The Empirical Study On Intercultural Sensitivity Of Chinese Postgraduate Students

With the development of science and technology, the communication between different cultures has become more and more frequent, which helps one culture mixture with the merit of another culture. Under the background of globalization, socialization and interculturality, intercultural communication competence has become one of the major instructional goals required of English teaching and learning. Since Intercultural sensitivity as the affective aspect can significantly influence the effect of interaction, it has become an important research in the intercultural communication field.Accordingly, the present study aims to explore the intercultural sensitivity of postgraduate students from Dalian University of Technology to enrich the findings to the intercultural sensitivity empirical research. The study conducted on 152 participants of DUT based on the Chen and Starosta's (2000) development model of intercultural sensitivity. SPSS 17.0 is used to statistically analysis after data collecting. The results were carried out through conducting multiple regressions, ANOVA and MANOVA statistically methods.The findings showed that respondents of DUT in this research exhibit a middle level of intercultural sensitivity as measured by the ISS. There is high correlation between intercultural sensitivity and the five factors of intercultural sensitivity scale. Among the five factors, interaction engagement is the best predictor. The results of empirical research showed that English level do differ significantly on intercultural sensitivity and the five factors of intercultural sensitivity scale. Besides, the significant difference also exists in dimensions of interaction engagement and interaction confidence on the independent variables of faculty, intercultural course taking.Through conducting the empirical research into the ICS of Chinese postgraduate students, the findings suggest the implications which are significant for intercultural sensitivity improvement and foreign language teaching, such as teachers should combine language teaching with culture teaching, students should be positive to join in the intercultural programs. In a word, to make intercultural communication effectively, it is necessary to improve intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competence for both English learners and educators.