Attitudes towards the practice of interculturality: An instrument for its measurement

I. Introduction

The Horizon of Nicaraguan Higher Education is based on an educational model that is committed to learning focused on the person, family, and community, taking as a reference that university education must be inclusive, intercultural, innovative, creative, and flexible with the objective of strengthening students’ creative and purposeful thinking to learn to be people and not human capital (Consejo Nacional de Universidades [CNU], 2022, p. 23). For this reason, the study of attitudes toward the practice of interculturalism is fundamental because interculturality allows the establishment of horizontal dialogues through the recognition of the differences of others to create fairer societies (Rossmann-Hooker, 2019).

In the literature some studies try to identify attitudes toward intercultural education; attitudes toward cultural diversity; beliefs about interculturality and intercultural competence. For example, Llorent and Álamo (2016) say that the evaluation of attitudes, beliefs, emotions, intentions and behavior toward cultural diversity is valuable information for the planning and implementation of teaching processes by teachers, as well as, the social interactions to generate in the formation of learning in the student body, who will need intercultural competence throughout their academic and working life (Ricardo-Barreto & Medina-Rivilla, 2013;Peñalva-Velez & López- Goñi, 2014;Figuera et al., 2021).

In accordance with the above, the purpose of this research is to design an instrument to measure attitudes towards the practice of interculturality in the context of higher education. For this, an initial questionnaire consisting of 37 items that try to characterize the affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of the practice of interculturality is applied. The study was carried out based on expert judgment, discrimination analysis, and reliability analysis. This will help to deepen the identification and study of attitudes toward the practice of interculturality.

II. Literature

In intercultural higher education, the concept of attitude has been used, such as respect for cultural diversity and expansion of knowledge about the customs and beliefs of others (Aguado-Díaz et al., 2008). This means the development of intercultural attitudes, ranging from tolerance and empathy to the elimination of prejudices and stereotypes, and the improvement of personal and cultural self-concept (Yus-Ramos, 1993;Sáez, 2006). These conceptions highlight the cognitive and belief elements, their affective and evaluative load, as well as the intention and behavior related to these attitudes (Flores-López & Auzmendi, 2015).

Among the existing instruments to measure attitudes toward the practice of interculturality, Rojas-Tejada et al. (2003) propose an Inter-ethnic Endogroup Bias Test to measure acculturation, group identification, and perceived cultural enrichment, allowing its members to define their belonging to the group and their differences with the rest, through the assessment of different elements inherent to ethnic groups. While Merino-Mata and Ruíz-Román (2005) evaluate attitudes towards intercultural education through dimensions related to cultural knowledge, attention to diversity, and educational values, recognizing the reality of the multiculturalism of the student body and the need to be able to face the social conflicts in the classroom.

Rodríguez-Izquierdo (2006) develops the scale of attitudes to study intercultural education and cultural diversity with student teachers, delving into values for the recognition of a multicultural and multilingual society based on the coexistence and cultural sensitivity of the students. Likewise, Solórzano-Salas (2013) affirms that it is necessary to measure sensitivity to cultural diversity based on existing human differences in personal, cultural, and cognitive aspects. However, Llorent and Álamo (2016) evaluate attitudes, beliefs, emotions, intentions, and behaviors based on their positive presence and their negative absence in university students, highlighting that attitudes toward cultural diversity are valuable information for planning and implementation of teaching and learning processes by teachers.

For their part, Carrera-Fernández et al. (2018) analyze the joint influence of sexism, homophobia, and moral disengagement on attitudes towards cultural diversity in students between the ages of 14 and 19, highlighting the implications for an intercultural and queer educational practice (p. 17) through a critical and liberating pedagogy aimed at the socio-emotional development of the student body and training in values of justice and social commitment. On the other hand, Rodríguez-Izquierdo (2016) analyzes the beliefs that university students have about the notion of interculturality and about how educational practices in multicultural contexts should be approached, concluding that students identify interculturality with immigration, which in turn sometimes associated with problems or deficits, especially linguistic and communication.

The contribution of Ricardo-Barreto and Medina-Rivilla (2013) to analyze the attitudes and beliefs of the intercultural competence of teachers who teach through virtuality, contributes to the recognition of education with an intercultural approach through the dimensions of awareness and cultural values; cultural perspective; culturally appropriate educational strategies that teachers assume in their educational practice. In turn, the scale of citizen and intercultural competencies of Peñalva-Velez and López-Goñi (2014) contributes to the “formation of critical, communicative and social competence, but it does not ensure that citizen competence for conflict resolution is developed, that seems to demand specific training” (p. 149). Finally, Figuera et al. (2021) evaluate intercultural competencies based on the perceptions of university students, concluding that the measurement instrument is a useful tool to promote social cohesion and develop inclusive education in students.

Based on the review of the literature, the comprehensive analysis of Table 1 suggests the redistribution of the scales in three main aspects: attitudes towards intercultural education; attitudes towards cultural diversity; beliefs about interculturality and intercultural competence.

Table 1. Instruments to assess attitudes toward cultural diversity, beliefs, competence, and intercultural education

The theoretical model proposed for the present study is based on this categorization and has a three-dimensional and non-hierarchical approach. The three related first-order latent factors have the following definitions: affective, manifested through emotions and feelings of acceptance or rejection that the subject activates motivationally in the presence of the object, person, or situation that generates said attitude (Flores-López & Auzmendi, 2018); cognitive, it is manifested or expressed through perceptions, ideas, opinions, conceptions and beliefs from which the subject is placed in favor or against the expected behavior (Auzmendi, 1992); and behavioral or attitudinal constitutes the observable conduct, properly speaking, which according to Postic and De Ketele (1992), is conceived as a set of behaviors. In short, attitudes are not only beliefs about a certain object accompanied by affection regarding it, but dispositions to react to a stimulus (Flores-Auzmendi, 2018, p. 234).

III. Investigation methodology

3.1 Design

This research is instrumental in nature because it responds to problems aimed at demonstrating the psychometric properties of measurement instruments (Montero & León, 2007). According to Hernandez et al. (2014), the quality of a measurement instrument must have two essential requirements: validity and reliability (See Figure 1). The first is the degree to which an instrument actually measures the variable that it seeks to measure, and the second is the degree to which it produces consistent and coherent results (Llovera-López et al., 2022).

Figure 1. Methodological sequence for the validity and reliability of instruments

3.2 Participants

An expert judgment was carried out to review the conceptual, methodological, and organizational structure of the measurement instrument. The content validation criteria used are (Soriano-Rodríguez, 2014): clarity in writing, internal coherence; bias (induction to responses); wording appropriate to the study population; responses may be oriented to social desirability; contributes to research objectives; contributes to measure the construct under study; and observation of each item (consider whether it should be eliminated, modified).

Also, a discrimination analysis, exploratory factorial analysis, and reliability analysis of the attitude scale toward the practice of interculturalism were carried out from a pilot study with 76 students (M=43; H=33) from the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast – Bluefields University Campus, from the peoples: 13% indigenous Miskitus, 7% Ulwa indigenous, 14% Creole and 66% mestizo with ages ranging from 16 to 36 years. It is important to mention that the type of sampling that we have used has been non-probabilistic causal or accidental sampling is the one in which the researcher directly and intentionally selects the sample, mainly because he/she has easy access to it and representativeness of the population (Gil et al.,1995;Albert, 2006;Sabariego, 2004).

3.3 Instrument

A systematic review of items that contribute to the construct of attitudes toward intercultural practice in the affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions was carried out (See Table 2).

Table 2. Dimensions and items of the scale (Final Version)

IV. Results

4.1 Expert judgment

It was submitted to a review by five experts who analyzed the relevance and quality and clarified the wording of each item and the relevance of categories. Then, it was found that “there is clarity and precision in the wording of the items” (Judgment-Expert, 2022), because the items have a logical, precise, concise, and fluid order (Delgado, 2016) in addition, the language used responds to the contextual and experiential processes of the participants with “internal coherence between the items” (Judgment-Expert, 2022). On the other hand, regarding the criteria linked to the biases (induction to the answer) in the wording of the items, the experts will consider eliminating and modifying the items associated with the affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions towards the practice of intercultural education (See Table 3).

Table 3. Bias in the wording of the items

It is necessary to mention that it was found that the wording is ambiguous, the participants interpreted the initial intention differently, therefore, their answer is not admitted (Judgment-Expert, 2022). In addition, bias, as a complex or long question, is assumed that the respondent has the necessary preparation, time, and patience to adequately analyze and answer long or complex questions, which is not necessarily true (Choi et al., 2010) ... In this sense, recommendations are oriented according to Table 4.

Table 4. Assessment criteria, an instrument through the Expert´s judgment methodology

It is necessary to mention that it was found that the wording is ambiguous, the participants interpreted the initial intention differently, therefore, their answer is not admitted (Judgment-Expert, 2022). In addition, bias, as a complex or long question, is assumed that the respondent has the necessary preparation, time, and patience to adequately analyze and answer long or complex questions, which is not necessarily true (Choi et al., 2010) ... In this sense, recommendations are oriented according to Table 4.

4.2 Discrimination analysis

The discrimination analysis was obtained through the coefficient of correlation between the item under study and the total score (Flores-López & Auzmendi, 2015). In this sense, it was found that the values of the discrimination index oscillate between 0.31 and 0.79. In this sense, it was found that the values of the discrimination index oscillate between 0.31 and 0.79. In other words, 80% of the total items discriminate very well, since they obtained scores between 0.40 and 0.79, while the remaining 20% discriminate well because they have scores ranging from 0.31 to 0.39. It can also be seen that the average scores between the items are in a range of 3.70 to 4.70, with item 5 showing the lowest score and item 4.70 being the highest score. While the standard deviation between the items has a frequency from 0.92 to 1.40, with item 20 having the lowest deviation and item 22 having the highest deviation (See Table 5).

Table 5. Discrimination analysis of the attitude scale toward the practice of interculturality

4.3 Exploratory Factorial Analysis

An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out to find underlying patterns and relationships, that is, to identify the structure of the dimensions of the attitude scale toward the practice of interculturality that explain the variability in the observed data. It is based on the fact that the correlations between the dimensions of the attitude scale towards the practice of interculturality are positive among themselves, ranging between 0.505 and 0.731, with a greater relationship between the cognitive and behavioral dimensions (See Table 6).

Table 6. Correlations between the dimensions of the attitude scale toward the practice of interculturality

Correlations are significant at the 0.000 level (bilateral).

Figure 2. Correlations between the dimensions of the attitude scale towards the practice of interculturality

In addition, this relationship between the dimensions of the attitude scale toward the practice of interculturality is confirmed in Figure 2.

Based on the above, the Kaiser - Meyer - Oklin test was carried out, which yielded a score of 0.818. For its part, the sphericity test offered results indicating that the analysis was pertinent (Chi-square=1242.718; gl=300; Sig.<0.000), the determinant of the correlation matrix was calculated, whose value was practically 0 (D=6.338E-9). The factorial structure found coincides absolutely with the one proposed theoretically, consisting of three factorial dimensions; the affective dimension which explains 52.55% of the variance, is composed of 5 items; the cognitive dimension which describes 64.47% of the variance, is made up of 7 items; and finally, the behavioral dimension represents 75.46% of the variance and is made up of 13 items.

4.4 Reliability Analysis

Reliability is the stability of the observed scores, in the sense of providing a numerical value that indicates the degree of confidence that can be placed in said scores as estimators of the true scores of the subjects (Flores-López & Auzmendi, 2015). Likewise, it is the property of the scores of a questionnaire or a scale for a specific group of people belonging to a specific sample (Fan & Thompson, 2001). (See table 7)

Table 7. Reliability analysis of the attitude scale toward the practice of interculturality.

The results of the analysis of reliability show that the internal consistency for the 25 items reached a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.93: McDonald’s coefficient of 0.93 and Guttman’s coefficient of 0.95. It is important to mention that the behavioral or attitudinal dimension has high reliability (α=0.95; ω=0.95; λ2=0.96), concerning the cognitive dimension (α=0.83; ω=0.84; λ2=0.86) and the affective dimension (α=0.80; ω=0.81; λ2=0.80).

V. Discussion and Conclusions

In this research, an instrument has been designed to measure attitudes toward the practice of interculturality, based on the fact that an attitude is the point of view or disposition of an individual toward a particular object (Gall et al., 1996, p. 273), also, is a psychological tendency that is evaluated with a certain degree of favorable or unfavorable (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993, p. 1). Then, the particular object is the practice of interculturality, defined as the relationships and interactions that occur and are established between people of different cultures (Elboj-Saso et al., 2017), based on the construction of trust with the intention of establishing horizontal dialogues, recognizing the differences of others with the aim of creating fairer societies (Rosmann-Hooker, 2019). Based on the above, a review of the literature was carried out, a content validation (expert judgment); and a reliability analysis (discrimination index; exploratory factor analysis; and an internal consistency analysis).

Thus, it is concluded that the findings support the definition of an instrument with three-dimensional factors (affective, cognitive, and behavioral) consolidated in 25 items, coinciding with the definition of the dimensions by Llorent and Álamo (2016), which proposes factors associated with attitudes, emotions, behaviors, beliefs, and intentions, likewise, with the intercultural competence scale of Figuera et al. (2021) which raises dimensions linked to attitudes, identification and interest in a framework of intercultural competence, likewise, the proposed systems of beliefs and values on interculturality and its educational practice by Rodríguez-Izquierdo (2016); and the research developed by Ricardo-Barreto and Medina-Rivilla (2013) on attitudes and beliefs of intercultural competence that assess cultural awareness and values, cultural perspective, and culturally appropriate educational strategies.

Regarding the analysis of the discrimination index, it is concluded that most items discriminate very well because 80% obtained scores between 0.40 and 0.79. In addition, the results of the exploratory factor analysis explain that the correlations between the dimensions are statistically significant, ranging between 0.505 and 0.731, with a greater relationship between the cognitive and behavioral dimensions. Likewise, the results of the exploratory factor analysis test are excellent (KMO=0.818; Chi-square=1242.718; gl=300; Sig.<0.000; D=6.338E-9) and the factorial structure found coincides with the one proposed theoretically, made up of three factorial dimensions (affective, cognitive, and behavioral). In the case of high internal consistency (α=0.93; ω=0.93; λ2=95), these results coincide with the research by Llorent and Álamo (2016), who found high scores (α=0.93) in the construction of a scale of attitude towards cultural diversity.

It is concluded that having an attitude scale toward the practice of interculturality contributes to inquiring about the affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes which are manifested in the intercultural classroom, therefore, in students’ inter-learning. It is relevant to identify the affective, cognitive, and behavioral factors because they comprise a global gear against the design, planning and implementation of intercultural higher education, by teachers, as well as to develop the training processes to be generated in the student body (Flores-López & Auzmendi, 2018) who will continue to coexist and share interlearning and cultural actions throughout their lives. In short, it is recommended to move in advanced psychometric research with the measurement instrument to continue strengthening its factorial dimensions.

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Author notes

william.flores@uraccan.edu.ni