. According to their decision-making stages, there are five groups of interviewees: 4 students have applied for international exchange, another 9 have received an offer for international exchange, 15 students were in international exchange, 23 students have been on an exchange, and 2 students were planning to apply. Ethical approval from the Ethics and Research Integrity Committee was obtained before conducting the interviews. A narrative and visual mapping strategy was adopted to guide the data analysis. A narrative analysis strategy was used to describe students’ decision-making stories for international exchange with high accuracy and various decision-process patterns, which provided a base for a visual mapping strategy to generate a simpler and more general decision-making process framework for international exchange, with decision stages and influential external and internal variables. The analysis was finalised with top-down coding. A codebook for type 1 and type 2 mental processes was constructed to elucidate students’ mental processes. The visual map incorporated intuitive and analytic aspects into the process framework to illustrate students’ rational and subconscious mechanisms.

Expected main findings: 1. This study is expected to construct a dynamic process framework for students’ decision-making for international exchange with the foundation of dual process theory. Various process patterns are proposed because of: •Mental process differences. The various groups of students’ cognitive processes could result in different patterns of the decision-making process. For example, students could initiate the idea through an intuitive process and formulate their preferred destination through an analytic process. •Institutional differences. Students may access different mental processes in making an intended decision between facing a simplified decision (offered with one destination choice) and a more complicated decision (offered with multiple destination choices). •Social-cultural difference. Students with different nationalities may provide evidence of different patterns in the decision-making process, which is being explored in this study. 2. This study is expected to find the interaction effect between influential micro- (e.g., expectations and past experience), meso- (e.g., institutional connections, host region/city relevant and host/home HEI relevant factors) and macro- (host country relevant factors) level factors in the process framework. 3. To understand the precedents of intuitive and cognitive processes. For example, students accessed the intuitive process of making an intended decision because they received information passively from social media once they had reviewed relevant information, which is in line with the implicit learning for the intuitive process. 4. Institutional connections between international branch campuses facilitate students' choice of destination. This study proposes constructing a non-linear decision-making process to explain how students make decisions for international exchange. Students may use intuition and/or analysis, potentially more intuition in the early stages and more analysis later. The influential factors in varying stages may provide evidence of how the three-level factors affect the decision in a complementary way. The induced mechanism of intuitive and analytical processes and new factors are also proposed.

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