Document Type

Conference Presentation

Publication Date

5-23-2019

Abstract

The mission of our College of Science, Engineering, and Technology (CSET) is to “prepare students for professional careers and advanced study, while connecting with local, regional and global communities” (Minnesota State University, Mankato, 2018). Faculty members face a significant challenge: preparing the next generation of increasingly diverse scientists. Culturally responsive teaching uses “the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2010, p. 31). In one example, Downey, Lucena, Moskal, et al. (2006) suggested that an integrated experience will enable larger numbers of engineering students to take the first steps toward global competency. They noted that engineers from different cultures actually view the same problems differently. When those different views are coordinated, the results may be creative responses to those problems. This investigation hypothesized that course experiences would have a positive impact on the intercultural competence (ICC) of undergraduate students. The questions under investigation were: (1) What is the starting level of ICC among undergraduate students? (2) How does the ICC of students change during their experiences in a specially-designed course? The course instructor integrated strategies to enhance global cultural competency (GCC). Global cultural competency was defined as “a set of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills and characteristics that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts” (Bennett, J., 2011, p. 1). For this study, the IDI version 3 (Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003) was used as a measure of cultural competency. This project used archived data collected from 2010 to 2018 for instructional purposes. College and university leaders can use the results for course design and for procedural recommendations

Faculty Mentor

Elizabeth Sandell and Bethann Lavoie

Recommended Citation

Koestler, Z. & Stalcar, N. (2019, May 23). Preparing scientists with intercultural competence to work with global communities. Presented at the 2019 World Congress on Undergraduate Research, Oldenburg, Germany.