Examination of Faculty Members’ Multicultural Teaching Competencies at a Four-Year Institution

Abstract

The demographic diversification of the student body and the cultural mismatch between the students and their educators have impacted both the academic achievement of the students and the faculty and graduate-level educators by adding complexity into their teaching and urging them to become more culturally responsive to the learning requirements of students from diverse backgrounds. The multicultural teaching competence has now become a professional imperative for faculty members in order to address diversity issues in multicultural classrooms and better serve a broader range of students from diverse backgrounds. A growing body of research has illuminated the beneficial effects of diversity and supported the need for educators to be multiculturally competent. However, not enough research has investigated higher educators’ abilities to teach in a culturally competent way to provide a global education for all of the students. To address this shortcoming, the present study examined faculty members’ multicultural teaching competencies at a four year public institution. The study also investigated relationships between faculty members’ multicultural teaching competence and their biographical characteristics and multicultural experiences. Using a quantitative research design, this study consisted of an online survey of 268 faculty members at a four-year higher education institution. The data was gathered through a two-part questionnaire which consisted of demographic questions about the faculty members’ biographical characteristics and their multicultural experiences and the Multicultural Teaching Competence Scale (MTCS) to assess their multicultural teaching competence. Participants of the study rated themselves as being multiculturally competent in the areas multicultural knowledge and multicultural skill. Results from the statistical analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in the overall MTCS scores of faculty members based on both their number of involvements in multicultural activities and type of multicultural activities participated. A linear multiple regression analysis of the data also revealed that the number of involvements in multicultural activities and the certain academic areas of teaching made a significant, unique contribution while other areas of teaching and teaching experience made less of a unique contribution to the prediction of the perceived multicultural teaching competence of the faculty members. The findings of the study indicated that multicultural teaching competence can be learned through multicultural activities. The numbers of involvements in multicultural activities and the type of multicultural activities enhanced the multicultural teaching competence of faculty members.