This study examines whether preexisting close friendships facilitate students’ cultural agility development during short-term international study abroad experiences. Using a longitudinal design, we found that study abroad students who had a close friend accompanying them on the experience (i.e., an “international study buddy”) had lower cultural agility at the onset of the experience but had a higher level of cultural agility development upon return, compared with those without a friend on the trip. Those who did not travel with friends demonstrated no significant cross-cultural competency development. Our findings suggest that contextual novelty is independently determined, and the presence of a trusted friend may help reduce the novelty enough such that students with lower predeparture cultural agility can comfortably gain from the experience. At the same time, for development to occur, students with higher cultural agility may need more contextual novelty than the short-term study abroad experience provides.

中文翻译：

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学习伙伴的作用：与密友出国学习和文化敏捷性的发展

这项研究探讨了在短期的国际留学经历中，既有的亲密友谊是否有助于学生的文化敏捷性发展。通过纵向设计，我们发现有亲密朋友陪伴他们学习的出国留学生（即“国际学习伙伴”）在体验开始时文化敏捷性较低，但文化敏捷性发展水平较高返回时，与没有朋友旅行的人相比。那些不与朋友一起旅行的人没有表现出明显的跨文化能力发展。我们的研究结果表明，上下文新颖性是独立确定的，值得信赖的朋友的在场可能会帮助降低新颖性，从而使具有较低出发前文化敏捷度的学生可以从中轻松获得经验。