published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Institutions of higher education in the United States are becoming more and more diverse and nationwide efforts to provide educational access and equity to underrepresented groups of people will only help to increase that diversity. Increased diversity combined with the need for institutions to produce graduates who are capable of living and working in a global society, has created the need for students to possess a set of cognitive and behavioral skills to aide in successful intercultural interactions. Using the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity and the theory of Cultural Intelligence as frameworks, this research attempts to assess the effect of domestic experiences on intercultural competency and cultural intelligence of first year students at the University of the Pacific. Interview participants were chosen from a sample of eighty-seven students who took the Intercultural Development Inventory and were selected for displaying a great deal or lacked of intercultural sensitivity and cultural intelligence. From these interviews, key lines of thought and experiences were determined to have had positive or negative influences on competency. These results are presented in the form of biographical sketches and supplemented with a discussion of the skills essential to developing greater competency in intercultural sensitivity and cultural intelligence through the curriculum and co-curricular involvements.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Technology Degree: Public Relations Management, Department of Marketing, Retail and Public Relations, Faculty of Management Sciences, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / This study presents the research of an investigation into the intercultural communication barriers between Zulu and Chinese students at selected Higher Education Institutions in Durban. To achieve this aim, two sets of questionnaires were administered separately to Zulu and Chinese students at two HEIs in Durban and an observation report was compiled. This study reviewed theories and literature relevant to defining and understanding the barriers to intercultural communication. The insights gained from this literature review were used to interpret the results which were obtained through a quantitative and qualitative research methodology. The findings revealed that intercultural communication barriers do exist between Zulu and Chinese students. Findings also found that language problems amongst Zulu and Chinese students are viewed as common barriers, especially where the communicators speak different languages. Comments from respondents revealed that a communicators‟ accent, different grammar structure and the words they use are confusing during their intercultural communication experience. Cultural differences and language problems were found to be the main intercultural communication barriers. In addition, the problems of nonverbal communication, racism, ethnocentrism, cultural stereotyping were also viewed as obstacles of the intercultural communication process. / Durban University of Technology. Dept. of Postgraduate Development and Support.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how a group of Chinese business students understood the nature and the purpose of the instruction techniques they were exposed to in Britain, and the attitudes the students, Chinese lecturers in China and British lecturers in Britain held towards seminar discussions. The study also investigated how and to what extent students’ prior learning experiences predisposed them to certain attitudes towards seminar discussions. The student participants in this study undertook Part I of their degree programme at a Chinese university for two years before transferring to Britain to study for one year, graduating with a British Bachelors Degree in International Business. Data was gathered from classroom observations, follow-up and exploratory interviews, and a questionnaire survey to discover more about the students’ learning experiences in Part I in China, and from classroom observations, audio-recordings, and follow-up and exploratory interviews to investigate the same group of students’ learning experiences in Part II in Britain. A ranking task and interviews were used to identify the preferences of Chinese students, British lecturers, and Chinese lecturers from China in terms of specific group discussion methods. The study identified three discussion methods used by students in British seminars: these have been termed ‘spiral’, ‘exploratory’ and ‘individual’ methods. The Chinese students tended to use the ‘spiral’ method, repeatedly bringing the discussion back to the question provided by the seminar tutor, whereas the non-Chinese students tended to use the ‘exploratory’ method, reformulating each other’s opinions and building on them by bringing in new information. When discussing within Chinese-only groups, the Chinese students used the ‘individual’ method whereby a group leader took responsibility for the outcomes of the discussion and the other members did not build upon each other’s contributions. Chinese and non-Chinese students sometimes misunderstood each others’ intentions, but were not likely to notice that miscommunication had occurred. The ranking task and the follow-up interviews revealed that the British lecturers preferred the ‘exploratory’ discussion method, whereas Chinese lecturers from China and Chinese students preferred the ‘spiral’ method. The British lecturers were found to adopt a constructivist approach to group discussion tasks, seeing them as a means by which students could obtain professional experience. They treated Business and Management knowledge as divergent and ‘soft’. Chinese lecturers and students, on the other hand, were found to perceive group discussion as a kind of assessment and were keen to find ‘correct’ answers to case study problems, treating Business and Management as convergent and hard disciplines which offered judgements on good practice. The Chinese lecturers in Part I of the programme organised group discussion so that students could exchange answers and check their accuracy, and, perhaps because of this, in Part I the students learnt in an exam-oriented way, strategically dividing up their tasks and working individually on their own task portions in order to find an acceptable answer as quickly as possible. These students were found to continue to employ these strategies during group work after they had transferred to the British component of their degree programme. The study has made a theoretical contribution to knowledge concerning the cultural influences on students’ classroom interactional practices. The findings from the study have implications for the teaching of intercultural business communication, and the enhancement of students’ learning experiences in international business programmes, in business English programmes in China, and whilst learning within groups.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Technology Degree: Public Relations Management, Department of Marketing, Retail and Public Relations, Faculty of Management Sciences, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / This study presents the research of an investigation into the intercultural communication barriers between Zulu and Chinese students at selected Higher Education Institutions in Durban. To achieve this aim, two sets of questionnaires were administered separately to Zulu and Chinese students at two HEIs in Durban and an observation report was compiled. This study reviewed theories and literature relevant to defining and understanding the barriers to intercultural communication. The insights gained from this literature review were used to interpret the results which were obtained through a quantitative and qualitative research methodology. The findings revealed that intercultural communication barriers do exist between Zulu and Chinese students. Findings also found that language problems amongst Zulu and Chinese students are viewed as common barriers, especially where the communicators speak different languages. Comments from respondents revealed that a communicators‟ accent, different grammar structure and the words they use are confusing during their intercultural communication experience. Cultural differences and language problems were found to be the main intercultural communication barriers. In addition, the problems of nonverbal communication, racism, ethnocentrism, cultural stereotyping were also viewed as obstacles of the intercultural communication process.

This research study aims to investigate the exchange students' experiences with living in a foreign environment. Twenty students took part in this study and were made up of two categories namely study abroad students and student interns. The twenty students who took part in this study were mostly from industrialized countries namely Germany, the United States of America, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. Data were collected by means of individual semi-structured interviews as well as observational methods namely participant and simple observations. The results indicate that if sojourners are to gain a better understanding the South African culture, it is important that they interact with the host nationals. Given that most of the students highlighted the issue of crime as their main concern, their knowledge on how to survive in a crime-ridden country like South Africa would be essential.