Impact Of Studying Abroad In China On Internaional Students’ Intercultural Competence

In recent years,the internationalization of education has continued to deepen,and the number of students studying abroad in China has grown continuously.China has become the third largest study abroad destination in the world.International students need to command intercultural competence to meet their needs of intercultural life and study.However,whether the intercultural competence of international students can develop in the natural context of studying in China,and what factors affect the development of their intercultural competence are questions that deserve further clarification in the context of internationalization of Chinese higher education.In this study,100 international students(100 students involved in the questionnaires,of which 10 students participated in the in-depth interviews)were selected from a Chinese institution admitting international students under Chinese government scholarship programs,and quantitative and qualitative data were collected.Adopting Fantini’s(2006)“Assessment of Intercultural Competence” and conducting follow-up in-depth interviews to examine whether their intercultural competence developed or not over a certain period of time(four months)in the natural environment,and to further explore the perceived factors that facilitated or hindered the development of international students’ intercultural competence.Using SPSS 27.0 to conduct paired-samples t-test on the quantitative data collected from two questionnaires,the results demonstrated that international students improved in five aspects of intercultural competence,that was,knowledge,attitudes,skills,awareness,and overall level during four-month study in China,and their effect sizes revealed significant differences in each aspect.With the analysis of NVivo 12,the results of the qualitative interview data showed that diverse social networks and international interactions,learning and using Chinese language,participating in intercultural activities,personality traits,and previous experiences and intercultural adaptation were the five factors perceived by international students that influenced the development of their intercultural competence.This study enriches the literature on the development of intercultural competence in study abroad contexts.It enlightens university administrators and educators on how to develop intercultural competence among international students,and also provides a reference for domestic students planning to go abroad of how to improve their intercultural competence by benefiting from intercultural experiences and interactions on internationalized university campuses.