PROPOSAL TO INVESTIGATE ETHNOCENTRISM AMONG NEW ZEALANDERS: THE INVESTIGATION WILL FOCUS ON AGE INFLUENCING WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE ACROSS CULTURES The Aim of this proposal is to describe a plan to investigate the level of ethnocentrism among New Zealanders and whether or how age influences willingness to communicate across cultures by surveying opinions and attitudes of students in the Management School at The University of XXX and managers around the Hamilton area respectively. Background
Nowadays, the whole world is increasingly turning into a global village. Many countries are becoming the multi-cultural societies and New Zealand is no exception. It is essential for both personal communication and business communication to understand the significance of ethnocentrism and people’s willingness to communicate across cultures A lot of research has been done on the topic of people’s ethnocentrism and their willingness to communicate across cultures, particularly the comparison between Western and Asian college students.
New Zealand, as a multi-cultural country, is lacking of research in terms of people’s ethnocentrism and their willingness to communicate across cultures. However, this kind of research may help finding out the factors affecting people’s sense of ethnocentrism, or hindering the development of people’s willingness to communicate across cultures. Under these circumstances our group will investigate if age influences the level of ethnocentrism among New Zealanders. We will also investigate whether age influences willingness to communicate across cultures, by surveying opinions of college students and managers in New Zealand.
The main advantage of this research for audiences is that our investigation will provide them with useful and valuable information to use when they communicate with others. Method The research will use two main methods to collect primary survey information. In the first method, we will select twenty eight New Zealand students in the Management School at The University of XXX. The participants will be selected on the basis of convenience and the students’ willingness. Our aim is to find the level of ethnocentrism among New Zealanders and whether age influences willingness to communicate across cultures by distributing the questionnaires.
Because of this, it is important to make sure the participants vary in age. We are going to divide these twenty eight students in five groups according to their age- 17 to 22; 23 to28; 29 to 34; 35 to 40; and above 40. In the second method, we will interview four New Zealand managers to investigate level of ethnocentrism among New Zealanders and whether age influences willingness to communicate across cultures. We may use the Internet and books as secondary sources. Personnel and facilities
Every group member is now studying towards the completion of Bachelor of Communication studies or similar subject at The University of xxx. All of the group members come from different cultural backgrounds and have all experienced communicating across different cultures. Under these circumstances, it is possible for our group to view things from different perspectives while researching and provide an accurate result in investigating ethnocentrism among New Zealanders and whether age influences willingness to communicate across cultures
To carry out this investigation, our group may need to go to the library and search on the Internet. The University of XXXwill be the supplier of these resources. Costs The research will incur the following costs: Donated time: 40hours Photocopying: $3 ($0. 10 per page) Petrol costs: $30 Work schedule The work schedule for the research project is as follow: TaskDue Date Submit research instruments6/08/2010 Submit piloted instruments27/08/2010 Submit research data27/09/2010 Submit write report14/10/2010 Conclusion
As there is a lack of research in New Zealand in terms of the subject of ethnocentrism and willingness to communicate across cultures, our group is confident that our investigation will provide you with useful and valuable information of how ethnocentrism affects New Zealanders willingness to communicate across boundaries and in particular whether age is a deciding factor of this. We believe that this information will benefit both college students and organizations alike in learning to understand other cultures. We welcome any comments or suggestions to help improve our research plan.
Please approve this proposal so that the research may begin as soon as possible. References Butcher, M. M. , & Haggard, C. (2009, November). Ethnocentrism and intercultural willingness to communicate: A cross-cultural comparison between Chinese and US college students. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the NCA 95th Annual Convention, Chicago, Illinois. Retrieved July 14, 2010, from http://www. allacademic. com/meta/p368397_index. html Justen, J. R. (2009). Ethnocentrism, intercultural interaction and U. S. ollege students’ intercultural communication behaviours: An exploration of relationships (Masters’ thesis). Retrieved from http://trace. tennessee. edu/utk_gradthes/534 Kassing, J. W. (1997). Development of the intercultural willingness to communicate scale. Communication Research Reports, 14(4), 399-407. doi: 10. 1080/08824099709388683 Margaret L. Andersen. , & Howard. F. T (2006). Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society. Delaware. ISBN 0534617166. Wadsworth. Neuliep, J. , & McCroskey, J. C. (1997). The development of a U. S. and generalized ethnocentrism scale. Communication Research Reports, 14, 385-398.
