Ambo University (Amharic: አምቦ ዩኒቨርሲቲ; Oromo: Yunivarsiitii Amboo) is a national university located in Ambo, Oromia Region, Ethiopia, approximately 114 kilometres (71 mi) west of Addis Ababa.
Flag of Oromia Region, where Ambo University is located.
The Ministry of Education admits qualified students to Ambo University based on their score on the Ethiopian Higher Education Entrance Examination (EHEEE).
History and Establishment
Ambo University was founded on May 11, 2011, by government proclamation (Council of Ministers 212/2011). It is a non-profit public higher education institution recognized by the Ministry of Education as a coeducational Ethiopian higher education institution.
Originally, the university's foundation traced back to 1947, becoming one of the oldest higher educational institutions where basic education began in a building constructed by a few French engineers.
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Academic Programs
Ambo envisages surpassing academic, research, and community service qualifications to attain a higher education standard. Ambo currently has 75 graduate programs, 71 undergraduate programs, 10 PhD programs, and 4 specialty programs with nine colleges/institutes/schools, and academic departments.
Documentary by Ambo University - Pharmacy Department
Intercultural Competence Study at Ambo University
Intercultural competence (ICC) is a vital factor in influencing university students’ academic performance, psychological and social well beings. There are several instruments measuring university student’s intercultural competence in different contexts. Among these,[1] intercultural competences which measures intercultural knowledge, awareness, attitude, and skills is the most frequently used and easily self-administered questionnaire.
Although intercultural competence is a crucial factor for university students’ academic achievement and inter-ethnic conflict resolution, psychometrically sound intercultural competence scale is not available in the Ethiopian context. In the processes of retaining culturally equivalent translated measure symmetrical approach was used.
The purpose of a study was to validate the intercultural competence measure in the Ethiopian context. The target population of the present study was young adult university students found at Ambo University.
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Ambo University is located in Ambo town, with a student population of about 18,458 (M = 10,182 and F = 8276) at 114 KM to the west of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. The student inhabitants in this university are highly diversified in terms of ethnicity.
Methodology
Data were collected from 476 (Male = 244 and Female = 232) arbitrarily selected university students with an age mean of 22.35 enrolled in undergraduate degree programs at Ambo University. To determine the proportion of student participants across their sex, college, and department participants of this study were selected via stratified random sampling technique.
Students who met the following inclusion criteria were invited to participate; 1) domestic university students, 2) currently enrolled in 3rd year and above undergraduate regular students, and 3) be willing to participate.
During instrument translation and data collection, appropriate procedures were tailed. First content validity of the original English version of the scale was assessed by a group of eight experts based on[25] recommendation.
Following the two independent forward translations with the mediator of the researcher, the two translators came together and sentence by sentence revision and comparison of the two forward translated versions of the scales was made.
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In order to ensure whether or not the Amharic version of the instrument is reflecting the same/similar item content as its original version backward translation was made by a single independent bilingual expert (Amharic native speaker and Proficient in English).
Thirdly, pilot study/cognitive debriefing were done with 20 Amharic speakers of Ambo University students, as a result necessary modification was made, and further psychometric tests were computed.
The four-factor model of the questionnaire consisting of 50 items scored on a 6-point Likert scale (from not at all = 0 to very high = 5) that provides a measure of ICC scales with four subscales; intercultural knowledge (13-items), attitude (15-items), awareness (13-items), and skills (9- items) was adapted.
High score indicates a high level of ICC. The collected data was analyzed using IBM SPSS with AMOS 26.0.
Results
The result of the study showed that both EFA and CFA supported a significantly correlated four-factor model of intercultural competence (Attitude, Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills). This generally justifies the use of the Amharic version intercultural competence scale in the Ethiopian context.
Before running factor analysis verifying whether or not the data set are suitable for factor analysis is mandatory using Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s tests. Accordingly, the result of KMO = 0.906 (>0.60) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was statistically significant (χ2 = 7008.970, df = 990, P < .001) signifying the suitability of the data for EFA.
The computed PCA suggested a four-factorial solution with eigenvalues >1, explaining a total of 55.275% of the variance. The first factor eigenvalue explains 28.597% of the variance.
The subsamples did not differ significantly in terms of age, gender, ethnic composition, religion, and study discipline.
Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Study Participants
| Characteristic | Category | Frequency | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | 244 | 51.3% |
| Female | 232 | 48.7% | |
| Ethnic Group | Oromo | 189 | 39.7% |
| Amhara | 157 | 33.0% | |
| Religion | Orthodox Christian | 203 | 42.6% |
| Protestant | 186 | 39.1% |
The internal consistency estimated by Cronbach alpha value for the new Amharic version ICC total score was = 0.917, whereas the internal consistency of the subscales was attitude = 0.814, awareness = .876, knowledge = .839, and skill = .816, respectively [Table 5].
Demographic Characteristics of Study Participants (Source: ResearchGate)
Currently numerous scholars,[1,3,15,16,27] across different disciplines agree that in order to comprehend and adapt successfully to this varied nature of the world, university graduate must develop intercultural competence. The present study was aimed to explore the intercultural competence among students.
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tags: #Ethiopia
