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2014 CALL Conference
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be
Research methods measuring intercultural competence proved to be somewhat
unbalanced, with a general tendency to
cite isolated examples of students’ output as
evidence for enhanced cultural understanding. The results of the analysis are further
discussed in terms of how development of intercultural competence can be facilitated in a
more balanced manner, capitalising more fully upon the affordances that technologies
can provide teachers and learners.
There are a number of methodological challenges that were encountered in undertaking
the research. Firstly, as a meta-analysis of existing research, the scope is bound to be
limited by the selection of journals. In the current study, four established journals in the
field of CALL were specifically chosen to demonstrate where culture sits in the greater
scope of CALL research itself, but this has the danger of omitting relevant articles that
have been published outside of CALL journals, and yet are of immediate relevance.
Another point which is not unrelated to this is the keywords and terminology that are
used in the relevant articles. In this study, only journal articles dealing with intercultural
competence were selected. However, it is quite feasible that through the ambiguous use
of terminology regarding intercultural competence there were articles which dealt with
intercultural competence but were not included in the study. A reason for this is that
while terms are used quite specifically in other fields, there still appears to be a lack of
clearly defined terminology regarding cultural issues in CALL research. While care was
taken to ensure that other alternative terms were used to avoid this from happening,
there is still the possibility that there were some omissions. Similarly, it could also be
stated that there were potentially omissions in the information provided about how data
were collected and analysed, which may lead to making conclusions about how a study
was conducted that might not be a completely accurate reflection of actual practice.
Regarding the analysis itself, even though articles didn’t mention about how they
undertook training or education regarding intercultural communication or intercultural
competence, it would be difficult to state categorically that there no training or education
took place based on the fact that information was not provided. One might assume that if
any meaningful training or education was included, it would likely be clearly described in
the methodology, but it is possible that there were studies that did not outline these
details clearly enough.
In conclusion, despite the fact that the study was conducted in a way that attempted to
cover a wide scope of previous research, and the analysis was carried out in a careful
and thorough manner, it is possible that there are errors and omissions in the way in
which the data were collected. Some of these may be specific to the field, but others may
be a result of the nature of conducting meta-analyses.
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