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THE CULTURAL ASSIMILATOR IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS: A COMPARISON OF CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING TECHNIQUES
Abstract
The study asserts that American higher education provides a particularly important arena for cross-cultural interaction. Recognition of the challenges of cross-cultural communication between faculty and ever-increasing numbers of foreign students prompted this investigation of ways to ease communication tensions. Little cultural training--a constructive approach to easing tensions--has been undertaken on campuses. Of the array of training techniques available, the culture assimilator seemed promising because of its self-study format and its use of critical incidents, a blending of information and experience. The present study undertook to discover whether the Arab Culture Assimilator, more so than conventional techniques (slides, tapes, student panels, discussion), would result in (1) more accurate attribution of causes of culturally-different behavior; (2) more effective transference of general cultural principles to an educational setting; and (3) greater perceived comfort in interactions with Arab and Iranian students. Workshops were conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with volunteer participants randomly assigned to two groups and two treatments randomly assigned to the groups. One group completed the Arab Culture Assimilator while the other group was exposed to conventional training methods. An evaluation instrument developed for this study was administered to test effects immediately following training and after three weeks. The data were submitted to a 2 x 2 ANOVA analysis. The statistical outcomes should be viewed within the context of the use of an instrument to collect data which had serious validity and reliability limitations. There was, however, support for hypothesis 3 that assimilator subjects express greater perceived comfort in interactions with Arab and Iranian students. Hypotheses 1 and 2 were not confirmed; however, there was a significant difference between treatments in accuracy of attribution of causes of culturally-different behavior in the direction of conventional cultural training. Specific suggestions for improving the validity and reliability of the instrument are included.
Subject Area
Communication
Recommended Citation
BECKER, LINDA L, "THE CULTURAL ASSIMILATOR IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS: A COMPARISON OF CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING TECHNIQUES" (1982). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8217513.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8217513