Approbation of the Scale of Attitudes towards Intercultural Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

The ability to cope with the challenges of cultural diversity is one of the key competencies that students need to develop in the contemporary world. This actualizes the question of intercultural learning and students' attitudes towards it. The study aimed at development and validation of the instrument to measure students’ attitudes towards intercultural learning. Taking into account the “sources” and processes of intercultural learning available to students, as well as the structure of the attitude, an instrument consisting of four scales were created - each of them includes three aspects of the attitudes: cognitive, affective and behavioral ones. The reliability and validity of each of the instrument were confirmed on a sample of 399 students of Russian universities using statistical procedures such as exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of the consistency of the scales according to Cronbach's alpha and McDonald’s omega, analysis of extracted mean variance and heterotrait-monotrait ratio. It seems promising to consider various aspects of intercultural learning in further research, adapting and using the scales not only in the higher education system, but also in other contexts and age groups.

Keywords

• intercultural learning
• social attitudes
• scale validation
• university
• students