Intercultural Communication Competence and Miscommunication: A Study on Malaysian And International Students

Abstract

With the rapidly increasing number of international students, University Technology Malaysia (UTM) is considered one of the well-known multicultural universities in Malaysia. Due to these rapid changes, the issue of intercultural communication is increasing day by day. A review of literature indicates that this issue, especially, within tertiary educational institutions is given little attention by researchers. The current study is an attempt to look at this type of communication. It investigates how students internalize and describe intercultural communication competence. This quantitative study, which was conducted on both Malaysian and international students, identified the quality of intercultural communication through investigating the various challenges students face in this regard that can result in possible incidents of miscommunication. Adopting purposive sampling and using two sets of questionnaires as the primary tools of data collection, 377 Malaysian and 335 international students participated in the current research. The data was analyzed using SPSS software. The current study found that there are differences between the perspectives of Malaysian and international students on intercultural competence. It also raises awareness of the importance of intercultural communication in tertiary educational institutions and invites researchers to examine the various challenges that face both Malaysian and international students in this regard.