Working and interacting with people from diverse backgrounds have become common in Engineering. Research has indicated that engineering graduates face challenges while working with a diverse workforce. Therefore, it is vital for higher education institutions to help engineering students develop intercultural competence skills by engaging them in intercultural learning activities. This study explores the impact of a semester-long study abroad program and its new curriculum on the intercultural learning gains of undergraduate engineering students. The study used a mixed methods design to assess the intercultural learning gains of the students enrolled in a study abroad program.

Scholars suggest that study abroad programs must intentionally design and implement intercultural intervention for students’ growth. This study used a mixed-method approach to examine the effectiveness of an online curriculum designed to facilitate the intercultural competence development of semester abroad students. Three theories informed the curricular design and study: the Intercultural Development Continuum, the Intercultural Praxis Model, and the Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE rubric. Using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) distributed before and after the study abroad experience, the study analyzed data sets for a treatment group with 110 students and a control group with 88 students. The results demonstrated that students in the treatment group achieved a statistically significant higher level of meaningful gains in their IDI scores from pre- to post-test compared to the control group. In addition, students described their growth in specific competencies. These findings contribute to study abroad literature by assessing a theoretically-grounded online curriculum rooted in intercultural theories so as to suggest best practices in group mentoring, stage-based pedagogy, and critical reflection for intercultural competence development during a study abroad program.

Mobility is one of the key actions within the process of internationalising school education to develop interculturally competent pupils. The study at the heart of this paper – Developing Intercultural Competence Through Adolescents’ Mobility (DICTAM) – seeks to explore which programme design features and individual characteristics are most closely associated with the development of intercultural competence. To reach this goal, a longitudinal study (using open-ended questionnaires and the Intercultural Development Inventory) was conducted with 378 pupils from Italian secondary schools who participated in a mobility programme. Overall findings suggest that different individual characteristics and programme design variables might have a different bearing on enhancing intercultural competence. In our sample, the variables duration (longer is better) and gender (female) are the ones which more likely have a positive impact on intercultural growth.

Developing an interculturally competent STEM workforce is the need of time. Research has demonstrated that STEM students find it challenging to work with individuals from diverse backgrounds. This study used Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) instrument to understand the intercultural learning gains of technology students by administrating the survey in the program’s first year and final year. The data were analyzed using multivariate statistics to assess the intercultural learning gains of the students. The study results indicate that students demonstrated a statistically significant increase in intercultural competence as they progressed from their first year to their final year of college. The study also indicated that having an intercultural mindset and participating in intercultural activities such as study abroad programs or intercultural mentoring can help students internalize intercultural competence and make meaningful gains on the intercultural development continuum. The study also provides recommendations to help students develop interculturally.

Increasing migrations across the world mean leaders at all levels need to become more competent in working across cultures. During the past 30 years, program designers, researchers, and others have investigated intercultural competence (ICC), often described as the capability to accurately understand and adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. Tertiary education programs (TEP) are accepting these challenges by offering experiences (such as coursework, study away, study abroad, cultural events, etc.) that are intended to produce culturally competent graduates. The teaching and learning experiences described in this study at a midwestern American university may inform others. This study examined archived data from two courses designed to enhance undergraduates’ ICC. Researchers expected that students who completed a course, called Critical Race Theory in Education (CRT), would show statistically larger gains during a second course, called Human Relations in a Multicultural Society (HRMS). At the beginning and conclusion of HRMS, students completed the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Researchers used the two-sample t-test to compare the pre-HRMS scores of students who had completed CRT and students who had not completed CRT. Analysis showed students who took CRT before HRMS had statistically significantly higher beginning scores than students who had not completed CRT before they enrolled in HRMS (p=. 042). Although students who completed CRT started HRMS with the higher IDI mean score, those individuals did not make statistically significant gains in their ICC during the HRMS course (p=. 130). However, the students who had not completed CRT before HRMS did make statistically significant gains in their ICC during the HRMS course (p<. 001). These results, with additional research, could be used to redesign the courses or to design other curricula approaches.