The effects of international volunteer work experiences on intercultural competence of Japanese youth

This study investigates the effects of international volunteer work experiences on young people's intercultural competence using a quasi-experimental procedure. The international volunteer work was organized by an NPO for multicultural youth groups to experience collaborative work in various parts of the world. The participants of the study include 286 Japanese university students who joined the international volunteer projects and 116 who did not. Nearly half of the participants had previously been overseas, mostly for home-stays. Preliminary analyses revealed that in most aspects of intercultural competence studied, including openness/ethnorelativism, international concern, interpersonal communication skills, and self-efficacy, the participants of the project were significantly higher than non-participants and those with previous intercultural experience were higher than those without. The results of ANCOVA show that there was a significant difference between participants of the project and non-participants after controlling for pre-existing differences in all of the variables studied. This demonstrates that although those who decided to participate had a high level of intercultural competence before they participated in the project, the volunteer work experience further developed this competency. Subsequent regression analyses show that the combination of openness and ethnorelativism lead to a higher level of satisfaction, while English competence, interpersonal communication skills and self-efficacy result in a stronger sense of contribution to the volunteer projects. Relevance of the results to intergroup contact theory will be discussed.