Investigating higher education students’ intercultural readiness for
academic mobility
The present study describes the development and initial
empirical testing of a new instrument of intercultural competence. By employing
this scale, Turkish Erasmus students’ intercultural sensitivity was examined at
a pre-departure stage. The study also investigated whether gender, participation
in pre-departure orientation activities and university type (private vs. state)
had any influence on the students’ intercultural readiness. Student participants
(N = 89) from two state and two private universities in
Turkey were involved in the investigation. The data were analyzed using a
standard set of psychometric procedures including factor and reliability
analyses. For the comparative analyses, T-tests and Anova tests were conducted.
Results indicated this new scale to be a reasonable approximation of students’
intercultural readiness for academic mobility. Finally, the participants were
found to be quite ready for their Erasmus experience from an intercultural
communicative perspective.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical framework
- 2.1Intercultural competence
- 2.2Indicators and assessment of intercultural competence
- 2.3The mobile students’ Intercultural Profile Scale (the IC Profile)
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Data analysis
- 4.1Scale reliability
- 4.2Factor analysis
- 5.Results concerning the participants’ intercultural readiness for academic
mobility
- 6.Comparative investigations on gender, type of higher education institutions and
participation in pre-mobility orientation activities
- 7.Conclusions and limitations
-
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