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Being immersed into a different culture can be one of the most challenging experiences anyone could have. International migration, multiculturalism, and globalized economy are a trend in the modern world (Chen & Starosta, 1996, as cited in Balakrishnan, 2015). United Nations (2015) reported that the number of international migrants reached 244 million, a figure that shows a remarkable 41% increase compared to 2000. Even though this number includes almost 20 million refugees, it can be noted that the merging of diverse cultures in one country becomes a major concern not only at present but also in the coming years.

In Korea, 1.9 million foreign residents, of which the Chinese nationals are consistently increasing, are reported to be the current statistics (The Korea Times, May 2016). Moreover, Korean expatriates with foreign citizenship (F-4 visa holders) reached 17.2%, followed by 14.4% with working visits (H-2 visa holders), and 13.7% are foreigners with non-professional work permits. Compared to March 2013, a remarkable 1.2% increase, that is, 152,025 foreign spouses, was recorded as well. The number of foreign students showed similar trend that it increased by 14.4% (106,138).

Indeed, people, regardless of their country of origin and whether they like it or not, in one point or another, will be compelled to relate to a person from another culture. Given that the world becomes increasingly multicultural, being able to respect, accept, and adjust to a culture other than one’s own becomes a necessity. Kofi Atta Annan, a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, perfectly expressed, “Tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where peoples are becoming more and more closely interconnected.” Hence, encouraging local people to love their own culture while also embracing the diversity of the society and welcoming the differences in terms of belief systems, communication styles, and cultural backgrounds promotes a positive atmosphere.

The question is, how to welcome another culture? Is it enough to become aware of another person’s culture? Is it necessary to adopt a different culture? Such questions are the main concerns of researchers Chen and Starosta (1997) when they provided the world with their concept of intercultural awareness (the cognitive component), intercultural sensitivity (the affective component), and intercultural adroitness (the behavioral component). Intercultural Sensitivity is considered to be the crucial point because “by studying the affective component, it is presumed that intercultural awareness exists, and that intercultural behaviours result as an outcome”(Balakrishnan, 2015).

In the past, studies conducted to identify people’s ability to adapt to, lest to say accept, another culture had been more focused on determining their intercultural communication competence. As the two, namely, intercultural communication competence and intercultural sensitivity, are basically different yet somewhat related, a clear line needed to be drawn. Accordingly, intercultural communication competence, according to Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge (2007) was clarified as “the knowledge, motivation, and skills for effective communication. This description of intercultural communication competence was then “confused, overlapped, and at least used indiscriminatingly with intercultural awareness, intercultural adroitness, and intercultural sensitivity” (Peng, 2006). Intercultural competence is the “mechanism through which individuals develop the potential to interact smoothly with diverse groups" (Fantini, 2000). It is not merely being interested in other cultures that makes people effective, but more importantly, they should demonstrate sensitivity, meaning their ability to recognize cultural differences and modify behavior so as to show respect for other cultures (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992). Therefore, intercultural sensitivity is not an automatically integrated attitude because it is a developmental process, which is further elaborated by Bennett (1986). According to him, intercultural sensitivity has six developmental stages: denial, defense, minimizing, acceptance, adaptation, and integration of cultural difference. People who are sensitive to diverse cultures did not achieve such sensitivity overnight because they (either consciously or unconsciously) undergo the gradual process of solving cultural differences and then developing empathy in accepting and adapting cultural differences. In a different yet related view of Chen and Starosta (1997), intercultural sensitivity is only one of the three concepts of intercultural communication competence. This intercultural communication competence comprises intercultural awareness (cognitive aspect), intercultural sensitivity (affective aspect), and intercultural adroitness (the behavioral aspect). Furthermore, “intercultural sensitivity refers to the subjects’ active desire to motivate themselves to understand, appreciate, and accept differences among cultures” (Chen & Starosta, 1997). Chen and Starosta’s three concepts, intercultural sensitivity is prioritized because it is deemed fundamental. Accordingly, understanding first the affective component leads to recognizing intercultural awareness and then enacting on the outcome, the intercultural behavior. Furthermore, Chen and Starosta (1997) defined intercultural sensitivity as “an individual's ability to develop a positive emotion towards understanding and appreciating cultural differences that promotes an appropriate and effective behaviour in intercultural communication." Based on this definition, the Intercultural Sensitivity Survey (ISS) was developed.

In 1996, Chen and Starosta conceptualized a model of intercultural communication competence, which comprises three conceptual dimensions, namely, intercultural awareness, intercultural sensitivity, and intercultural adroitness― all of which contains a set of different components. Intercultural awareness, a cognitive dimension, refers to a person's ability to understand and recognize similarities and differences of others' cultures. It encompasses two components, such as self-awareness and cultural awareness. The second dimension which is considered as the affective is intercultural sensitivity, which refers to “the emotional desire of a person to acknowledge, appreciate, and accept cultural differences.” Intercultural sensitivity has six components, including “self-esteem, self-monitoring, empathy, open-mindedness, nonjudgmental, and social relaxation.” Finally, the behavioral dimension is intercultural adroitness, which refers to “an individual's ability to reach communication goals while interacting with people from other cultures.” This dimension has message skills, appropriate self-disclosure, behavioral flexibility, and interaction management as its components (Chen & Starosta, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000). Upon clarifying their model on measuring the dimensions of intercultural communication competence, Chen and Starosta (2000) developed the instrument, that is, the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS), to explore first the concept of intercultural sensitivity.

The ISS has five underlying factors, namely, Interaction Engagement (IEng), Interaction Attentiveness (IAtt), Interaction Enjoyment (IEnj), Respect for Cultural Differences (RCD), and Interaction Confidence (IC) (Chen & Starosta, 2000). IEng refers to how involved people feel when they are in intercultural settings; IAtt refers to whether people feel they are able to discern cues from their interaction partner during an intercultural interaction. IEnj refers to whether people feel like they appreciate the intercultural interaction; RCD to whether individuals orient to and tolerate opinions of others from a different culture. Finally, IC refers to whether individuals feel comfortable and competent in an intercultural setting. In the 24-item questionnaire, items 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, and 22 need to be reverse-coded before summing the 24 items. The first factor, IEng, is measured by items 1, 11, 13, 21, 22, 23, and 24; RCD by items are 2, 7, 8, 16, 18, and 20; IC by items are 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10; IEnj by items 9, 12, and 15; and IAtt by items 14, 17, and 19.

Research studies in the context of the academe and the actual workplace, since the early years the concept of intercultural sensitivity had come out until the recent years, are proof that attention should be exerted more to make the modern society inclusive and accepting. Similar observations on the increasing importance of cultural sensitivity can be noted on how many institutions, including the media, are considering the provision of training for their stakeholders and showing how the present society can be more accommodating to cultural diversity.

Moreover, educational institutions and researchers in other countries, such as in the US (Otten, 2003 as cited in Sakurauch, 2014; McMurray, 2007; Fritz, Möllenberg, Chen, 2002), Spain (Baños, 2006), Taiwan (Huang, 2013), and Turkey (Meydanlioglu, Arikan, & Gozum, 2015) to name a few, have become highly concerned whether students possess intercultural sensitivity. That is, if the students are sufficiently equipped and well-adjusted to a possibly culturally diverse workplace in the future.

In 2013, Huang conducted a survey among 358 participants from the Nursing Department and Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences in Taipei, Taiwan. This study probed into the participants’ level of intercultural sensitivity in terms of the five dimensions and how such are affected by the participants’ demographic factors. Results show that the participants scored highest on the dimension of “respect for the cultural differences” and lowest score on “interaction confidence”. Moreover, “decision of studying abroad” and “experiences of living abroad” were indicated to have effectively predicted the participants’ intercultural sensitivity.

Another noteworthy research, though conducted some several years ago, was that of McMurray (2007). Her research included undergraduate (N =2804) and graduate students (N = 231) of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. In her paper, McMurray (2007) examined the potential disparities between the levels of intercultural sensitivity among the groups of her participants, namely, international students, domestic students with international travel experience, and domestic students without international travel experience.

In Korea, extensive studies delving in intercultural sensitivity (Roh, 2014; Kim, Song, Moon, & Lee, 2013; Park, 2015; Jeon & Lee, 2012; Kim, 2008) have likewise been conducted. Indeed, the growing diversity of Korean society brought by cultural and racial integration from foreign migrant workers, international marriage women, ethnic Koreans from China, and North Korean migrants, migrants, and foreign workers calls for establishing multicultural education in Korean schools (Seak-Zoon, 2014; Yoon, Song, & Bae, 2008). In the country in recent years, several studies and initiatives have been done to promote multicultural education and determine intercultural sensitivity. However, most of these studies have been geared towards limited areas and levels. Despite the numerous initiatives, the South Korean society remains challenged given its strong homogeneity and sense of nationalism.

One study delved into the attitude of South Koreans toward foreigners, minorities, and multiculturalism (Yoon, Song, & Bae, 2008), where the respondents are found to be “more open and tolerant toward foreigners and immigrants living in South Korea than previously believed.” Another is that of Roh (2014) which measured and analyzed the intercultural sensitivity of middle and high school students in Korea. In this study, variables, namely, gender, age, location, and level of multicultural experience were explored in order to determine the level of intercultural sensitivity of the students. Results obtained from 450 students in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province show that intercultural sensitivity is affected differentially by each variable. Roh also noted a high correlation between the students’ level of intercultural sensitivity and their level of multicultural experience. Jeon and Lee (2012) investigated the relationship between university students’ exposure to foreign culture and their levels of global competency. In this study, 121 students at ‘A’ university in Seoul completed the online survey. Frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and independent-sample t-test showed that partial aspects of global competency had significant relationship with students’ exposure to foreign culture. By contrast, the students’ levels of global understanding and English proficiency were both positively related to students’ exposure to foreign culture. Moreover, the study noted that the levels of intercultural sensitivity depended on the types of exposure the students have to foreign culture. Kim (2008) provided the status of pre-service teachers with regard to their readiness for the multicultural education in South Korea. In her study, she compared the intercultural sensitivity between the 301 South Korean and the 275 Chinese pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a teacher education program of a 4-year college. Results show that the pre-service teachers in Korea obtained slightly higher scores than those in China. Another was Yoon, Song, & Bae (2008)’s study, in which they conducted surveys that examined South Koreans’ notions of national identity, attitudes toward foreigners and racial/ethnic minorities, and social distance feelings toward foreigners and minority groups. The study found out that South Koreans are more open and tolerant toward foreigners and immigrants, and perceive them as not a threat to South Korea in general.

This research adopted convenience sampling method. Convenience sampling method is a set of techniques in which the respondents are selected by convenience due to their proximity, availability, accessibility, or other way that researcher decides. This method was adopted in the study because the students identified to participate in the study were under the tutelage of only one professor for their ESL Listening/Speaking and ESL Reading courses. Thus, the study included 27 out of the 98 ESL classes, that is, a total of 403 respondents. Additionally, this study was conducted in a private-owned university (herein after referred to as S University) located in Gyeonggi Province. S University is a home to some 12,000 students, of which 93% is composed of undergraduate students and 7% is postgraduate. A total of 495 international students, 66 are in the graduate level and the rest is undergraduate students. S University is specifically chosen as the locale of the study considering its impressive ranking among universities in terms of its ration of foreign professors (Korea Joongang Daily, 2013). In addition, the English as a Second Language course of S University is a required course for all Freshman students. With this advantage, the S University is believed to have been providing ample opportunities for its students to be immersed in different cultures through these English classes.

Using the 24-item ISS developed by Chen and Starosta (2000), this study examined the intercultural sensitivity of university students in Korea. The ISS consists of five factors: IEng, RCD, IC, IEnj, and IAtt, and is based on a 5-point Likert scale, with choices 5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=uncertain, 2=disagree, and 1=strongly disagree.

IEng is related to the respondents’ feeling of participation in intercultural communication and how involved they feel when they are in intercultural settings. For RCD, 6 items probe into how respondents orient to or tolerate their counterparts’ culture and opinion. Third, IC comprises how confident respondents are in the intercultural setting, such as whether they feel comfortable and competent. For IEnj, 3 items deal with participants’ positive or negative reactions, that is, whether they feel like they appreciate the interaction with people from different cultures. Finally, IAtt is expressed in 3 items and is concerned with respondents’ effort to understand what is going on and whether they feel they are able to discern cues from their interaction partner during an interaction.

Moreover, in the 24-item questionnaire, items 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, and 22 were reverse-coded before summing the 24 items.

The survey was conducted from early towards the end of the Finals period of the Fall Semester 2016 (between October and December 2016). That period was specifically chosen by the researchers considering that the students have already adjusted to their subjects specifically in English class. The ISS was personally conducted by the researchers, and initially, coordination was done with the respective professors of the ESL sections identified to participate in this study. After coordinating with the professors, the researchers went to the classes and explained to the students the objectives of the study.

The responses were tabulated for frequency using Microsoft Excel, and were subjected to treatment using SPSS Version 20. For the respondents’ demographic profile, namely, gender, age, major, and interaction experience with foreigners, frequency counting and percentages were adopted; for the intercultural sensitivity of students as well as the five factors of IS, mean was used as it allowed the researchers to make use of all the data gathered.

On the other hand, to identify whether there is a significant difference between the respondents’ level of IS and their gender, as well as their IS and whether they have or do not have interaction exposure with foreigners, independent-samples t-test was employed. This treatment enables the researchers to compare two samples (in this case the respondents’ gender and their level of IS, and the other the respondents’ interaction exposure with foreigners and their level of IS) in terms of their means. Moreover, the result obtained from the independent samples t-test provides a clear presentation of how different the mean of one sample is from the mean of the other group, as well as whether such difference is statistically significant.

Meanwhile, one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted to compare the IS of different majors. One-way ANOVA compares the means between the groups (in this case the respondents’ IS and their respective majors). It also enabled the researchers to note whether the means are statistically significantly different from each other.

<Table 2> shows that of the 403 respondents, a little more than half, namely 222 (55.1%) are male. Moreover, in terms of age, the highest percentage of respondents comprises the age bracket from 20 to 25 years. In Korea, this age range, specifically those in the early 20s, who are mostly fresh graduates from High School, consists of the freshman population in universities. In S University, these freshmen students are required to take a number of basic courses, such as ESL.

Furthermore, the respondents were also composed of students who are non-freshmen students, namely, 11 Second Year (2.7%), 11 Third Year (2.7%), and 13 Fourth Year (3.2%) (<Table 3>). These respondents are likely the students who are either taking ESL courses as a repeat course or who were not able to take ESL courses during their freshman year.

In terms of the respondents’ field of study (major), majority (42.4%) is in the Business Department, followed by Engineering (14.6%), Natural Science (10.4%), IT (9.9%), and Music (8.4%). A smaller number of respondents come from the Departments of PE, Medicine, and Welfare (4.7%) and Fine Arts (3.2%) (Table 2.b).

<Table 4> illustrates that in terms of interaction exposure to and/or experience in communicating/interacting with foreigners, a substantial count of 330 respondents (81.9%) indicated that they have previous experience with people from another culture; whereas only 73 (18.1%) admitted they have none. Majority of the students clarified that their exposure to a foreign culture is due to a number of reasons. According to them, the opportunities to be with foreigners were through private English tutoring or in-school English conversation classes in either Middle School or High School, overseas travel, having foreigner friends, and overseas study among others. Although the students admitted they had previous interaction experience with foreigners, especially those who had attended English academies and had in-school English conversation classes in the past, some of them claimed that they had relatively limited time in mingling with foreigners because of the class size in their school/academy. They further mentioned that getting to know deeply international people in Korea was limited because of the stringent target they had to achieve during their attendance in academies/school. Often, they are not given sufficient exposure with regard to the actual use of English and immersing themselves in the context of the English teacher’s culture and background because of the fast phase of classes.

The respondents’ level of intercultural sensitivity was determined in terms of the five focused dimensions of the Intercultural Sensitivity Survey (ISS) developed by Chen and Starosta (2000), namely, IEng, RCD, IC, IEnj, and IAtt.

• (1) Of the 403 respondents, 22 (55.1%) are male; and the highest percentage (93.8%) comprises the age bracket from 20 to 25 years. With regard to the respondents’ field of study (major), majority (42.4%) are in the Business Department, followed by Engineering (14.6%), Natural Science (10.4%), IT (9.9%), and Music (8.4%). A smaller number of respondents come from the Departments of PE, Medicine, and Welfare (4.7%) and Fine Arts (3.2%).
  In terms of interaction exposure to and/or experience in communicating/interacting with foreigners, a substantial count of 330 respondents (81.9%) indicated that they have previous experience with people from another culture.
• (2) The respondents’ level of intercultural sensitivity is in the borderline of “Agreeable” and “Uncertain” level. Therefore, the respondents can handle their interaction with people from a different culture with certain limitations, specifically in interaction confidence (IC), interaction engagement (Ieng), and interaction attentiveness (IAtt). Moreover, as the respondents’ incurred lowest mean in IC, they require assistance to become more confident, competitive, and prepared in their intercultural interaction so as to have a meaningful and successful interaction with foreigners.
• (2) There is no significant difference between the level of intercultural sensitivity of the respondents and their gender. However, significant difference is noted between the respondents’ ISS and their major as well as their interaction experience with foreigners. Therefore, regardless of their gender, the respondents’ level of intercultural sensitivity is due to their major and their interaction experience with foreigners. Students with ample interaction experience have higher level of intercultural sensitivity as compared to those who have limited experience or even to those who have no experience at all. It can be noted as well that those students who are given opportunities for intercultural exchanges and interactions have higher level of intercultural sensitivity.

• (1) Although the respondents’ level of intercultural sensitivity is deemed to be sufficient, the lack of improvement in their level of intercultural sensitivity requires necessary consideration. Therefore, academicians in Korea need to revisit and revise the thrust and focus of their academic programs, especially the English classes. While it may be true that enhancing the communication skills of the students is the primary focus of any educational institution, curriculum developers, teachers, school administrators, and other stakeholders should equally prioritize developing the students’ intercultural sensitivity. For several years, Korean students have been devoting much time and effort mastering the English language but they remain apprehensive and lacking in confidence and self-esteem because of the limited opportunities to use English in an actual interaction with foreigners. Thus, if students are provided with ample opportunities to use the language and become more exposed to diverse cultures, they will grow more confident in their communication interaction, thus making them more competitive, proficient, and highly motivated and, needless to say, prepared in their intercultural interaction.
• (2) In learning a second/foreign language, more so in enhancing intercultural sensitivity of students, the larger community plays a vital role. A high exposure to the target language and to the community comprising diverse culture incurs high proficiency, communication confidence, and intercultural sensitivity in individuals. The respondents who do not or did not have any opportunity to mingle with a community using the English language and composed of diverse cultures seemed to have low English proficiency and low self-esteem. Hence, this paper recommends that the Korean society, through the programs the local and the greater government, should provide as much opportunities as possible for students to have communication interaction with people from diverse cultures. Such programs and activities could be in the form of cultural immersion, language exchange programs, and cultural expositions. Although in many cases, these programs have been made available already, most of these cultural exchanges involve adults or professionals. Activities catering to younger generation, such as elementary school, middle school, high school, and university students are limited because the thrust of many schools is on preparing the students for their examinations such as Sineung or other knowledge/aptitude test.
• (3) Universities in Korea could also design community service programs that would enable their students to provide assistance or services to foreigners in the country. These community services can directly involve students and foreigners residing in Korea. This program will be beneficial specifically for students who do not have the financial means to travel overseas or to attend international exposure programs. Conducting such activities could likewise be considered by the universities as a marketing/promotional strategy for them to invite more foreign students and even local students. In addition, activities like these could be an advantage for the university as they focus not solely in preparing their students for their future profession but also their competitiveness in the global market.
• (4) Related research studies are recommended so as to address areas that this study did not encompass. For one, the study did not probe into the difference between the level of intercultural sensitivity of Korean and of foreign students. Such study could be viable in providing actual data on how foreign students who decide to study in Korea are adjusting to Korean culture and how Korean students adjust to having foreign friends in their class. Similarly, a cross-sectional study comparing the intercultural sensitivity of students from two or more universities or even selected high schools in South Korea could provide a wider perspective of the majority of young Koreans. Another possible research is a longitudinal in nature in which the respondents’ initial level of intercultural sensitivity is compared to their level after 4 or 5 years in the University. Finally, a study probing into the IS of the general youth is another point of interest. Conducting such study could provide insights into the status of the general youth’s sensitivity to people from other cultures. Results that such study could obtain will enable to local government to design cultural immersion programs that will further promote young Koreans’ sensitivity to other cultures.