Undergraduate Psychology Students’ Attitudes towards the Teaching of Indigenous and Cross-cultural Content

Many Australian universities now incorporate Indigenous Australian or cross-cultural content in health related degrees. This research builds on a qualitative study conducted by Clark et al (2013) investigating student attitudes towards the Indigenous content taught in the cross-cultural module of the first-year Psychology curriculum at an Australian tertiary institution. Themes emerging from focus-group data in Clark et al indicated that different attitudes (both positive and negative) were associated with specific demographic groups within the cohort. The present study aimed to quantify these patterns in a large sample of the current student body.

In the present study students completed a short questionnaire measuring their attitudes towards the Indigenous content in the cross-cultural module. Interestingly, all of the questions received responses along the entire range of potential values (i.e., highly negative to highly positive), but there was broad positive agreement in regards to questions relating to the necessity and importance of teaching related to Indigenous issues.

As suggested by the qualitative data in Clark et al (2013) there were statistically significant differences between the responses of international and domestic students, and male and female students. These results have important implications for the way in which this content is taught - in particular, an important issue that needs attention is the difference between the attitudes of international and domestic students. This issue is particularly salient since an increasing number of international students are choosing to study in Australia, and to remain and practice as professionals within the Australian health-care system.