2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Developing an interculturally competent workforce has become a necessity. This is especially true in STEM disciplines, where students often need to work in diverse environments upon graduation. Studies have demonstrated that STEM students find it challenging to work with a diverse population. This is juxtaposed with the reality that over 50% of STEM employers prefer to hire interculturally competent graduates. As such, national agencies and higher education institutions have been urging STEM faculty to integrate intercultural competence into the curriculum. Through this study, we intend to showcase the integration of intercultural competence concepts in a first-year cybersecurity classroom. The pedagogical framework for the course is project-based learning. The Intercultural Knowledge and Competence (IKC) rubrics proposed by The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) were used to integrate the intercultural component into the course. We describe the pedagogical design of the course, training sessions, role of teaching assistants, online modules, and reflection activities that helped students to become cognizant of intercultural competence. The guiding research questions for our study are: i) How do first-year cyber security students self-identify in terms of intercultural competence? ii) What is the nature and strength of the relationships between different dimensions of intercultural competence as measured by the ASKS2 Scale among first-year cybersecurity students? iii) What are the perceptions of students regarding the intercultural concepts that they learned through this course? We used a multi-method research design to answer our research questions. To answer the first research question, we analyzed the quantitative data obtained from the Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge Short Scale (ASKS2) survey. The ASKS2 was used to assess the intercultural competence beliefs of the students. The survey data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results of the analysis showed that students demonstrated a high degree of openness (mean score above 5). For all other behaviors, namely curiosity, communication, empathy, knowledge of worldview, and cultural self-awareness, the mean scores of the students were between 4 and 5 on a 6-point Likert Scale. To answer our second research question we conducted correlation analysis as we wanted to understand the relationship between the six dimensions of the ASKS2 scale. To answer our third research question, we conducted a thematic analysis and the three broad themes that emerged were: i) learning about other cultures is crucial to bridge communication differences across cultures, ii) learning about other cultures helped to become mindful and care for people who are different from you, iii) learning and reflecting on cultural values and differences has helped me to learn teamwork skills. The results suggest that students recognized the importance and value of intercultural competence in their interaction with others from diverse backgrounds. In summary, integrating intercultural competence in STEM courses can help students develop cultural awareness as well as strategies to navigate the differences effectively.