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Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education
Vol. 4:2 (2019) ► pp.280–304

Investigating higher education students’ intercultural readiness for academic mobility

| University of Antwerp

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.

Keywords: residence abroad, intercultural communication, foreign language education, intercultural learning
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
    • 3.1Participants
  • 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
  • References
Published online: 24 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sar.17008.aba
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