Additional cross-cultural validity testing of the Intercultural Development Inventory

Intercultural competence/sensitivity is increasingly recognized across the global spectrum of educational institutions, corporations, government agencies and non-government organizations as a central capability for the 21st century. The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) is an assessment tool that measures the level of intercultural competence/sensitivity across a developmental continuum for individuals, groups, and organizations and represents a theoretically grounded measure of this capability for perceiving cultural differences and commonalities and modifying behavior to cultural context. This study represents additional cross-cultural validity testing of the IDI, building on the previous work of Paige, Jacobs-Cassuto, Yershova, and DeJaeghere (2003) and Hammer, Bennett, and Wiseman (2003). The 50 items from IDI v2 were administered to 4763 individuals from 11 distinct, cross-cultural samples. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms the following basic orientations toward cultural difference originally explicated by Bennett, 1986 and Bennett, 1993 in the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS): Denial, Defense, Reversal, Minimization, Acceptance, and Adaptation. In addition, it also identifies Cultural Disengagement as an additional scale within the IDI; but one that is not located along the developmental continuum. Second, the inter-scale correlations support the theoretically proposed, developmental formulation from Denial through Adaptation. Third, the current analysis offers strong support for an overall Developmental Orientation (DO) scale and an overall Perceived Orientation (PO) scale. Fourth, Minimization is found to be a transitional orientation toward cultural differences and commonalities, between the more monocultural (ethnocentric) orientations of Denial and Polarization (Defense, Reversal) and the more intercultural mindsets of Acceptance and Adaptation. Fifth, readability analysis indicates the IDI is appropriate for high (secondary) school students (age 15 or above) or individuals with a 10th grade reading level. Finally, criterion validity of the IDI was assessed. The results indicate that the IDI has strong predictive validity toward bottom-line goals within organizations; namely, the achievement of diversity and inclusion goals in the recruitment and staffing function. These findings complement previous results that demonstrated that the IDI also possesses strong content and construct validity across culture groups.

► Validity testing of the IDI v3 support intercultural competence orientations assessed.
► Support found for Minimization as a transitional orientation, not an ethnocentric view.
► Predictive validity observed in achieving organizational diversity hiring goals.
► Predictive validity also found in key study abroad outcomes.
► Empirical evidence of normal distribution of IDI scores across 10,000 subjects.