The development and validation of the intercultural communicative competence evaluation instrument (ICCEI)

Abstract

English foreign language (EFL) teachers’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is crucial for effective culturally responsive language learning and learners’ development of ICC. Therefore, assessing EFL teachers’ ICC should be prioritized in foreign language education to ensure better educational outcomes. This paper describes the development and validation of a self-report instrument to assess EFL teachers’ ICC incorporating the dimension of critical cultural awareness, which has rarely been addressed in existing ICC assessment instruments. Data were collected from EFL teachers (N = 284) in public primary schools in Greece. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Varimax rotation identified three factors: (a) critical reflections on intercultural communicative language teaching, (b) intercultural sensitivity, and (c) critical cultural awareness. The three-factor model fitted the empirical data satisfactorily, possessing the following fit measure indices (NFI/GFI/ TLI/CFI > 0.90, RMSEA < 0.50), and very good overall reliability of the instrument, with Cronbach’s α of 0.924 and values higher than 0.86 in each dimension. Thus, the instrument possessed adequate validity, reliability, psychometric characteristics, andfactorial validity. The findings suggest that this scale, grounded in a robust theoretical framework, can effectively gauge the ICC of Greek EFL teachers, making it a powerful assessment tool for advancing educational evaluation in EFL education.

Keywords

• Intercultural EFL teaching
• intercultural communicative competence
• intercultural sensitivity
• instrument validation
• factor analysis
• Intercultural Communication