Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Institute of Education Sciences

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    Intercultural sensitivity in gaming communities: An investigation on the perceptions and practices of Turkish university students
    (Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2023-06-19) Higashihara, Nilüfer Erdur; Karatepe, Çiğdem; Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi/Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü/Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı/İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Bilim Dalı.; 0000-0002-1429-6725
    The rapid development of technology has led individuals to interact more with the outside world for reasons such as work, education, and entertainment, increasing intercultural communication and the need to enhance cultural knowledge learning and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) levels. In today's rapidly globalising world, fostering individuals who can adapt quickly to cultural differences and establish successful relationships is more important than ever. However, despite recognising the importance of intercultural communication in academic circles and language classes in schools, it has been overlooked mainly by teachers, curriculum, and textbook writers due to various shortcomings. On the other hand, studies in the literature have indicated multiple issues, such as the failure to meet the learning needs of generations growing up in the age of technology, especially those closely related to electronic devices and video games, and the inability to fully integrate these tools into language classes, despite their benefits. Therefore, this study focuses on intercultural sensitivity (IS), one of the essential components of ICC, and video games, which are believed to contribute to cultural knowledge learning and the development of IS. Although some studies suggest that video games can enhance cultural knowledge learning and IS levels, studies have yet to be found that examines the IS levels and views of university students who play video games on learning cultural knowledge from video games and them as intercultural communication environments together. 384 university students who played video games invited from various gaming and social media platforms participated in this study, which included a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative part of the study, the students were asked to complete a questionnaire to determine their IS levels and gaming preferences that were thought to impact IS levels. The first part of the survey included the Turkish version of the intercultural sensitivity scale (TISS) by Bulduk et al. (2011), which was translated from Chen and Starosta's (2000) intercultural sensitivity scale to measure IS. 41 students participated in the qualitative part of the study. This part aimed to explore how cultural knowledge learning from video games can occur and the nature of video games as intercultural environments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the students. The quantitative data obtained were transferred to the SPSS program, and reliability and normality tests were performed initially. It was observed that the data, although highly reliable, did not show a normal distribution. Therefore, in addition to the descriptive analysis used to measure IS levels, non-parametric tests such as Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were preferred to determine whether a significant relationship existed between gaming preferences and IS levels. The qualitative data were coded and themed using content analysis, and the emerging themes and sub-themes were visualised and presented. The analyses indicated that the students had high IS levels and tended to be respectful and open to cultural differences. On the other hand, although the weekly gaming times and the participation in affinity spaces did not create any differences in the IS levels of university student players, various factors such as gender, playing multiplayer games, preferring games with narratives, and engaging in voice and written communication were found to influence IS levels significantly. The responses given by the students in the semi-structured interviews led to the conclusion that video games can be highly suitable environments for cultural knowledge learning. However, some excerpts shared by students based on their experiences and some studies in the literature also raise concerns about the potential toxic encounters in video games.