Intercultural Learning Assessment: The Link between Program Duration and the Development of Intercultural Sensitivity A d r i a n a M e d i n a – L ó p e z – P o r t i l l o University of Maryland – Baltimore County I n t r o d u c t i o n At a time when global markets, communication technologies, and transporta- tion systems have vastly increased multicultural contact in our daily lives, it is essential that “we develop communication skills and abilities that are appropriate to a multicultural society and to life in a global village” (Samovar & Porter, 2000). Institu- tions of higher education are striving to address these needs on one level by offering a broad array of study abroad programs that will encourage different types of students to study abroad. Engle and Engle (2003) have identified seven key components of study abroad programs that define their variety: program duration, entry language compe- tence of participants, extent to which target language is used in coursework on site, context of academic work, type of housing arrangements, provisions for guided cul- tural/experiential learning, and structured opportunities for students to reflect on their cultural experiences. Given the growing emphasis on internationalizing higher education and the rapidly increasing number of students embarking on study abroad programs each year, research on student learning outcomes, especially those related to cultural learning, is assuming greater value and relevance. The study presented here aims to enhance our understanding of intercultural learning by focusing on the link between the development of intercultural sensitivity and the first of Engle and Engle’s key study abroad components, program duration. It has long been argued that program duration is instrumental in achieving desired intercultural learning outcomes. Gudykunst (1979) concludes that “contact of only a short duration does not allow enough time to establish attitudes to change. The short duration of the contact results in an incomplete psychological experience for the participants” (p. 4). Similarly, Bennett (1993) suggests that it takes at least two years in the target country to develop basic levels of adaptive behavior and to acquire a new worldview (p. 55). For Leong and Ward (2000), the longer individuals stay in the 179 Medina-López-Portillo target culture, the more opportunities they have “to deal with the demands of a new environment” (p.767). The current study builds on this previous work in arguing that program duration is a significant variable in students’ abilities to integrate culturally while abroad and that it may be an important predictor of one specific element of intercultural learning, the development of intercultural sensitivity. According to Bhawuk and Brislin (1992), this element involves “sensitivity to the importance of cultural differences and to the points of view of people in other cultures” (p. 414). Bennett (1993) defines intercultural sensitivity as “the construc- tion of reality as increasingly capable of accommodating cultural difference that con- stitutes development ” (p. 24). Bennett’s definition is worth explicating: intercultural sensitivity involves a “construction of reality” inasmuch as individuals attach meaning to the world’s phenomena; it is “increasingly capable” because it is a developmental process that presupposes direction; it is “capable of accommodating cultural differ- ence” in positing that individuals are able to integrate cultural difference into their worldview; and, finally, it “constitutes development” by virtue of being a process whose advancement is assumed to be desired. Intercultural sensitivity represents and comes about through a process of individual understanding, constructing, and experi- encing of difference. Bennett suggests that the development of intercultural sensitiv- ity occurs as the constructs and experiences of cultural differences evolve toward an increased awareness and acceptance of those differences. It is important to distinguish between intercultural sensitivity and intercultural competence. While they are not interchangeable terms, they can be understood as two sides of the same coin. Intercultural competence refers to the external behaviors that individuals manifest when operating in a foreign cultural context, where intercultural sensitivity refers to the developmental process that dictates the degree of an individual’s psychological ability to deal with cultural differences. An individual’s intercultural sensitivity is, then, the worldview that establishes the way that he or she experiences or processes cultural differences. According to Hammer, Bennett, and Wiseman (2003), intercultural sensitivity refers to “the ability to discriminate and experience relevant cultural differences,” while intercultural competence refers to “the ability to think and act in interculturally appropriate ways” (p. 422). Through increasing levels of inter- cultural sensitivity, increasing degrees of proficiency in intercultural competence be- come possible. At some point in an individual’s development, his or intercultural competence ceases to be a list of do’s and don’ts, and becomes instead an internal, almost “natural,” response to the cultural context. As Bennett, Bennett, Gaskins, and Roberts (2001) put it, “it is important for adapted behavior [intercultural compe- tence] to emerge because it ‘feels right,’ not because ‘that is how one is supposed to act’” (p. 22). 180 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad The research project described here has been guided by three theories or models: The Intergroup Contact Theory, The Model of the Transformation Process, and the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). The DMIS, which will be discussed at length later in this paper, has been especially important in providing the framework within which changes in the development of students’ intercultural sensi- tivity have been documented. These three theories and models provide intellectual contexts that allow U.S. to interpret what students who study abroad experience when exposed to a culture not their own. The Intergroup Contact Theory (Allport, 1979) argues against the common belief that mere contact between people from different cultures will naturally lead to harmonious relations between them. Research based in this theory has sought to iden- tify conditions which, when present, allow prejudices and cultural conflict among individuals or groups to be reduced. The theory suggests that the context in which study abroad programs are embedded—the way that programs are structured, in terms of duration, language of instruction and the other key elements Engle and Engle have identified—will impact the development of students’ intercultural sensitivity and their understanding of the target culture. The Model of the Transformation Process (Kauffman, Martin, & Weaver, 1992) explains and links three areas of human develop- ment—cognitive, culture-related, and psychological. For purposes of this study, the model shows the development that individuals may undergo through a study abroad experience, from an unconscious and narrow identification with and exclusive reliance on the values of their own culture, to the conscious inclusion and negotiation of their personal values with the values of other cultures. Finally, the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (Bennett, 1993) seeks to explain the process of and readiness for accepting cultural differences. This model provides clear stages of development from which “categories for the organization of student responses” (Gaskins, 1997, p. 56) can be drawn, and it provides a map for understanding the processes of developing intercultural sensitivity and the challenges involved in implementing these. The concepts of ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism are central to the DMIS. Bennett (1993) defines ethnocentrism as the assumption “that the worldview of one’s own culture is central to all reality” (p. 30), and ethnorelativism as the understanding that cultures are relative to one another within a cultural context (p. 46). The model describes six progressive, developmental stages, each of which falls into one of those two main categories. Individuals who are “ethnocentric” will experience the world, will construct their reality, with their own culture as their frame of reference. Individu- als who are “ethnorelative” experience their own culture as only a part of a universe of multiple cultures. Bennett (1993) identifies three ethnocentric stages—Denial, De- fense, and Minimization—and three ethnorelative stages—Acceptance, Adaptation, 181 Medina-López-Portillo and Integration. In turn, each of the stages has sub-stages that further differentiate the subtleties of each.1 Bennett et al. (2001) indicate that “each stage [of the DMIS] is indicative of a particular worldview configuration, and certain kinds of attitudes and behavior are typi- cally associated with each such configuration” (p. 13). Individuals in Denial, for example, negate cultural differences by experiencing their own culture as the only frame of reference for their reality. Individuals in Defence do what they can to avoid, and to withdraw from, cultural differences. They experience these differences in a polarized way, feeling either that their own culture is superior to others or that other cultures are better than their own. Individuals in Minimization emphasize similarities between individuals from different cultures at the expense of the differences. Despite the fact that these individuals recognize cultural differences, “deep down those cul- tures are seen as essentially similar to one’s own” (Hammer & Bennett, 2001, p. 12). Individuals in Acceptance recognize the complexity of other cultures and accept them as “different constructions of reality” (p. 12). These individuals see other cultures as equal to their own. Individuals in Adaptation are able to take on, at a conscious level, behaviors and perspectives different from their own, move in and out of them, and act according to rules dictated by them. Individuals in Integration also move in and out of different cultural contexts, but, contrary to those at the Adaptation stage, doing so becomes second nature to them. These individuals develop a multicultural identity and commonly feel that they do not belong to any particular cultural group. The model can be conceived of as a continuum, with Denial having the lowest and Integra- tion having the highest level of intercultural sensitivity. The study under discussion was designed to measure and describe changes in the intercultural sensitivity of University of Maryland students who would be study- ing abroad in two different language-based programs of differing lengths: a seven- week summer program in Taxco, Mexico, and a 16-week semester program in Mexico City. I was the faculty director for both, which were hosted, respectively, by the Centro de Enseñanza para Extranjeros (CEPE, [School for the Instruction of Foreign Students]), and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM, [National Autonomous University of Mexico]). 2 The study’s primary research hypothesis was that changes in program duration would influence participants’ development of intercultural sensitivity. In exploring this hypothesis, I examined how students reflected on themselves both as cultural beings in their own right, and as cultural beings in relation to a different culture. In the first instance, I sought to document student perceptions about culture and cultural differences, their definitions and opinions about these, and their awareness about being members of their own culture. In the second, I sought to document the nature of student perceptions about Mexican 182 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad culture and Mexicans. The report presented here is part of a larger study that formed the basis of my doctoral dissertation. M e t h o d o l o g y The participants in the study consisted of 28 students (18 in the program in Taxco and 10 in Mexico City) enrolled at the University of Maryland. The study relied on case study methodology and used both qualitative and quantitative measures. Data- gathering techniques included face-to-face interviews with individual students, the administration of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire designed to collect information about students’ previous intercultural experience. The IDI, the interviews, and the questionnaire were used to collect pre-departure and post-program data. Qualitative and quantitative measures were used in order to provide different perspectives on the student experience; this mixture of data gathering methods, which amounted to triangulating the data, were intended to enhance the study’s validity. In addition to these data-gathering techniques, students documented their ex- periences in a guided journal. The journal instrument was employed to further trian- gulate the data. The analysis of the journals is not complete, so a discussion of that instrument and the insights gained through it will not be included here. Finally, the inclusion of a control group was considered, potentially to have consisted of students studying at the University of Maryland’s home campus, but not included. It was decided that an analysis of the experiences of a control group of students attending classes only in the U.S. would neither confirm nor deny the study’s hypothesis, that students attending programs abroad of differing length develop different levels of intercultural sensitivity. T h e I D I The IDI, a 50-item paper-and-pencil instrument created in 1997 by Mitch Hammer and Milton Bennett and revised in 2001, is designed to determine the relative intercultural sensitivity of individuals, as defined by the DMIS. Adminis- tered to student participants twice, once prior to and then immediately after a study abroad experience, the IDI can be used to measure changes over time in the develop- ment of intercultural sensitivity. The IDI provides results in numeric and descriptive form both for actual and for self-perceived scores.3 In addition to providing an overall score, the IDI also yields scores for the different scales, clusters, and sub-stages of the DMIS. An individual’s overall score is used to determine his or her stage of development (again, as defined by the DMIS). The IDI’s validity and reliability has been well established. 183 Medina-López-Portillo T h e I n t e r v i e w s a n d Q u e s t i o n n a i r e The interviews and the written questionnaire were developed specifically for this project. The pre- and post-program interviews consisted of open-ended questions designed to elicit information about students’ perceptions of, exposure to, and experi- ences with cultural differences in general and Mexican culture in particular. Most of the questions in the post-program interview were the same as the ones in the pre- departure interview. However, the post-program interview included additional ques- tions designed to elicit information about the students’ experiences abroad. The written questionnaire was used following the Taxco students’ return, in place of the post- program interview. Its questions were the same as those in the post-program interview. D a t a A n a l y s i s M e t h o d s Open coding and pattern-matching techniques were used to analyze the quali- tative data. For the quantitative data, correlations, paired t-tests, and regression analy- ses were conducted in order to examine: (1) if there were correlations between variables (race/ethnicity, gender, age, previous travel abroad experience, family cultural back- ground, and exposure to cultural differences), (2) if there was any change, in one direction or the other (that is, advancing toward a higher level of intercultural sensitiv- ity or regressing to a lower level) in the pre- and post-program scores, and (3) whether intercultural sensitivity was associated with the variables identified above. R e t u r n R a t e s All students participating in the Taxco and Mexico City programs participated in the pre-departure interviews and IDI, returning a 100% rate for those data collec- tions methods. The return rates were exceptionally high also for the post-return IDI, questionnaire and interview, at 89% for the Taxco students and 90% for the Mexico City students. P r e s e n t a t i o n a n d D i s c u s s i o n o f t h e D a t a The research findings suggest that duration of the programs does indeed signifi- cantly impact the development of student intercultural sensitivity.4 Both quantitative and qualitative data show more development of intercultural sensitivity in the stu- dents in the Mexico City program than those in the shorter Taxco program. Interest- ingly, in both groups, the qualitative data show higher levels of development than that indicated in the quantitative data. 184 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad Q u a n t i t a t i v e: I D I M e a s u re Where the IDI data was concerned, the development of intercultural sensitivity was traced through an individual participant’s progressing from one DMIS stage be- fore the program to a higher level at program’s end. The IDI data shows that while less than one third of the students (31%) in the seven-week Taxco program advanced to the next DMIS stage, fully two thirds of the students (67%) in the sixteen-week Mexico City program did. This difference is substantial and suggests that the longer the program, the more interculturally sensitive students are likely to become. Tables 1 and 2 show the pre-departure and post-program IDI scores for the Taxco and the Mexico City groups. Table 3 shows the scores for both groups as a whole. Table 1: Individual actual and perceived IDI scores pre-departure and post-program, Taxco Taxco Program Gain (+)/loss (-) Actual Perceived Actual Per- ceived Students Pre Post Pre Post Tx 1 96.62 M 98.62 M 123.07 Ad 120.68 Ad + - Tx 2 92.77 M 97.29 M 122.44 Ad 124.65 Ad + + Tx 3 96.10 M 98.07 M 121.20 Ad 124.78 Ad + + Tx 4 79.80 Def 77.36 Def 114.97 Ac 115.67 Ad - + Tx 5 107.74 Ac 102.10 Ac 127.52 Ad 125.33 Ad - - Tx 6 94.88 M 106 Ac 123.49 Ad 126.66 Ad + + Tx 7 70.42 Def 76.55 Def 114.09 Ac 115.09 Ac/Ad + + Tx 8 107.67 Ac 102.04 Ac 125.44 Ad 126.03 Ad - + Tx 9 81.81 Def 85.28 M 117.16 Ad 118.84 Ad + + Tx 10 70.74 Def 83.80 Def 116.53 Ad 119.77 Ad + + Tx 11 106.65 Ac 102.71 Ac 127.27 Ad 125.53 Ad - - Tx 12 85.77 M 82.77 Def 120.13 Ad 119.77 Ad - - Tx 13 114.95 Ac 109.39 Ac 128.32 Ad 128.14 Ad - -/= Tx 14 81.54 Def 85.52 M 118.31 Ad 119.91 Ad + + Tx 15 104.76 Ac 96.90 M 126.55 Ad 122.03 Ad - - Tx 16 83.58 Def 88.87 M 120.17 Ad 120.01 Ad + -/= Tx 17 94.92 M --- --- 123.27 Ad --- --- Tx 18 102.16 Ac --- --- 123.26 Ad --- --- Key: Def=Defense, M=Minimization, Ac=Acceptance, Ad=Adaptation, I=Integration. The last two columns indicate if the score increased (+) or decreased (-) after the programs. 185 Medina-López-Portillo Table 2: Individual actual and perceived IDI scores pre-departure and post-program, Mexico City Table 3: Group actual and perceived IDI scores pre-departure and post-program Actual Perceived Gain (+)/loss (-) Pre Post Pre Post Actual Per- ceived Group Taxco 92.94 M 93.39 M 121.84 Ad 122.05 Ad + + Mexico 103.27 Ac 104.88 Ac 124.51 Ad 126.08 Ad + + The difference between the actual and self-perceived scores in both groups is significant. Self-perceived intercultural sensitivity—that is, the score showing an indi- vidual student’s personal perceptions of his or her intercultural sensitivity—was always at least one stage higher than the actual score. There is nothing surprising about this. As Kauffmann et al. (1992) point out, it is common for different types of assessments to produce inconsistent results when measuring the same phenomena. They classify assess- ment tools into three categories and explain that self-report and interview-type question- naires tend to reveal the most positive outcomes of the experience being studied, while standardized instruments show the least. They suggest that the discrepancy in the results stems from researchers’ lack of attention to variables such as maturity level of participants, depth of their contact with the host country, duration of stay, and location. Where the present study is concerned, I believe that the subjective nature of personal documents may account for the differences.5 It is not unreasonable to conclude that students uncon- sciously revealed those aspects of their development of intercultural sensitivity that they believed were socially desirable, while at the same time avoiding aspects that might have exposed them, if only in their own minds, to some degree of social disapproval. There were no statistically significant differences in actual or perceived intercul- tural sensitivity scores before or after the participants studied in Taxco or Mexico City, but regression analysis indicates that being a male was associated with increased actual and self-perceived intercultural sensitivity scores in the Taxco group. For the Mexico 186 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad City group, the variables of age (which were negatively correlated), previous travel abroad experience, and membership in an ethnic or racial minority in the U.S. were associated with students’ actual intercultural sensitivity upon return. In addition, Mexico City participants’ previous travel abroad experience was associated with in- creases in perceived intercultural sensitivity scores after the end of the program. No other variables that the study focused on were found to be associated with the develop- ment of students’ intercultural sensitivity. Q u a l i t a t i v e: I n t e r v i e w a n d Q u e s t i o n n a i r e As previously noted, the qualitative data focused on students’ perceptions, defi- nitions, and opinions of culture and cultural differences; their awareness of belonging to a culture; and their perceptions of Mexican culture and its people. For the data analysis, the students’ pre-departure and post-program responses to the interviews and questionnaire were compared. Analysis focused particularly on areas where responses to the same questions proved to be substantially different. Narrative responses of indi- vidual students were also compared with actual IDI scores to provide a fuller sense about their individual overall worldviews. Culture and cultural differences The two groups differed in the way that they defined culture and discussed cultural differences. Over time, the interview responses of Taxco participants remained abstract and relatively impersonal, while the Mexico City group responses became more concrete from pre- to post-testing, relying more on specific examples. Carole and Missy’s definitions after seven weeks in the Taxco program are typical in this regard: “Cultural differences involved emphasizing different beliefs, morals, values, etc.” and “Cultural differences are ideas, opinions, beliefs, and history that as a country, race, or group share because of a shared history.” 6 In contrast, Tina, after sixteen weeks in Mexico City, relies significantly on examples drawn from her own experiences abroad in her post-program interview: It’s the differences that occur based on the – oh, geez – I guess it’s based on the – I can’t define it without using the word culture. It’s all based on the area you grew up. Everything you eat, everything you do is based on the environment that you’re in. Okay, um, so you know they eat cactus. We don’t eat nopal [cactus]. We don’t eat that. And also the language itself. I realized that well, when you drop something or forget something, we say I forgot. [Mexicans] say it forgot itself. . . . In the same vein, many Mexico City program participants, during their post- program interviews, used terms like “every day,” “everything” and “anything,” words 187 Medina-López-Portillo they rarely used during the pre-departure interviews, when speaking about cultural and cultural differences. Susan’s definition of cultural differences illustrates the point: I think it’s really just what people are used to in a different culture. I think it’s just the little things that you take for granted, that you accept as part of your everyday life, that everybody does that it’s so obvious that those little things that change when you go to another culture. I think that’s the real cultural differences. It’s the part of everyday life that changes from society to society. [Emphasis added] Such language suggests that the Mexico City participants became increasingly aware, over time, that culture permeates every aspect of life. Through the use of such terms, the students exhibited a newly-acquired sense of the all-encompassing nature of culture. The longer students stayed in the target culture, the deeper their understand- ing of culture and cultural differences became, to the point where it was reflected in the type of language they chose to speak about culture and cultural differences. Cultural identity The data show significant differences between the two groups’ perceptions of cultural identity. Interestingly, a majority of the Taxco participants (69%) showed evidence, through the interview and questionnaire, of a significant change in their perceptions of cultural identify before and after the program, while fewer than half of the students in the Mexico City program (44%) experienced much of a change. In other words, the participants in the shorter Taxco program experienced more change in their perceptions of cultural identity than the students in the longer Mexico City program. The explanation for this lies in the fact that a majority of the students in the Mexico City group had a relatively strongly-defined cultural identity before the program started, compared to the Taxco group, as expressed in terms of their relative positions along the DMIS continuum. Overall, the students in the Mexico City group had a higher level of intercultural sensitivity before departure, as measured by the IDI, than did their counterparts in the Taxco group. Only a third of the students in the Taxco program had developed or at least started to develop an ethnorelative worldview, while half of the students in the Mexico City group had reached that point already.7 It is also worth noting that student views toward the U.S. changed significantly while they were abroad, with those enrolling in the longer Mexico City program show- ing greater progress in this regard than the Taxco participants. Prior to departure, both groups expressed criticism of the United States and what it represents, commenting on such things as the country’s “capitalism,” “commercialism,” “materialism” and “imperial- ism.” However, after their return to the U.S., many students in the Taxco group expressed a 188