Development of cultural intelligence during international student mobility: The role of prior intercultural exposure and personality

Cultural intelligence (CQ) plays a crucial role in enabling individuals to operate and interact effectively in a variety of multicultural environments. In this paper, we examine how prior intercultural exposure and personality factors shape the development of CQ during international student mobility. Two waves of data were collected from 549 engineering students over a nine-month period. Measures included the eleven subdimensions of expanded cultural intelligence (E-CQ), information on prior intercultural exposure (migration background, prior residence abroad, and number of countries visited), personality factors (openness and extraversion), and gender. Results from latent change score models revealed that nine of the eleven subdimensions of E-CQ increased significantly following international mobility. Students with lower initial E-CQ levels demonstrated greater growth compared to their peers with higher initial E-CQ levels. Openness and extraversion were positively associated with higher initial levels of metacognitive, cognitive, and motivational CQ but were related to smaller gains in motivational CQ (self-efficacy) and behavioral CQ (speech acts). Prior intercultural exposure was associated with higher initial E-CQ levels but was generally related to lower CQ growth, except for metacognitive CQ (planning). Our results show that international mobility significantly enhances CQ, with the most significant improvements observed among students with lower levels of openness, extraversion, or prior intercultural exposure. They highlight the importance of designing mobility programs that foster CQ while taking into account different levels of prior intercultural exposure.