The Intercultural Competence Assessment Of Chinese Overseas College Students:a Study Using The Delphi Technique

As people become “citizens of the world”, for the purpose of work, education, andbusiness, they are required to span boundaries of language, ethnicity and nationality(Turner,2006). Thus intercultural competence (IC) is particularly important for peopleto perform effectively and appropriately in another culture. Today, the flourishing ofstudy abroad programs offers students the opportunity to improve their academicperformance and gain intercultural experience. However, returning back to the owncountry with a high level of intercultural competence is not always the outcome ofstudents’ studying abroad experience. This phenomenon leads the author to the presentstudy which aims at assessing intercultural competence of Chinese overseas collegestudents by interviewing experts that have frequent contact with them.The Delphi technique was used in this study, in the form of three roundsinteractions with a panel of experts. The first two rounds are done by questionnairesurveys, and the final round is done with the interview. Two questionnaires weredesigned in this study based on the Multi-Dimensional Model of InterculturalCompetence developed by Byram (1997) and Fantini’s (2000) YOGA form. The firstquestionnaire is used to sort out the key factors that influence IC assessment. Thesecond questionnaire is adapted from the first questionnaire, and is used to analyze theweight of each key factor and examine key items under those key factors. And theninterviews with six experts who have considerable intercultural communicationexperience and who contact frequently with Chinese students are carried out on thebasis of the key factors, with the focus of intercultural competence of Chinese overseascollege students.It is found that the key factors of IC assessments consists factor awareness,attitude, skills, knowledge of one’s own country (knowledgⅠe) and knowledge of English-speaking countries (knowledgⅡe). Resul ts of the interviews sug gest thatChinese overseas college students exhibit positive attitude to intercultural interactions,but their contacts with people from diverse cultures, their intercultural communicationskills and their knowledge about the other culture are limited.