Effects of critical incident tasks on the intercultural competence of English non-majors

Figures & data

Table 1. Research design.

Group	Pre-test	Intervention	Post-test
EC (n = 234)	O1 (W1)	CI	O2 (W11)
CC (n = 88)	O1 (W1)	R	O2 (W11)

EC = Experimental condition; CC = Control condition; CI = Critical Incident Tasks; R = Regular course teaching; W1 = Week 1; W11 = Week 11 (the students had 10 weeks for the course); O = measurement of learners’ intercultural awareness; O₁ = Pretest; O₂ = Posttest.

Table 2. Course procedures for the treatment condition.

	Lessons	Procedures
CIT lessons	1 3 5	Initiating activity + introduction of the critical incident task + discussion of the critical incident task in pairs + performing the critical incident task individually + wrap-up
	7 9 11 13 15 17 19	Initiating activity + discussion of the critical incident task in pairs + performing the critical incident task individually + wrap-up
Standard lessons	2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20	Standard textbook tasks + students’ practice of 4 English skills for TOEIC test

Figure 1. Pre and posttest scores of the experimental and control groups.

Table 3. Means and standard deviations of pretest and posttest.

	Pre-test				Post-Test
	Experimental		Control		Experimental		Control
Condition	Mean (SD)	N	Mean (SD)	N	Mean (SD)	N	Mean (SD)	N
Scenario understanding	1.638 (0.522)	185	1.607 (0.411)	84	1.825 (0.418)	166	1.261 (0.629)	67
Miscommunication understanding	1.168 (0.619)	184	1.119 (0.5)	84	1.690 (0.515)	166	0.888 (0.415)	67
Awareness communication Western	1.319 (0.59)	185	1.286 (0.427)	84	1.771 (0.494)	166	0.873 (0.382)	67
Awareness communication Eastern	1.193 (0.629)	184	1.175 (0.477)	83	1.738 (0.456)	166	0.888 (0.377)	67
Total	5.327 (1.671)	168	5.216 (1.216)	67	7.018 (1.339)	168	3.896 (1.232)	67