Cultural intelligence increases student’s innovative behavior in higher education: The mediating role of interpersonal trust

in their paper titled “Cultural intelligence increase student’s innovative behaviour in higher education: the mediating role of interpersonal trust,” emphasized the relevance of innovative behaviour among students to develop cultural intelligence.

The authors stressed the positive effect of student exchange programs and how such programs develop individual competencies in understanding cultural differences and possess essential cultural intelligence.

With a quantitative research approach, the study analysed the relationship between cultural intelligence, students’ innovative behaviour and intervening impact of interpersonal trust through SEM-PLS.

The sample for the study included Indonesian students’ who have completed or are a part of student exchanges or studying abroad in the Asia and Australia region.

The findings showed that cultural intelligence is needed to ensure inclusive behaviour. Higher cultural intelligence represents “individuals conscious of other cultures’ knowledge and cultural differences, which provides them with new approaches to new ideas, opinions, concepts and scripts, to expand creative potential to innovate” (p. 14).

Predictability of cultural intelligence and innovative behaviour highlights, individual’s interest in learning about new situations and cultures and enjoyment in interacting with diverse people. This further helps the development of an inclusive environment as “individuals with great cultural intelligence do not make inaccurate and superficial judgements during intercultural interactions and respect salient ethnic differences” (p. 14).

In the article “Technology Facilitation on Inclusive Learning; Higher Education Institutions in Sri Lanka”, Kirupainayagam and Sutha (2022) emphasized on diversified ethnicity of students. The study grounded on technology acceptance theory, which brings out the attributes towards technology and its acceptance and usage, analysed the importance of technology towards building inclusive learning.

The investigators conducted semi-structured interviews with students and academicians from different ethnic groups from five national universities in Sri Lanka. The study provided that technology usage in classroom lectures provided more inclusive classroom settings. Use of social networking, web-based instructing, class web journals, Wikis, podcasting, intuitive whiteboards and cellphones help in making students evolve in an inclusive higher education environment.

Further, educational aids like learning management system (LMS), virtual learning environment (VLE), module system, multimedia projectors, MS Office software, mobile phones and the Internet were the leading technology platforms that enabled teachers to overcome diversity concerns.

The study also indicated that students in select universities rarely felt discrimination based on ethnicity, learned faster while accepting ethnic differences and maintained friendly relationships.