The Development and Validation of an Intercultural Communicative Competence Scale for Students

Abstract

Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) plays a significant role in learning a foreign language. Therefore, it is important to measure the ICC level of language learners before taking actions to improve the educational process. The present study aimed at developing an ICC Scale to measure the perceived ICC level of Academic English students studying in the Foreign Language Division of an international university. The participants of the study consisted of 325 first year students in their second semester in the 2021 to 2022 academic year enrolled in 48 English-medium instructed (EMI) departments. In order to produce a reliable and valid ICC Scale, statistical data were analyzed through software programs. Further, the Exploratory Factor Analysis generated an 18-item Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) Scale with four factors, namely knowledge, awareness, attitude, and skills. Additionally, the Confirmatory Factor Analysis results confirmed and validated the four factors. Consequently, the ICC Scale was found to be highly reliable in measuring the perceived ICC level of students and had a high internal consistency. The newly designed ICC Scale proves to be a useful instrument for measuring the perceived ICC level of language learners. The study aimed at developing an Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) Scale to measure the perceived ICC level of Academic English students studying in the Foreign Language Division of an international university in North Cyprus. At the beginning, the newly designed ICC Scale involved 57 items; 31 items were adapted from different ICC scales and 26 items were generated by the researchers from scratch. The newly designed ICC Scale was administered to 325 first year Academic English students in the second semester of the 2021 to 2022 academic year. In order to produce a reliable and valid ICC Scale, firstly, the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was computed for statistical analyses and the designed scale was found reliable. The EFA generated an 18-item Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) Scale with four factors, namely knowledge, awareness, attitude, and skills. Then, the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was implemented. Finally, the newly designed 18-item ICC Scale for students with four factors was found to be a highly reliable instrument (Cronbach Alpha reliability = .829). Furthermore, it was found a fit model (chi 2/df value = 2.342) to measure the Intercultural Communicative Competence of students in a multicultural educational setting. In this study, only quantitative data about students'perceived ICC levels can be collected and analyzed using this ICC Scale. The ICC level as perceived by students may not necessarily be exactly the same as the ICC level practiced. To overcome this possible limitation, it is strongly suggested that researchers collect qualitative data as well (e.g., through interviews, student journals/diaries, portfolios, class observations, field notes) in order to triangulate with the quantitative data from the Scale so as to obtain more realistic pictures of the participants' ICC levels.