Investigating Chinese students’ motives for intercultural interactions in a Chinese internationalized university

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explores the motives of host students’intercultural interactions in a Chinese academic context, which advocates internationalization of education. Three hundred and sixteen Chinese university students in an internationalized comprehensive university who reported that they had intercultural interactions responded to a self-designed questionnaire about their motives to interact with international students. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) identified five factors: Communication Experience, Cultural Exchange, Help-Seeking, Language Enhancement and Task Fulfillment, which explained a total variance of 72.083%. The second study sought to test and verify that survey, and two hundred and five valid Chinese university student questionnaires were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that the derived five-factor structure fit the data well. Similarity structure analysis (SSA) of the second dataset was then conducted to visually detect the interrelated structure of the five factors. These factors suggest that the broad motivations for using English in intercultural interactions match those of foreign language learning. These findings can contribute to both future research designs and ways that relevant parties might promote intercultural interactions toward building intercultural competence.