How Aspects of Cultural Competency Are Related to the Use of Social Media

How Aspects of Cultural Competency Are Related to the Use of Social Media: A Quantitative Study

Who Can Benefit?

Many college faculty members are amazed at the time students spend on social media.  Faculty must consider if the integration of social media into the curriculum is beneficial to learning.  Higher education faculty can benefit from this session that investigates if graduate student cultural competency is enhanced by social media. Target audience for this session is higher education faculty, but particular interest is for teachers at interdisciplinary cultural centers.  Presenter will engage the audience with interactive question and answers and audience contributions.  Information resides on PowerPoint slides during the presentation and on the conference web site.

Problem Statement

The problem underlying the current study is that the relationship between cultural sensitivity aspects and how U.S. graduate students use social media is unclear (Howard, 2013; Tess, 2013). Students learn by using social media given their cultural inclinations and backgrounds. Within social media are various cultural aspects that affect student attitude and learning (Cao, Ajjan, & Hong, 2013). Further investigation is needed for a standardization of how students can foster cultural sensitivity to improve student learning (Okoro, Odeina, & Smith, 2015).

Purpose

The purpose of the current study was to identify whether differences in discipline of study, geographical region of origin, number of social media sites used, and frequency of social media site use resulted in strengthened cultural competency.  The definition of strengthened cultural competency was receiving higher scores on the five self-reported factors of cultural competency including interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction confidence, interaction enjoyment, and interaction attentiveness, as measured by using the Chen and Starosta’s (2000) Intercultural Sensitivity Scale.  

Research Questions

The overall research question was, “What is the relationship, if any, between U.S. graduate students’ use of social media sites and their cultural sensitivity aspects?”  Subsidiary research questions were used to describe how specific characteristics of graduate students, including academic discipline of study, regions of geographical origin, and social media use, were related to the values of the five sub scales of cultural competency.

Discipline of Study

1. To what extent does the self-reported discipline of study of graduate students change the mean rank score of the five sub scales of cultural competency?

Region of Geographical Origin

2. To what extent does the self-reported discipline of study of graduate students change the mean rank score of the five sub scales of cultural competency?

Number of Social Media Sites Used

3. To what extent is there any statistically significant correlation between the number of self-reported social media sites used and each of the five sub scales of cultural competency?

Frequency of Use of Social Media Sites

4. To what extent does the self-reported frequencies of use of social media sites change the mean rank score of the five sub scales of cultural competency?

Method and Design 

A quantitative, non-experimental research design (Horn, Snyder, Coverdale, Louie, & Roberts, 2009) was applied in a population of masters, doctoral, and professional graduate students in universities anywhere in the world.  Purposive convenience sampling and snowball sampling were applied. A purposive convenience sample was obtained of masters, doctoral, and professional graduate student participants from the 120 largest degree-granting universities in the United States who responded to invitations placed on public group graduate student association Facebook pages. A snowball sample was obtained of students known to the researchers or to professional acquaintances of the researchers.  Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied as a global test of overall group-dependent statistically-significant differences were observed in mean ranked scores for five cultural competency sub scales (interval outcome variables) among different groups of the categorical predictor variables (discipline of study, geographical region, and frequency of social media site use). Spearman’s nonparametric correlation coefficient was applied to describe the correlation between number of social media sites used (interval predictor variable) and mean ranked scores for five cultural competency sub scales (interval outcome variables) among different groups. Predictor variables were discipline of study, geographical region of origin, number of social media sites used, and frequency of social media site use.  The Likert scale sums for each of the five sub scales of cultural competency were the outcome variables.

Results

Thirty-six participants responded to the questionnaire invitation, signed the Informed Consent, answered all questions, and submitted their answers.  The sample size is appropriate for asymptotic approximation of the values of the statistics (Gay, 1987).  Frequency distributions and histograms of the data were produced.  A nonparametric test was appropriate for academic discipline of study, geographical region of origin, frequency of social media use, and the five sub scales of cultural competency because there was heterogeneity of variance and marked skewness in these variables. Skewness and kertosis were not present in the interval predictor variable, number of social media sites used.

By using Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA, there were no statistically-significant differences in mean ranks for any of the five sub scales of cultural competency between groups for discipline of study, geographical area of origin, and frequency of social media use.  The total number of social media sites used was statistically-significantly, positively correlated with interaction confidence sub score (Spearman correlation coefficient = .354, p = .034), interaction enjoyment sub score (Spearman correlation coefficient = .330, p = .05), and interaction effectiveness sub score (Spearman correlation coefficient = .393, p = .018). The total number of social media sites used was not statistically-significantly correlated with interaction engagement sub score and respect for cultural differences sub score.

Conclusions

Greater understanding is required of how social media can be used in education to change students’ learning to improve the cultural sensitivity of their attitudes (Cao, Ajjan, & Hong, 2013; Okoro, Odeina, & Smith, 2015). The results of the current study suggest that incorporating use of multiple social media sites into curriculum might improve students’ cultural competence by increasing the effectiveness of cultural interactions, by increasing their confidence in cultural interactions, and by increasing their enjoyment of cultural interactions.  Additional research is needed to determine if graduate student cultural competency might improve with use of multiple social media sites.

References

Cao, Y., Ajjan, H., & Hong, P. (2013). Using social media applications for educational outcomes in college teaching: A structural equation analysis. [Article]. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(4), 581-593. doi: 10.1111/bjet.12066

Chen, G., & Starosta, W. (2000). The development and validation of the intercultural sensitivity scale. Human Communication, 3(1-15).

Gay, L. R. (1987).  Educational research: Competencies for analysis and application.  New York:  Merrill.

Horn, C.P., Snyder, B.P., Coverdale, J. H., Louie, A.K., & Roberts, L.W. (2009). Educational research questions and study design. Academic Psychiatry, 33(3), 261-267.

Howard, J. (2013). Worried about message, colleges scrutinize social media, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Worried-About-Message/141773

Okoro, Odeina, F., & Smith, W. T. (2015). Determining the sufficiency of cultural competence instruction in pharmacy school curriculum. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 79 (4), pp. 1-9(4), 1-9. doi: 10.5688/ajpe79450

Tess, P. A. (2013). The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) – a literature review. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(5), A60-A68. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.032