Development of cultural agility in high achieving emerging adults : the evaluation of a short-term study abroad experience

The purpose of this mixed methods study is to determine if there is a change in first year students’ cultural agility as a result of attending a short-term study abroad program as explored through the lens of Deardorff’s Intercultural Competence theoretical framework. The study focused on a quantitative analysis of the Cultural Agility Self-Assessment supported by a qualitative analysis of open-ended questions. This research evaluated the impact of short-term study abroad programs on student’s cultural agility, which includes the cross-cultural competencies of tolerance of ambiguity, perspective taking, cultural humility, resilience, relationship building, cultural curiosity and desire to learn. The results of this study showed that students who did not attend a short-term study abroad program had a statistically significant decrease in their cross-cultural competency of cultural humility. As the only significant finding of this study, this result implies that students who do not participate in short-term study abroad may have more challenges with accessing opportunities to seek advice as well as being open to feedback from those different from themselves or may be at a disadvantage of practicing intercultural interactions. The small sample size of the study (n=74) hindered the ability to further investigate the type of experience students had compared to their cultural agility crosscompetency scores; however, having a better understanding of how students were able to situate what they were learning, and the interactions they were having with host nationals could have provided more information about what type of interventions could be effective in helping students gain the most out of their experience.