Validation of the Chen and Starosta Intercultural Sensitivity Scale in the Ecuadorian cultural context
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School is a space for social interaction where individuals from diverse backgrounds converge, making it essential to develop social competencies, including intercultural sensitivity, and to foster respectful and enriching coexistence. For this reason, it is necessary to have instruments that allow us to understand the development of these skills. The present study aims to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) by Chen and Starosta adapted for high school students in Ecuador, through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). For the validation process, the ISS, translated and adapted to the Ecuadorian context, was applied to 5,497 Ecuadorian students. The results showed acceptable internal consistency; however, the global fit indices CFI and RMSEA indicated the need to adjust the model for the Ecuadorian context. Items with low factor loadings (< 0.4) were identified, which suggests revising or eliminating these items to improve the representation of the latent variables. In addition, high correlations were found for factors such as Respect and Engagement, while factors such as Attention and Enjoyment were identified with a low correlation, which indicates that it captures more specific aspects of the general construct. This suggests that culturally adapted instruments are needed to assess intercultural sensitivity in adolescent populations.
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