Capturing nonlinear intercultural development via student reflective writing

Rebekah Sims, Phuong Tran, Hadi Banat, Parva Panahi Lazarjani, Bradley Dilger

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article reports on a qualitative assessment of intercultural competence (IC) in U.S. first-year writing courses designed to increase intercultural exposure and interaction among domestic and international students. To measure students’ intercultural development via a series of reflective writings, we designed two innovative qualitative analysis tools: a grounded-theory coding scheme and a mapping procedure aligned to the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Our results show that qualitative assessment of reflective writing reveals dynamic, complex IC development trajectories, displaying non-linearity, non-discrete phases, and development within phases. Specifically, we noted that reflective writing helped students engage with and become attuned to aspects of cultural difference. Affordances of the FYW context indicated that students strongly engaged the cognitive domain of IC, and this domain appears to be activated by reflective writing.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages47
JournalWritten Communication
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 11 Aug 2024

Keywords

  • intercultural competence
  • first-year writing
  • Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
  • refelction
  • pendulum model

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