Assessing cultural competence: a comparison of two measures and their utility in global learning experiences within healthcare education

Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between two measures of cultural competence (CC), one more widely used, the other designed for healthcare students. It was hypothesized that there would be strong correlations allowing educators to forgo one measure for the other based on utility, resources, and sustainability.Design Exploratory, cross sectional designSetting One US Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) academic program. Participants 145 DPT students.Main outcome measures Intercultural Development Inventory (R) (IDI) and Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competence -among healthcare professionals-Student Version (c) (IAPCC-SV). Results There were significant (negligible to low, rho = 0.16-0.28; p < 0.05) relationships between the IAPCC-SV total and three constructs with IDI Perceived Orientation scores, and the IAPCCSV total and two constructs with the IDI Developmental Orientation scores. There were significant (negligible to low, rho = 0.18-0.35; p < 0.05) relationships between IAPCC-SV total and construct scores with the IDI Acceptance and Adaptation orientation scores. Students with scores in an IDI DO of Acceptance or Adaptation were sig-nificantly more likely to have an IAPCC-SV score in the category of Culturally Competent (X2 = 3.70, p = 0.05).Conclusions The discordance of the two measures suggests that the instruments measure unrelated constructs (worldviews, attributes or skills) of cultural competence that are exclusive to each measure and context dependent. Context specific measures may not be generalized to a greater worldview, and visa versa. Multimodal assessment that triangulates data and supports student learning outcomes may be the most effective strategy to capture the impact of curriculum and/or a global learning experience on students' development of cultural competence.

Automated summary

This study investigated the relationship between two measures of cultural competence, one commonly used and the other designed for healthcare students. The results showed a significant correlation between the two measures, suggesting educators can choose one measure over the other based on utility, resources, and sustainability.