Assessing Intercultural Competence as a Result of Internationalization at Home Efforts: A Case Study From the Nightingale Mentoring Program
Journal of Studies in International Education
Published online on August 05, 2016
Abstract
In the last decades, many higher education institutions have developed practices of internationalization of curricula aiming at developing intercultural competences among the non-mobile majority of students. Some of them have developed service-learning activities focusing on working with underserved communities from different cultures. This article shows some challenges on how intercultural competence of college students participating in a community-based mentoring program could be assessed. Outcomes are based on mixed-method research from a survey given to a treatment group that participated in a mentoring program (n = 95) and a control group (n = 71), and on 10 daily life stories from university students who were enrolled and participated in the mentoring program. Paradoxically, results show scarce differences between groups in Attitudes, Skills, Comprehension, and Desired Internal Outcomes in favor of the control group. But, on the other hand, some slightly significant differences in favor of the treatment group are observed with regard to Dominance Orientation and Symbolic Racism. These results bring new hypotheses and discussions helpful for scholars and administrators, especially coming from the learnings that students showed, particularly in qualitative data.