Ukrainian adaptation of Chen and Starosta’s Intercultural Sensitivity Scale
Ukrainian adaptation of Chen and Starosta’s Intercultural Sensitivity Scale

Summary/Abstract: The situation in Ukraine caused by war since 2014 and the intensification of hostilities from 2022 have led many Ukrainian citizens to emigrate. Living in other countries requires the need to adapt to often different cultural conditions. Intercultural sensitivity is an important dimension of intercultural communication competence that determines if individuals effectively adjust to a new reality. This study aims to adapt the most widely used tool for measuring intercultural sensitivity, the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (2000) by Chen and Starosta, to Ukrainian conditions. This article comprises a presentation of a Ukrainian version of the questionnaire for measuring cross-cultural sensitivity, along with its psychometric properties. The obtained results showed that Chen and Starosta’s five-factor model of intercultural sensitivity (IS) did not fit the Ukrainian cultural context. A confirmatory factor analysis of the previous adaptations of IS, showed that the best model for the present study was the Serbian model. Therefore, we created a four-factor IS model containing 15 items (α-Cronbach’s 0.841). These factors, along with the items included in the Ukrainian version of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale, were based on the 24-item Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) formulated by Chen and Starosta. This study contains a proposaal of an alternative model of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale that is better suited to Ukrainian culture. The questionnaire with a key is attached to the article for other researchers to use in their studies.

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