Increasing intercultural competence in undergraduate education: Study abroad is a viable way, but not the only way

Undergraduate students (N = 1,261) at a Midwest, public doctoral institution completed intercultural competence (ICC) measures before/after study abroad or an on-campus global course (G-Course). We hypothesized that students in study abroad versus on-campus global courses would differ in ICC both before/after their global experience. We predicted that students would increase in ICC after study abroad or a G-course (compared to their own pre-scores). We hypothesized that students who did not intend to study abroad would be lower in ICC than those who intended to study abroad, who would be lower than study abroad students. Lastly, we predicted that students who engaged more often in globally related extracurricular and co-curricular activities would report higher ICC. The data fully or partially supported each hypothesis: highlighting myriad factors impacting university students’ ICC scores both at home and abroad and revealing important differences between students who choose to study abroad and those who do not. Study abroad does appear to change some but not all aspects of ICC. A student self-selection bias might make ICC changes more difficult to document after study abroad programs. Moreover, on-campus activities are also related to ICC development for university students. When institutions of higher education are seeking to help develop ICC in their students, study abroad is not the only effective approach and should therefore be
considered one important campus internationalization tool among many.