Unsa Dastgir Butt2025-09-022025-09-022019https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/5870In our increasingly diverse world, Pakistani society owing to its complex cultural and religious beliefs has been identified to be one of the least diverse countries in the world. As a reaction, higher education institutions in Pakistan have recognized the urgency of this issue and worked towards the advancement of such diversity initiatives at university level for the purpose of developing students’ cultural competence. However, there is still ambiguity regarding the levels of cultural competence amongst students who take part in such diversity courses in the Pakistani universities. This study investigated the impact of participation in a diversity course on the cultural competence of university students. Fifty two graduate students from one 4-year, private university participated in this study. Participants (N=52, 35 male & 17= female) completed the Cultural Competence Scale (CCAS) as a pretest and posttest measure in order to investigate incremental changes during the semester. Data were analyzed by correlation coefficient, paired sample t-test and ANOVA. The analysis revealed that the participation in diversity course can precipitate some change in cultural competence of students but only the cultural knowledge/awareness scores of male students were increased significantly at the end of the semester. Other demographic and educational variables (including age, ethnicity, academic discipline and diversity related course participation) in this study were not instrumental in the development of students’ cultural competence. Implications for research and measurement with cultural competencies are discussed.en-USThesis