Resumen de Cross-cultural competence: a comparative assessment of engineering students
B.K. Jesick, Y. Shen, Y. Haller
As many recent reports and accreditation guidelines acknowledge, engineers are increasingly expected to work effectively acrosscountries and cultures. This trend has helped establish and legitimate a mandate for providing more engineering students witheducational experiences that enhance their global competency. However, there remain questions about what global competency means,and how it might develop and be assessed. This study addresses these themes by first arguing that cross-cultural competence is a keyfacet of global competency for engineers. It then presents an empirical study of US engineering students (n=147), using the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale—Short form (MGUDS-S) to determine their openness to and appreciation of cultural diversity.An analysis of the dataset reveals significantly higher levels of cross-cultural competence among three groups of students opting intoglobal engineering programs as compared to a baseline group of first-year students. Additionally, a pre/post-experience study focusedon one of the global groups (n=55) indicates that an immersive research experience abroad significantly enhanced the cross-culturalcompetence of participating students. Also reported are variations in results based on factors such as gender and prior experience livingabroad. The paper concludes by discussing some practical implications of our findings and opportunities for further research.
