Since 2019, CoreCollaborative International has served as the North American partner for the Beliefs, Events, and Values Inventory assessment, or BEVI. The CCI team oversees and facilitates training of BEVI administrators worldwide, and advises on learning outcomes and program design for this leading intercultural competencies assessment measure.

The BEVI is a powerful analytic tool that is used in a wide range of settings. Based on over 25 years of research and practice in the US and internationally, the state-of-the-art instrument asks respondents a series of questions about beliefs, values, and life events. Participant responses allow BEVI administrators in participating organizations to understand and facilitate processes and outcomes of learning, growth, and transformation.

The BEVI is implemented in contexts as varied as education and learning; leadership, organizations and training; research and evaluation; and mental health and wellbeing, and can be used to:

• Evaluate learning (e.g., study abroad, multicultural courses, general education, training programs/workshops, mental health/well-being interventions, or service learning)
• Understand change (e.g., who learns what and why, and under what circumstances)
• Pursue goals (e.g., increased awareness of self, others, and the larger world)
• Enhance quality (e.g., which experiences, courses, programs, interventions etc. have what impact, and why, and how they may be improved)
• Conduct research (e.g., how, why, and under what circumstances people become more “open” to different cultures)
• Demonstrate compliance (e.g., for accreditation, or linking objectives to outcomes)
• Address needs (e.g., assess and resolve conflict, staff/leadership development)
• Facilitate growth (e.g., of individuals, couples, groups, and organizations)

BEVI’s core leadership team comprises five individuals, two of them CCI team members. BEVI is led by its creator, Dr. Craig Shealy, Professor of Psychology and Executive Director of the International Beliefs and Values Institute at Western Washington University, and a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Lee Sternberger handles operations and strategic planning, while Dr. Hajime Nishitami directs Japanese operations. CCI partners Dr. Jennifer Jones Wiley and Dr. Kris Acheson-Clair handle North American operations and serve as training and analysis consultants. Acheson-Clair, director of Purdue University’s Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research (CILMAR), is an award-winning instructor, international education curriculum designer, and researcher; she brings to the BEVI team her experience in needs analysis, developmental interventions, and learning outcomes assessment at every level from individual to institutional, as well as 20 years as a classroom teacher, researcher, and professional development trainer. Jones Wiley, CCI’s CEO, has led interdisciplinary teams of researchers in an array of cultural contexts to answer questions about how learning occurs and for whom. Having collaborated in the US and abroad to provide organizations the insight they need to overcome challenges, identify what they value and why, and how to approach goals sustainably, Jen contributes to the BEVI team her experiences in organizational needs assessment, program design, and strategic planning.

Together, the CCI-BEVI team oversees and implements BEVI’s Certification Workshops, which all prospective administrators of the BEVI must undertake in order to be able to administer the assessment to individuals in their organization. Each workshop consists of eight hours of instruction (either in-person or virtual), along with pre-session readings and activities that participants complete asynchronously. Training is offered both on demand to large groups from the same institution, and to individuals in open, online workshops twice every year.

Learning outcomes for the training include:

• Building a solid foundation of theory
• Identifying best practices for BEVI group debriefings
• Designing BEVI assessment or research with best practices
• Administering the BEVI self-sufficiently
• Successfully navigating the BEVI administrative site
• Competently analyzing group reports
• Confidently delivering group/individual debriefings, and
• Knowing where to go/what to do next

All workshop participants take part in the BEVI assessment and receive a group BEVI debrief so that they can understand the experience of their organization’s future users of the tool. At the workshop’s completion, participants receive the BEVI Manual, sample reports, background readings and materials, and a BEVI Certificate of Completion. As newly authorized BEVI administrators, participants are also given access to a host of additional training resources on the BEVI website.   

Over the years, a wide range of groups, systems, conferences, programs, institutions, and organizations have used the BEVI. These include universities across the US, as well as in Japan, India, Kenya, China, Canada, and Australia; and organizations as varied as the Academy of Human Resource Development, International Leadership Network, Proctor & Gamble, and the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Participant feedback on the experience includes statements such as these:

“Great materials and the instructors did an excellent job of engaging the also great group of participants.”

“So grateful for the comprehensiveness of the training. It really helped me think through my project more completely.”

“I felt very comfortable after the training, really understanding how this measure can be used to understand individuals and transformative learning, whether that’s in psychotherapy, or through classroom learning, or in study abroad.”

In addition to administering BEVI trainings, the BEVI team also offers organizations a variety of additional services, including accreditation review, institutional identity analysis, program design and evaluation, professional development, needs analysis, team and leadership development, strategic planning, expatriation/repatriation preparation and support, and research support.

The CCI team is proud to be playing a key role in BEVI’s success. Certifying new BEVI administrators helps ensure that organizations committed to fostering intercultural competence will be able to meet their goals. Administrators who take part in the Certification Workshops gain far more than just certification. The workshops are based on the specific needs of their participants and cover a range of useful content that can benefit administrators throughout their work in intercultural competency development. New administrators also receive ongoing support from the CCI-BEVI team, and from the ready association of learners engaged in the same enterprise. In this sense, CCI’s work in BEVI contributes not only to intercultural capacity development but to the fostering of lifelong learning and the establishment of robust learning communities – two outcomes that dovetail with CCI’s values and organizational mission. Jones Wiley and Acheson-Clair note that a primary goal in setting up the workshops is to create spaces in which participants can learn from one another. Indeed, they say that their favorite part of these sessions is witnessing the development of professional networks and collegial relationships among program participants. 

To learn more about the BEVI, and to explore how this tool or other services provided by the BEVI team can benefit your organization, please reach out to CoreCollaborative International.