Measuring Intercultural Competence in Teachers: Development and Evaluation of Situational Judgment Test

Abstract

The article describes the development and testing of the SJT-ICC situational judgment test designed to measure intercultural competence of a teacher in the form of behavioral preferences in the professional field of interaction with students and their parents. This approach makes it possible to assess behavioral aspects of intercultural competence in a particular professional area more effectively than survey methods. The SJT-ICC consists of 18 cases from pedagogical practice and four possible behavioral options for the teachers, from which the subject must choose the most appropriate one. These situations were prepared on the basis of qualitative research in the format of in-depth interviews centered around difficult, critical situations that a teacher encounters when working with children and parents from other cultures (n=53). The assessment of the intercultural competence of the answer options was made on the basis of an expert survey of 23 specialists. 1367 teachers took part in the research to validate and check the consistency of the SJT-ICC. The outcome of the categorical principal component analysis (CatPCA) was a one-scale structure of the SJT-ICC which was confirmed by the confirmatory factor analysis. The relationship between the results of the SJT-ICC and the scales used for validation is predictable: intercultural competence is associated with indicators of professional success of a teacher working with students of other cultures. It is concluded that the SJT-ICC can be effectively used to assess the prerequisites for intercultural success among Russian teachers.