No standard measure for college and career readiness currently exists but a common goal for college readiness could potentially improve the rate of college completion. Towards the development of a common goal for college readiness, it should be noted that the workplace and colleges increasingly desire the skills of intercultural competence (ICC). Although it is not part of most notions of college readiness, behavioral research, employer demands, and many colleges have already identified intercultural competence as a skill that is in high demand; however, to date there is a lack of research that examines whether first-year college students perceive cultural competence as relevant to college and workplace readiness. The purpose of this mixed methods, explanatory, social justice, study was to investigate first-year college students’ perceptions of intercultural competence as a factor for college readiness and to understand the influences they perceived as having contributed to their development of intercultural competence.
This mixed methods study involved 67 first-year college students attending either a community college or a traditional 4-year university in a large, Midwestern U.S. city. For the first part of the study, I used the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) (Hammer, 2012) to assess and then compare college students’ levels of intercultural competence. Subsequently, data from the surveys were used to recruit eight participants for semi-structured interviews to explore students’ perceptions of intercultural competence as a factor relevant to college and workplace readiness. Through the interviews, I also sought to gain an understanding of the factors participants perceived as having influenced their development of ICC. I used open coding, memo writing, and constant comparative analysis methods to generate themes from the eight individual semi-structured interviews (Charmaz, 2014; Strauss & Corbin, 1994).
Significant findings from the quantitative portion of the study are, first, that the mean level of intercultural competence overall (n = 67) was 83.48 which indicates that participants in this study were at the IDI Developmental Orientation of Polarization, or have an “us versus them” perspective, where individuals from diverse backgrounds typically feel uncomfortable (Hammer, 2012); second, there was no statistically significant difference in IDI scores between City Community College (CCC; n = 24) and Traditional State University (TSU; n = 43) students; and third, there was a statistically significant difference (n = 67; p = .045) between participants’ perceptions of the level of cultural understanding valued by their high schools and the level of cultural understanding first-year college students perceived will be valued by their future workplaces. Themes from the qualitative analysis included participants’ perception that high school and college support for ICC development is optional and that participants believe when first attending college in the U.S., what is needed is an IDI developmental orientation of Acceptance (recognizing different cultural beliefs and values without judgment) or Adaptation (as an extension of Acceptance, individuals adapt their behaviors in culturally specific ways concerning the diverse individuals with which they interact) (Hammer, 2012).
Analysis of the interview data indicates participants perceived intercultural competence was treated as optional across their secondary and post-secondary academic settings. This is problematic because participants also perceived that ICC will be highly valued by their workplace. Research has consistently shown that, for the average college student, these skills do not just happen but they can be taught (Bikson & Law, 1994; Brown, 2008; Deardorff, 2009; Green, 2000; Perez, Shim, King & Baxter Magolda, 2015; Shaw, Lee, & Williams, 2015; Zhao, 2002), and that they are increasingly desired by employers and colleges (American Association of Colleges and Universities [AACU], 2014; American Council on Education [ACE], 2015; Hart Research, 2015; Kylonnen, 2013). The findings from this research show first-year college students desire ICC skills, not just for the future workplace but also for their first-years on a college campus.