Assessing Intercultural Competency of Sophomore Mechanical Engineering Students: Baseline Data and Analysis Julia Thompson, Engineering Education Graduate Student, Purdue University Dr. Brent Jesiek, Purdue University

The need for Global Programs within Engineering ❖ “It is imperative that all engineering students develop the skills and attitudes necessary to interact successfully with people from other cultures and national environment.” [1] ❖ “[E]ngineering is now practiced in a global holistic business context, and engineers must design under constraints that reflect that context. In the future, understanding other languages, and communication with other people from marketing and finance will be just as fundamental to the practice of engineering as physics and calculus. ~William Wulf, NAE, 2004 ❖ Engineering students must attain: “the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental and societal context.” ~ABET criterion 3.h

Existing programs and Pathways ❖ Sending students abroad: In the United States, it is now estimated that 7.5% of engineering students spend time abroad during their undergraduate studies [2] ❖ Schools are having more culturally focused courses aimed at engineers. Examples include: ❖ Virgina Tech’s Engineering Cultures Course ❖ John Brown’s integration of global issues in freshman engineering course ❖ Purdue’s Mechanical Engineering School GEARE program. The program collaborates with Universities in Germany, China, India and Mexico. Students study, intern abroad and work on team projects with students at partner schools

Learned Skill Sets ❖ Question for Audience: ❖ Within these pathways, what are specific desired outcomes? ❖ How do we assess these outcomes?

One answer: Intercultural Sensitivity ❖ To have students develop intercultural sensitivity from their experience. ❖ One method to test this is the intercultural development inventory (IDI) which is based on the Bennett’s Development model of intercultural Sensitivities (DMIS)

Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivities ❖ A person goes from 6 world views, from denial to adaptation ❖ Denial and Defense Reversal- A person thinks that one culture is better than another. ❖ Minimization - A person thinks that people are the same everywhere, ❖ Acceptance and Adaptations- A person understands cultural differences and can adapt accordingly.

Assessment Measurement: Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) ❖ 50 questions ❖ Determines actual individual Intercultural Sensitivity according to the DMIS ❖ Determines the perceived level of the student on their own sensitivity.

Literature of Schools using IDI ❖ John Brown University [3] ❖ Prof. Bland teaches a freshman engineering course and gave IDI his students to get a sense of intercultural sensitivity level of their. ❖ Bland found there was a large gap between perceived sensitivity and actual sensitivity ❖ Georgia Tech [4] ❖ Collected IDI data from 3,781 students to examine any disparities among different demographics [3] ❖ They found that inter cultural sensitivity was notably higher among women as compared to men. And it was higher among men that choose to study within their international plan, (IP) compared to their non- ID sub-group. ❖ Georgetown [5] ❖ Looked at 1,300 students in 61 different programs to see what aspects of the program helped develop students sensitivity ❖ The project found that women had a higher sensitivity compared to their male counter part, students who had stayed with a host family or cultural

Purdue ❖ Participants: 527 mechanical engineering students, 27 were not complete, leaving a total n= 500 ❖ Demographic information was collected for n=138 respondents ❖ Semesters included Spring 2007 (n=80), Fall 2007 (n=138), Fall 2008 (n=140), GEARE Spring 2008 (n=13) (pre-experience), Spring 2009 (n=129).

Results/ Findings ❖ Average actual sensitivities within the largest collection groups have remain consistent and stable for each class. ❖ GEARE students have had higher levels of sensitivities. Similar findings to Georgia Institute of Technology’s study. [4] However, since our data size is small, this finding is not statistically significant. ❖ Female respondents have statistically significant higher sensitivity scores as compared to their male counterparts. Similar to other other research conducted [4,5,6] ❖ Large gap between perceived and actual sensitivities levels. This is similar to Bland findings. [3] This gap is larger than compared to other majors. [7].

Results ❖ Student that participate in GEARE test have higher intercultural development scores than compared to non-GEARE students. Not statistically Significant due to population size. ❖ Female students typically test higher in development. Statistically Significant. ❖ There is little disparity between students who have lived abroad for more than a year and those who did not. However, our population size is small. Not statistically Significant.

Conclusions ❖ Global programs are expanding, and more pathways to become globally competent are emerging. ❖ Documenting baseline data on intercultural sensitivities gives us the starting place and insight into the design and evaluation of these programs. ❖ The similarities between our findings and Georgia Tech’s show that there are commonalities between engineering schools

Opportunities and Limitations ❖ Opportunities ❖ Pre/post and Longitudinal studies ❖ Report Movements ❖ Limitations ❖ Cost ❖ Trained evaluators ❖ Not context specific

Future work ❖ Post test for students involved in GEARE ❖ Compare pre and post experiences ❖ Testing other assessment instruments ❖ Intercultural sensitivity instruments such as MGUDS-S [8] ❖ Open-ended scenario based to allow for more context within the examples

References ❖ [1] Grandin, J. M., and Hileman. E. D. Educating Engineers as Global Citizens: A Call for Action/ A Report of the National Summit Meeting on the Globalization of Engineering Education. Online Journal of Global Engineering Education (1): ❖ [2] Parkinson, A. Engineerign Study Abroad Programs: Formats, Challenges, Best Practices. Online Journal of Engineering Education (2):1-15 ❖ [3] Bland, L. Incorporating Global Issues into Freshman Engineering Course. Paper Presented at ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 24-27, Honolulu, HI. ❖ [4] Lohmann, J., Gordon, J., Harwell, K., McLaughlin, S., and Paraska, S. Annual Impact Report of the Quality Enhancement Plan on Student Learning: Strengthening the Global Competence and Research Experiences of Undergraduate Students. Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Institute of Technology. Available at %20FINAL%20WEB.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2010). ❖ [5] Vande Berg, M. Intervening in in Student Learning Abroad: A Research-Based Inquiry. Available at (Accessed January 8, 2010). ❖ [6] Hammer, M., Bennett, M., and Wiseman, R. Measuring Intercultural Sensitivity: The Intercultural Development Inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, (4): ❖ [7] Patterson, P. Effect of Study Abroad on Intercultural Sensitivitiey Doctoral Dissertation Columbia, MO: University of Missouri. Available at D5552/research.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2010). ❖ [8]