Cross-cultural Encounters and Foreign Language Learning, Assessment and Reflection: Using Digital Storytelling as an Assessment and Reflective Tool

Abstract

Reflection and assessment are two key issues facing intercultural competence educators and administrators alike. A digital story provides a qualitative data point to triangulate against the quantitative measures like the Intercultural Development Inventory. This triangulation is done in an effort to provide a more robust assessment of cross-cultural competence. In this research, a person's IDI score and their position on the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity are used to help understand how a person reflects on a cross cultural encounter as seen through a digital story. The points of emphasis, the quality of the reflection and the explanation of the event are strongly filtered through an individual's position on the DMIS. By linking the IDI and the digital story together, both a powerful reflection of the experience happens as well as a robust piece of programmatic assessment for a deliberate, educationally focused cross-cultural encounter.