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U.S. INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION face many challenges at the beginning of the twenty-first century including the tasks of remaining intellectually and culturally viable in a rapidly changing world, preparing students to vie competitively in the global marketplace, and staying abreast of the electronic deluge of information and globalized knowledge. The internationalization of higher education has become one possible response to such challenges. Yet the specification of anticipated outcomes of internationalization are often general and vague, with goals stated broadly that the institution will "become internationalized" or that a goal is to graduate "cross-culturally competent students" or "global citizens" without giving further meaning to these phrases.
Few U.S. universities address the development of interculturally competent students as an anticipated outcome of internationalization in which the concept of "intercultural competence" is specifically defined. This lack of specificity in further defining intercultural competence is due presumably to the difficulty of identifying the specific components of this concept. Even fewer institutions have designated methods for documenting or measuring intercultural competence. So, while the purpose of having an internationalized campus is obvious enough that funds are being directed accordingly, it is unclear how these institutions know, or even if they can know, that they are graduating interculturally competent students and what it means to be interculturally competent.
A new doctoral research study has been undertaken to address these key questions through the collection and analysis of data on the identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization in higher education. This research study seeks to provide administrators with a more definitive meaning of intercultural competence, as well as with suggestions regarding the effective assessment of students' intercultural competence. (See "New Research" below for more information.) At a minimum, this study will help generate discussion around the complex phenomenon of intercultural competence, as well as discussions on how to assess meaningful outcomes of internationalization.
A Barometer
Institutions of higher education rely heavily on numbers to demonstrate success in internationalization-numbers such as how many of their students study abroad, how many international students study on their campus, how many foreign faculty teach courses, how many courses are included in the internationalized curriculum, and so on. While such numbers are certainly an important element to evaluation, what...