Intercultural competency and first-year students

Abstract

Since the turn of the century, higher education organizations and educational policy makers have urged U.S. colleges and universities to internationalize due to globalization pressures of the twenty-first century. The desired outcome of these internationalization efforts is intercultural competence. Decades of literature have provided a number of definitions and models created to operationalize intercultural competence. Dozens of instruments have been published to help provide some reliable constructs for intercultural competence. Many research studies have produced a wealth of knowledge regarding programming and curricular activities and their outcomes, but there is a significant gap in the literature about what students already know prior to coming to college.^This study examines precollege traits to determine what kinds of skills, attitudes and experiences among 2,919 first-year student participants of Texas Christian University over the course of three years (2013, 2014 and 2015). Participants have taken the CIRP Freshman Survey and the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale. Both instruments measure an array of demographic information, self-reported skills and attitudes and a variety of experiences. This research used correlation, multiple regression analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and logistic regression analysis to look at relationships between variables from both instruments and to determine some predictor variables that can shed light on all dimensions of the IES as well as the overall IES score.^This study found that many of the variables from the CIRP Freshman Survey not only correlate to the IES constructs, but many of the predictor variables across all of the precollege traits (person, skills, attitudes and experiences) impact the dependent variables from the IES. By knowing some information about students, educators in higher education can better challenge and support students development of intercultural competence through some strategically designing curricular and co-curricular activities that appropriately meet the needs of a first-year student. Students and educators can use the information in this study to be more intentional learners in intercultural competence.