Abstract:

The significance of blended learning methods is increasing in today's education environment. Virtual exchange, as one method of blended learning, is becoming very important, especially after the pandemic and blended studying. Virtual exchange can be defined as projects consisting of online people-to-people activities that promote intercultural dialogue and soft skills development. In the study, the authors use a mixed-method approach and combine quantitative and qualitative data and analysis methods. A literature review was conducted using bibliometric analysis and included more than 150 articles in the field of virtual exchange. The virtual exchange included Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI) students and American students within the Human Resource Management HRM course. The sample of the qualitative method includes 24 Croatian students and eight students (from Indonesia, the Netherlands, and France). Students were divided into smaller Croatian and U.S. teams with specific tasks, and teams independently organized online meetings based on the task. After meetings, they did reports with reflection in written form. The qualitative data in the form of students' reflections are collected and analyzed using the content analysis method. According to word frequency analyses of students ' reflections in software, the authors used the deductive coding process. Results showed that students have positive feedback and are very satisfied with the virtual exchange experience as a learning method. The contribution of this research was to explore students' experiences and virtual exchanges in order to analyze the learning outcomes of virtual exchanges and define the future potential of virtual exchange. Also, results show the challenges for students participating in virtual exchange. Follow-up is to increase the number of students and the number of courses for future research.

Keywords:

Virtual exchange, hybrid course, students, HRM.