Development of the Awareness, Skills, Knowledge: General (ASK-G) Scale for Measuring Cultural Competence in the General Population

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

PLOS One

Volume

17

Issue

9

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Publication Date

9-15-2022

First Page

1

Last Page

18

Abstract

Measuring cultural competence has been difficult for conceptual and practical reasons. Yet, professional guidelines and stated values call for training to improve cultural competence. To develop a strong evidence-base for training and improving cultural competence, professionals need reliable and valid measures to capture meaningful changes in cultural competence training. We developed a measure for cultural competence that could be used in a general population to measure changes in awareness, knowledge, and skills in interacting with culturally diverse others. We built an 81-item scale with items conceptually categorized into awareness, knowledge, and skills and was presented to an expert panel for feedback. For evaluation, a national panel of 204 adults responded to the new scale and other measures associated with cultural competence. Factor analysis revealed four factors with strong reliabilities: Awareness of Self, Awareness of Others, Proactive Skills Development, and Knowledge (as = .87 - .92). The final overall scale, Awareness, Knowledge, Skills—General (ASK-G) had 37 items and strong reliability (a = .94). The ASK-G was then compared to validated scales to provide evidence of concurrent, convergent, and divergent validity. Strong evidence emerged for these. The ASK-G is a promising tool to measure cultural competence in a general population.

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