Focus group: a strategy to assess intercultural skills

Abstract

Nowadays, human talent demanded by the modern world needs to have a vision and the ability to interact with the environment and the global society. The pedagogical model of INSTITUTO TECNOLÓGICO METROPOLITANO (ITM) proposes to educate citizens for the contemporary society, not simply by responding to demands of the industry or government policies but by educating talents with different knowledge about STI (Science, Technology and Innovation). However, all of them have soft skills to formulate transforming proposals in international scenarios, which is a curricular innovation in higher education. In 2013, ITM started a project to strengthen the internationalization processes of four academic programs (one per faculty). That initiative revealed the need to assess the intercultural competences of the academic community. Due to its importance and projections, the Telecommunications Engineering program was the pilot. The adopted method was based on the Deming Cycle, and a Focal Group technique was applied. Such method is a valid instrument to collect qualitative information on perceptions—in this case, related to experiences, memories and perspectives—of intercultural competences from any academic unit at a higher education institution. The instrument was focused on three aspects: intercultural sensibility, interpersonal relationships and global vision. After the method was applied, the intercultural competences of the evaluated academic community were found to reach a good level of appropriation (76.7%), which was considered constant. For that reason, improvement actions should be planned and implemented in the instruments outlined in the program curriculum.

Keywords

• Internationalization of the curriculum
• intercultural competence
• intercultural sensitivity
• global vision
• interpersonal relationships