Poster #172 - Measuring adolescents’ attitudes toward other cultures: A structural validation study

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

Intercultural Fluency (IF) refers to the ability to navigate an increasingly diverse world across cultural contexts. Also referred as Global Competence or Intercultural flexibility, this ability is increasingly important in fields as varied as education, medicine, business, and politics. Despite growing consensus on the importance of fostering students’ IF, there is minimal understanding of how it develops or which socio-demographic factors foster it. Research agrees on the multidimensionality of this construct, but differs on the choice and operationalization of its constituting subconstructs. In this study, we build on a narrow conceptualization of IF focusing on openness, autonomy and emotional resilience (e.g., Tagushi, 2006). To date, existing measures target a specific age group (e.g., OECD, 2016: 15-year-olds) without studying cross-age samples. To address this gap, this study examines three researcher-developed scales in a cross-sectional sample of adolescents. These scales measure subconstructs supported by the literature as components of IF: Openness (Op), Autonomy (Au), and Tolerance of Ambiguity (TA) (see Table 1 for definitions). This study constitutes a first step towards developing a measure of IF that captures individual variability throughout adolescence, and allows for the examination of demographic factors associated with IF. Three research questions informed this study:

RQ1: What is the structural validity of three scales designed to measure adolescents’ Openness, Autonomy, and Tolerance of Ambiguity?
RQ2: Do these scales demonstrate convergent validity with the Perspective Taking (PT) measure?
RQ3: Are hypothesized socio-demographic factors (i.e., age, language background,) associated with adolescents’ openness, autonomy, and tolerance of ambiguity?

The sample consisted of 8442 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years (Mean=17.4, SD=1) and enrolled in an educational travel program. The sample was 59% male, 72% White, 16% Latino, 6% African American , 5% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% Native American.
All four scales (Op, Au, TA, PT) were scored on a 4-to-5-point-Likert scale and administered online, along with a language history and socio-demographic survey.

Psychometric analysis using Item-Response Theory (IRT) and principal components analysis (PCA) revealed that most items (25 of 30) functioned well; each of the three scales was unidimensional; and Openness had highest internal reliability (See table 1). Additionally, convergent validity analysis showed that PT strongly correlated with Openness (r=0.46), and moderately with Autonomy (r=0.24) and Tolerance for ambiguity (r=0.26). Finally, on average and controlling for age and gender, participants with higher scores in the three scales were more likely to be proficient in a foreign language learned in school, and have friends from foreign countries (Figure 1).


While a major limitation of this study is that these scales –as most measures in the field—only capture self-reported data, they nevertheless captured considerable variability within and across ages. These measures, still under development, are promising as tools for future studies exploring how these constructs develop throughout adolescence. Additionally, education programs concerned with IF, could use these tools to measure the impact of specific approaches versus others.

Authors

• Mariam Dahbi, Harvard University
  Presenting Author

• Pierre De Galbert, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paola Uccelli, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Non-Presenting Author