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. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):22019.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-03303-1.

Enhancing intercultural competence in technical higher education through AI-driven frameworks

Qi Zhang  1 , Mohammad Ismath Ramzy Mohammad Ismail  2 , Abd Razak Bin Zakaria  3
Affiliations

Enhancing intercultural competence in technical higher education through AI-driven frameworks

Qi Zhang et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The assessment of Intercultural Competence (IC) is increasingly recognized as an essential component of students' professional competency development in higher education settings. This study looks at the objectives of creating ICC and offers an assessment framework that adheres to the competency cultivation principles and the IC acquisition model. However, because intercultural communicative competence is not given enough attention, there are still problems with teaching abroad. This study utilizes the AI approaches for assessing the ICC in higher education. The Apriori algorithm analyses the association among the instructional tasks and ICC learning outcomes to find the teaching strategies most effectively build the cultural knowledge. Fuzzy logic is utilized to convert the qualitative perceptions to quantifiable data to address the subjective assessment, Sim Rank evaluate the student performance similarity and behavior to find the clusters and MK means used to segment the students based on ICC profiles for targeted interventions. The concepts and methods of model construction were applied in the development of a fuzzy thorough assessment model for college students' ICC. The findings show a substantial relationship between the total IC level and the four IC components of attitude, knowledge, Skill and consciousness. According to correlation strength, these characteristics are rated as follows: attitude (0.835), skill A (0.885), Skill B (0.823), Consciousness (0.714) and knowledge (0.972). Furthermore, there is a positive association between cross-cultural factors and the five aspects of English language ability, indicating a reciprocal relationship between developing IC and learning English.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Clustering; Fuzzy; Higher education; Interculture competence.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
AI assisted framework for learning and teaching.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Assessment scheme using AI framework for ICC.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Conceptual diagram of Mapping AI tools onto ICC.
Algorithm 1
Algorithm 1
LocalsimRank algorithm.
Algorithm 2
Algorithm 2
Modified K means with density threshold.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
ICC evaluation using fuzzy ( Considered Samples: 240 peoples).
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Student evaluation with the grades less than 489.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Various ICC competence and CET 4 performance.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Significant evaluation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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