Validation of intercultural competence scale in the Ethiopian context: Exploring the factor structure and psychometric properties among university students

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Although intercultural competence is a crucial factor for university students’ academic achievement and inter-ethnic conflict resolution, psychometrically sound intercultural competence scale is not available in the Ethiopian context. The aim of the present study was to translate the original English version of intercultural competence into Amharic language and validate the scale in the Ethiopian context.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

In the processes of retaining culturally equivalent translated measure symmetrical approach was used. Data were collected from 476 (Male = 244 and Female = 232) arbitrarily selected university students with an age mean of 22.35 enrolled in undergraduate degree programs at Ambo University. The total sample was randomly split into two equal-sized group to execute exploratory factor analysis (EFA, N = 238) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA, N = 238).

RESULT:

The result of the study showed that both EFA and CFA supported a significantly correlated four-factor model of intercultural competence (Attitude, Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills). Moreover, the Amharic version of the intercultural competence scale showed good psychometric properties in terms of content validity, construct validity, internal consistency, and good fit indices to the data.

CONCLUSION:

This generally justifies the use of the Amharic version intercultural competence scale in the Ethiopian context. To satisfy the needs of the labor market, universities in Ethiopia should promote intercultural dialogues that improve the intercultural competence of university students.

Introduction

Intercultural competence (ICC) is a vital factor in influencing university students’ academic performance, psychological and social well beings. There are several instruments measuring university student’s intercultural competence in different contexts. Among these,[1] intercultural competences which measures intercultural knowledge, awareness, attitude, and skills is the most frequently used and easily self-administered questionnaire. Intercultural competence is conceptualized as the competence of a person to interact adequately with others from different cultural backgrounds; often considered as not only consisting of certain skills and knowledge, but also of more general personality traits.[2,3,4,5] As empirical evidences over the past two decades have shown assessment related to intercultural competence has been intensely increasing.[1,3,6,7,8] Certainly, as individual’s academic, psychological, communication, and social success in multi-diversified eco-cultural context is influenced by once intercultural competence, instruments assessing this essential parameter would be very useful in intercultural research and interventional practice.[5,9,10] Hence, the most comprehensive and theoretically suitable[11] multidimensional intercultural competence measuring scale was adapted in the Ethiopian context.

Originally the exploratory factors conducted by the authors demonstrated that the scale has retained four factors (i.e., intercultural knowledge, awareness, attitude, and skill) with 50 items.[11] These factors help to measure the young adult’s level of intercultural competence and the extent to which they successfully dealing with own and others culture in various eco-cultural contexts.[1,3,5] The author reported that the scale had good loading factors (ranging from 0.682 to 0.952), adequate internal consistency (ranging from 0.800 to 0.968), and good convergent and discriminatory validity. Although the majority of the earlier studies using intercultural competence measure were conducted in English-speaking society, there is a growing body of interest in other cultures like Ethiopian contexts. For instance, the intercultural competence scale has been translated into several languages including Chines,[12] Turkish,[13] Italian,[14] and Taiwanese.[15] Despite the fact that this scale has been widely used in Western and some Asian countries, the lack of its Amharic version that maybe contributes to the Ethiopian context is the shortcoming.

Further, the majority of the intercultural competence scales were methodologically, culturally, and theoretically Western individualistic society-based approach and others few non-Western study were replicating the Western model.[12,16,17,18,19,20] On the other hand, several non-Western earlier studies,[7,15,18,21] criticized intercultural competences for not retaining consistent factor structure, low factor loading, and low internal consistency. Likewise, widely existing intercultural cultural scales were developed and validated with the individualistic Western cultural and theoretical orientation.[22] Instead, studies conducted in some non-Western states have constructed ICC scales tailored to their context, while others used the existing scales without first validating into their context. However, there is no scale developed or adapted for Ethiopian University students. In understanding young adult’s level of ICC and to retain culturally appropriate, relevant, short, and valid instrument translating and validating of this scale into the Ethiopian eco-cultural setting would be very worthwhile.

Therefore, the study has the following objectives; (1) to translate the original English version of ICC scale into the Amharic language, (2) to examine the psychometric properties (i.e., Content validity, factor structure, fitness indices, construct validity, and internal consistency) of the new Amharic version ICC scale.

Materials and Methods

Study design and setting

The purpose of the present study was to validate the intercultural competence measure in the Ethiopian context. Hence, for the reason that it enables the researcher to collect data from the designated population students of Ambo University at one given time and generate numerical data, cross-sectional descriptive survey study design was employed.

Study participants and sampling

The target population of the present study was young adult university students found at Ambo University. Ambo University is located in Ambo town, with a student population of about 18,458 (M = 10,182 and F = 8276) at 114 KM to the west of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. The student inhabitants in this university are highly diversified in terms of ethnicity (i.e. Oromo, Amhara, Gurage, Tigre, Sidama, Somali, etc.) and religions (i.e., orthodox Christian, protestant, Catholic, Islam, and Waqefatta).

With regard to instrument validation (i.e., EFA and CFA), sample size determination was done based on the assumptions of factors analysis. For instance, several scholars,[15,16,23,24] suggested that the minimum sample is to have at least five times the observed number of variables being analyzed, and then 5:1 ratio is the acceptable sample size. Students who met the following inclusion criteria were invited to participate; 1) domestic university students, 2) currently enrolled in 3^rd year and above undergraduate regular students, and 3) be willing to participate. To determine the proportion of student participants across their sex, college, and department participants of this study were selected via stratified random sampling technique. Accordingly, a total of 476 (Male = 244 and Female = 232) participants aged between 18 and 30 years and their mean age was = 22.35 (SD = 2.989) were recruited from Ambo University. Out of this number, the majority of the study participants belonged to the Oromo ethnic group 189 (39.7%) followed by Amhara 157 (33.0%). In relation to respondents’ religion, most study participants belonged to orthodox christian 203 (42.6%) and Protestant 186 (39.1%). On the other hand, most study participants were from intact family structure 379 (79.4%) [Table 1].

Table 1.

Demographic characteristics of study participants (n=476)

Variables	Characters	Frequency	Percentage
Sex	Male	244	51.3
	Female	232	48.7
Total		476	100
Ethnicity	Oromo	189	39.7
	Amhara	157	33.0
	Sidama	30	6.3
	Tigre	23	4.8
	Others	77	16.18
Religions	Orthodox	203	42.6
	Protestant	186	39.1
	Muslim	74	15.5
	Wakefata	9	1.9
	Others	4	0.84
Family structure	Intact	379	79.4
	Non-intact	98	20.6

Procedures

During instrument translation and data collection, appropriate procedures were tailed. First content validity of the original English version of the scale was assessed by a group of eight experts based on[25] recommendation. As the result of content validity showed among 50 items of the ICC scale, 45 items have a CVR score over the acceptable threshold (>0.75), whereas five items (item no 5, 8, 21, 36, and 46) were found to a CVR less than the ideal value (<0.75). Secondly, the forward translation of the scale from its original English language into the Amharic version was carried out by two independent bilingual translators. Following the two independent forward translations with the mediator of the researcher, the two translators came together and sentence by sentence revision and comparison of the two forward translated versions of the scales was made. In order to ensure whether or not the Amharic version of the instrument is reflecting the same/similar item content as its original version backward translation was made by a single independent bilingual expert (Amharic native speaker and Proficient in English). No significant differences were found between the back-translated and original version, demonstrating that the translated items had very similar meanings as the original English version items.

Thirdly, pilot study/cognitive debriefing were done with 20 Amharic speakers of Ambo University students, as a result necessary modification was made, and further psychometric tests were computed. Fourthly, a support letter was secured from Addis Ababa University, School of Psychology and was presented to Ambo University, and consent was then obtained from research ethical reviews. Then, target participants were identified, oriented about the purpose of the study, and then requested for verbal consent. Once their informed verbal consent was secured, they were given orientation as to how to fill in the form and provided with the scale to fill in. After the study participants complete the self-administered questionnaires in the stipulated time, the completed questionnaires were collected and checked to see, whether they are properly filled and ready for coding and data analysis.

Data collection tool and technique

The four-factor model of the questionnaire consisting of 50 items scored on a 6-point likert scale (from not at all = 0 to very high = 5) that provides a measure of ICC scales with four subscales; intercultural knowledge (13-items), attitude (15-items), awareness (13-items), and skills (9- items) was adapted.[11] High score indicates a high level of ICC. Previously, the internal consistency of the scale has been reported as 0.835 for intercultural knowledge, 0.96 for attitude, 0.968 for awareness, 0.944 for skill, and 0.892 for total ICC scale.[11]

Techniques of data analysis

The collected data was analyzed using IBM SPSS with AMOS 26.0. Before data analysis, evaluation of data accuracy was done via randomly selected input of 20% of the questionnaires and all are judged as good. First, to identify the underlying factors and nature of the relationship between factors of the scale in the Ethiopian context exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was computed. Before running EFA, its assumption was checked and values of KMO (>0.60), Bartlett’s test of sphericity (P < 0.05), factor loading (>0, 30), factor correlation matrix (>0.30), etc., were satisfied. As a result, the rotated factors were assumed to be correlated; direct Oblimin rotation with Kaisar Normalization was used. In retaining the factor structure of the scale eigenvalues of >1, actual eigenvalues > criteria values from Monte Carlo PCA for Parallel analysis, removal of items with loading values of <0.30 and exclusion of cross loading items >0.35 in at least two factors were used as criteria.

In order to examine the fitness of the model obtained via EFA, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was done using the maximum likelihood (ML) method. The model was evaluated through the conventional standards of goodness of fit indices. These fit indices and their cut-off values were CMIN/DF (<5), AGFI, GFI, NFI, CFI (>0.90), and RMSEA (<0.08). According to[24,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34] if any 3–4 of the goodness of fit indices are within the threshold, then the fitness of the entire model is regarded as acceptable. Convergent validity was assessed by comparing the values of composite reliability (CR) with the values of average variance extracted (AVE). Discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the AVE with the values of the maximum shared squared variances (MSV) and average shared squared variance (ASV). Moreover, it was assessed by the square root of the AVE for each subscale with the correlation coefficients of other subscales. With regard to the internal consistency of the scales, Cronbach’s alpha estimation was computed, in which, α >0.7 is suitable and verified that the items are adequate enough in assessing the constructs of the scales. Finally, the total sample (N = 476) was randomly split into two equal-sized groups (nEFA = 238; nCFA = 238). The subsamples did not differ significantly in terms of age, gender, ethnic composition, religion, and study discipline. EFA was performed with the first half sample using the principal components analysis method to determine the ideal number of factors and followed by CFA.

Ethical consideration

This research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Ambo University, Institute of Education and Behavioural Studies, Department of Psychology (Ref. no. AU/Psy/Eth Co/011/2022). Following the brief explanation given on the objectives of the study, informed consent was obtained, confidentiality, participant’s anonymity, and that of their data was ensured.

Results

Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the stud participants. In this study data was collected from 550 (Male = 283 and Female = 267) randomly selected Ambo University students. However, the final data analysis was made only for 476 (M = 244 and F = 232) accounting for about 86.55% of the participants who appropriately and correctly responded to all items. The mean age of the study participants was 22.35 with a standard deviation of 2.989.

Result of EFA

Before running factor analysis verifying whether or not the data set are suitable for factor analysis is mandatory using Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s tests. Accordingly, the result of KMO = 0.906 (>0.60) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was statistically significant (χ² = 7008.970, df = 990, P < .001) signifying the suitability of the data for EFA. Further, intercorrelational matrixes between the items were computed and there were several coefficients of inter-item correlation greater than .30, which satisfy the assumptions of EFA. In this regard, Varmax Rotation with Kaisar Normalization, ML Estimation, and an absolute value of the standardized factor loading of >0.3 were set to run the analysis. The computed PCA suggested a four-factorial solution with eigenvalues >1, explaining a total of 55.275% of the variance. The first factor eigenvalue explains 28.597% of the variance. The second-factor eigenvalue was explaining 9.884% of the variance. The third and the fourth factors’ eigenvalues were explaining about 8.705% and 8.089% of the variance, respectively. Moreover, inspection from the scree plot was done, and the turning point was observed at factor four with transition points between factors with high and low eigenvalues. Finally, Monte Carlo PCA for Parallel which could compare the actual eigenvalues with its corresponding criterion values was inspected and verified that the four-factor solution was supported. These evidenced that a four-factor solution derived from the total variance explained is the best principal component solution for the scale. Consequently, two-step iterative procedures were used and 37 items of the Amharic version ICC with a four-factor structure were retained. In the initial iterative step, six items (items 15, 20, 29, 30, 36, and 34) were removed due to their low communality extraction (<.30) indicating that the items do not fit well with the other items in its component. In the second iterative process, two items (items 28 and 44) were removed because they were found to cross-load on different factors signifying that they do not differentiate between different latent variables.

Therefore, a total of 37 items of the scale with 4-factor structures were retained for CFA [Table 2]. Factor 1(intercultural attitude) includes 14 items (items 24, 25, 23, 26, 18, 22, 19, 17, 21, 32, 27, 31, 16 and 35). Factor 2 (intercultural awareness) includes eight items (items 39, 41, 42, 38, 37, 43, 40 and 45). Factor 3 (intercultural knowledge) includes 10 items (items 3, 1, 7, 6, 9, 5, 4, 8, 2, and 33), while factor 4 (Intercultural skill) includes five items (items 13, 12, 11, 14 and 10). To this end, many items consistently loaded on the components they need to be loaded, while some items are loaded with other items to measure other factors. For instance, in the original version of the instrument items 31, 32, and 35 are planned to measure intercultural skills. Correspondingly, items 11, 12, and 13 are supposed to measure intercultural knowledge. Hence, these items are either inappropriately understood by study participants or for cultural and/or translation reasons these items were perceived as similar factors [Table 2].

Table 2.

Factor loading of the four-factor model for the Amharic version ICC scale (EFA)

Items	Factor 1; Intercultural attitude	Factor 2; intercultural awareness	Factor 3; Intercultural knowledge	Factor 4; Intercultural skill
IC25	0.698
IC24	0.666
IC26	0.631
IC23	0.612
IC18	0.595
IC22	0.586
IC17	0.566
IC21	0.565
IC19	0.561
IC32	0.539
IC27	0.529
IC31	0.519
IC16	0.501
IC35	0.484
IC39		0.718
IC41		0.691
IC42		0.687
IC38		0.653
IC37		0.616
IC43		0.603
IC40		0.564
IC45		0.534
IC3			0.693
IC1			0.646
IC7			0.631
IC6			0.616
IC9			0.611
IC5			0.598
IC4			0.571
IC8			0.564
IC2			0.530
IC33			0.447
IC13				0.562
IC12				0.546
IC11				0.499
IC14				0.496
IC10				0.418

*P<0.01. Amharic version of ICC scale, n=476. Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

Results of CFA

In order to examine the fitness of the model obtained via EFA, CFA was done on the data collected from the second half sample (nCFA = 238). The hypothesized model was assessed by AMOS version 26 ML factor analyses. Based on the recommendation of scholars,[24,26] the model was evaluated through five fit measures including; the Chi-square (CMIN/DF, <5), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA, <.08), goodness fit index (AGI), the adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI), the normed fit index (NFI) and Comparative fit index (CFI) were >.90. According to[24,32,35] if any 3–4 of the goodness of fit indices are within the threshold, and then fitness of the entire model is regarded as acceptable. Furthermore, the basic assumptions of CFA were checked for each scale and were found to be tenable.

As shown in Table 3, the fit indices of the initial intercultural competence scale were made with 37 items. In this initial model all except, CMID/DF and RMSEA showed below the standard of model fit criteria indicating the requirements of model modification. To improve the fitness of the data to the model, seven items (IC9, IC20, IC23, IC26, IC27, IC28, and IC31) having >2.58 standardized residual covariance with other items were excluded from the initial intercultural competence scale. Thus, the fit indices of the refined ICC scale having 30 items were somewhat improved and the fit indices showed an acceptable level of model fit. Following CFA, 30 items of the ICC scale were best fit to the Ethiopian context [Figure 1].

Table 3.

Model fit indices summary of CFA for the Original and refined Intercultural competence scale

Fit indices*	Initial model of IC scale (37 items)	Modified IC scale (30 items)
CMIN/DF	2.700	2.296
CMIN	1682.057	911.467
GFI	0.831	0.923
AGFI	0.809	0.909
CFI	0.891	0.916
NFI	823	0.907
RMSEA	0.060	0.052
DF	623	399
P	0.000	0.000

NB; CMIN=Model Chi-Square, GFI=Goodness of Fit Index; AGFI=Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index, CFI=Comparative Fit Index; DF; Degree of freedom, RMSEA=Root Mean Square Error of Approximation

Figure 1.

Model fit indices summary of intercultural competence scale

Convergent and discriminant validity

Table 4 revealed the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument. The convergent validity was examined by comparing CR with AVE. Accordingly, of all dimensions of intercultural competence subscales CR and AVE values were ≥0.731 and ≥0.603 correspondingly. Likewise, all values of composite reliability and average variance extracted are higher than the thresholds CR (>0.70) and AVE (>0.50). The value of CR of each subscale was greater than the values of AVE. This implies that the scale has good convergent validity, inferring that all the retained items of intercultural competence were converged to the assessment of its related construct in the Ethiopian context.

Table 4.

Convergent and discriminant validity of the scale using CR, AVE, MSV, ASV, Square Root of AVE, and the Correlation between intercultural competence subscales

ICC subscales	CR	AVE	MSV	ASV	Attitude	Awareness	Knowledge	Skill
Attitude	0.8744	0.665	0.356	0.276	815
Awareness	0.8458	0.603	0.432	0.312	0.511**	0.776
Knowledge	0.8794	0.659	0.353	0.176	0.597**	0.467**	0.812
Skill	0.7310	0.693	0.261	0.208	0.651**	0.594**	0.529**	0.861

CR=Composite reliability; AVE=Average variance extracted; MSV=Maximum shared squared variance; ASV=Average shared square variance

With respect to discriminant validity, as shown in Table 4, the result revealed that the values of AVE for all intercultural competence subscales were higher than both the values of MSV and ASV. Further the result showed that the square root of the AVE values of each subscale was greater than correlation coefficients with other intercultural competence subscales. This proves that the discriminant validity really exists between the constructs and their items.

The internal consistency estimated by Cronbach alpha value for the new Amharic version ICC total score was = 0.917, whereas the internal consistency of the subscales was attitude = 0.814, awareness = .876, knowledge = .839, and skill = .816, respectively [Table 5]. This implies that the new Amharic version of ICC with its four dimensions has acceptable and very good internal consistency.

Table 5.

Reliability coefficient for the Amharic version of ICC after EFA and CFA

Components	No. of items	Cronbach’s alpha coefficients
Intercultural Attitude	10	0.814
Intercultural awareness	7	0.876
Intercultural knowledge	8	0.839
Intercultural Skill	5	0.816
Total reliability	30	0.917

ICC - Intercultural competence, EFA - Exploratory factor analysis, CFA - Confirmatory factor analysis

Discussion

Currently numerous scholars,[1,3,15,16,27] across different disciplines agree that in order to comprehend and adapt successfully to this varied nature of the world, university graduate must develop intercultural competence. The present study was aimed to explore the psychometric properties of the[11] multidimensional intercultural competence scale for the Ethiopian University students. Beginning with 50-items having four-factor structure constructed by[11] various models were tested. The result revealed that a four-factor structure with 30 items of the Amharic version intercultural competence scale was the one that is more acceptable and retained in the Ethiopian context. The final version was composed of the intercultural attitude (10-items), awareness (7-items), knowledge (8-items), and skill (5-items) dimensions. Although these factors were alike to the original version, some items with low communality, low loading values, and cross loading issues were removed from the constructs. This confirmed the conceptual and psychometric interdependence of the factors conceived by the original English version of intercultural competence.[11,28] With this regard, the present study was consistent with the earlier empirical evidence obtained from[7,11] and[15] with four-factor of intercultural competence scale. Further, evidence obtained in the present study was consistent with[7,9,17,29] refined four-factor structure of intercultural competence. This implies that the shortest and most refined version of the measure that is considered as an adequate standard in the assessment of intercultural competence among Ethiopian youth.

Initially, the Amharic version ICC retained via CFA showed low fit indices. However, via using robust ML alternative method for the data, adequate fit indices verifying the four-factor structure of the Amharic version ICC scale was obtained. In terms of CFA, no support was found for the original ICC scale. However, the present study result was consistent with the study done by several scholars,[9,13,16,30] showing a refined four-factor structure of ICC with very good fit indices. Furthermore, CFA indicates that the data fit the hypothesized model since the analysis confirmed that the model of this study has good construct validity (convergent and discriminant validity) as well as acceptable goodness of fit indices.

Examining of the internal consistency showed somewhat low values as compared to its original version that may pose some reliability questions of the Amharic version ICC scale (ranging from .814 to .876). These values were lower than the internal consistency estimates obtained by,[11] ranging from .835 to 968 and,[9,17] which ranged from .90 to .98. Although the reliability estimates of the Amharic version ICC subscales were less than the values obtained by,[11] and[9] it was in a very good and acceptable range of internal consistency. Actually, Cronbach’s alpha is sensitive to the number of items included in a given scales, where the number of items in the present study was reduced to 30 items and the alpha values for the overall Amharic version ICC (See Appendix, A for both English and Amharic version of the scale).

The current study verified that the factor structure of the ICC scale was consistent with earlier studies;[9,11,20] however; the number of items within each construct was reduced in the Ethiopian context. With this regard, evidence is accumulating concerning no. of items difference that has been originally proposed and validated to new eco-cultural context. The no. of items discrepancies in the present study conveyed in the literature are somewhat ascribed to individuals with different cultural backgrounds, translated language, sample heterogeneity, sample size, quality of data, and different statistical methods, for example, EFA vs. CFA employed.[9,13,16,30,33] Generally, the finding of the present study offers certain surplus support for[11] four-factor multidimensional intercultural competence scales and their possible generalizability to various eco-cultural contexts. Although the intercultural competence scale is one of the most comprehensive and widely used, it has never been translated into Amharic, and the research supporting its use in the Ethiopian context is insufficient. To the knowledge of the researcher, the present study was the first attempt to validate ICC scales for Ethiopian University students and demonstrate promising psychometric properties that justify the use of this scale in the Ethiopian context. This implies that the present study has successfully validated a Western-oriented intercultural model for Ethiopian emerging adulthood.

There are several limitations to the present study. Although the result of the present study was encouraging, it has to be replicated at a larger scale by considering the extensive diversity of university students that may yield a psychometrically sound intercultural competence scale for Ethiopian University students. While this study offered certain initial evidence of the psychometric properties of the intercultural competence scale in the Ethiopian context, future research should aim to obtain more concrete evidence with a larger sample of participants. In the current study, participants were selected and reached only from Ambo University, which implies choosing more participants from different regions in the sampling scope may yield better psychometric properties of the Amharic version ICC. Moreover, it should be noted that, even though certain results are promising, some adjustment indices obtained are weak, which may pose some questions about the psychometric qualities of the scale that are worth further investigation.

Conclusion

The result of the study indicated that an associated four-factor structure of the Amharic version ICC is valid in the Ethiopian University student’s inhabitants. Though the four-factor model upholds very good psychometric properties and offered the best fits for the date, some limitations of the study may offer opportunities for further studies in the future. The major limitations were a number of items reduction and lower reliability and fit indices values as compared to its original version. This may be attributed to translation variance and the nature of the sample used. Hence, extra translation, larger sample size from different universities, and a more random approach can be employed to strengthen the result of the study in the future. Besides, in this swift growing of cultural diversity, the utility and significance of such a scale cannot be overstated. Hence, additional study in other eco-cultural and linguistic contexts is necessary in an attempt to reach a robust scale of ICC that translates well across cultures.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

Appendix A.

Summary of items statistics retained after Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Statements	Corrected item- total correlation	Cronbach’s alpha if Item Deleted	Items loading	Cronbach’s Alpha (Reliability)
I demonstrate willingness to suspend judgment & appreciate the complexities of communicating and interacting interculturally	.479	.885	.738	.814
I demonstrate willingness to earn other languages and cultures and interact with them	.481	.884	.727
I demonstrate willingness to deal with ethical implications of my choices (in terms of decisions, consequences, etc.)	.486	.883	.638
I demonstrate willingness to try to understand differences in the behaviours, values, attitudes, and styles of members of the University	.479	.883	.567
I demonstrate willingness to show interest in new cultural aspects (e.g., to understand the values, history, etc.).	.511	.882	.566
I demonstrate willingness to deal with different ways of perceiving, expressing, interacting, and behaving	.405	.885	.565
I demonstrate willingness to adapt my behaviour to communicate appropriately in the University with people from varied background (e.g., in non-verbal and other behavioural areas, as needed for different situations)	.400	.884	.561
I demonstrate flexibility when interacting with persons from other cultures	.443	.884	.529
I demonstrate willingness to take on various roles appropriate to different situations (e.g. in the classroom)	.433	.884	.501
I have two or more cultural frames of references and thus I feel positive about cultural differences	.431	.885	.484
I realized the importance of responses by others to my own ethnic identity	.364	.886	.718	.876
I realized the importance of my choices and their consequences (which make me more or less acceptable by members of other cultures	.363	.886	.691
I realized the importance of my personal values and ethics that affect my approach to ethical dilemmas and resolutions	.343	.883	.687
I realized the importance of how members of other cultures viewed me and why	.461	.885	.616
I realized the importance of Varying cultural styles and language use and their effect in their social and study situations	.407	.885	.603
I realized the importance of dangers of generalizing individual behaviours as representative of the whole culture/ethnic group	.405	.884	.564
I realized the importance of how others perceived me as communicator in intercultural context	.438	.883	.534
I could cite a definition of culture and describe its components and complexities	.458	.883	.712	.839
I know essential norms in the University (e.g., greetings, dress, behaviours, etc.)	.465	.883	.646
I can contrast important aspects of my culture with other Ethiopian culture	.497	.886	.631
I recognize signs of culture stress and some strategies for overcoming it	.335	.884	.616
I can contrast my own behaviours with people from other ethnicities in important areas (e.g., social interactions, basic routines, communication behaviour, etc.)	.453	.884	.598
I can cite important historical and socio-political factors that shape my own culture and popular Ethiopian culture	.429	.884	.571
I can cite various learning processes and strategies for learning and living at university	.432	.884	.564
I could describe interactional behaviours common among Ethiopians in social and professional areas (e.g., family roles, team work, problem solving, etc.)	.430	.884	.530
I demonstrate willingness to learn from others, their language, and their culture	.437	.886	.562	.816
I demonstrate willingness to interact with people from other ethnicities	.358	.883	.546
I recognize that people from other cultures do not necessarily have same values and goals as people from my own culture	.464	.885	.499
I demonstrate willingness to try to communicate in English or other language and behave in appropriate ways	.398	.885	.496
I know verbal and non-verbal behaviours vary across cultures and all forms of behaviour are worthy of respect	.417	.884	.418
Total Reliability				.917