Institut für Informatik und Wirtschaftsinformatik (ICB)

E-Learning in Culturally Diverse Settings IADIS e-Learning 2011, Rome Thomas Richter

Heimo H. Adelsberger

Picture: Winding-tower, Essen

Pictures: University of Duisburg Essen

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Definitions

n  E-Learning o  Internet-based learning

n  Learning Context o  influences learning process but cannot (directly) be influenced) by the

learning design n  Culture

o  values, believes, attitudes, expectations, people within a certain group have in common

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Learning via Internet: Opportunities and Challenges

n  Opportunities of international distribution of e-Learning: o  worldwide educational equality (UNESCO) o  access to unlimited numbers of students (institutional perspective) o  international learning scenarios: international/intercultural

collaborations & experiences (student’s perspective)

n  Challenges of international distribution of e-Learning: o  learners in different contexts and educational background (adaptation

may be needed) o  no or very limited eye-contact: indicators for misunderstandings, lack

of understanding, and social conflicts missing

n  Own studies1/2 showed that o  ‘motivation’ is strongest success factor in e-Learning o  (social) conflicts in learning process can be disturbing/demotivating o  challenges particularly impact scenarios of collaborative learning o  institutions, educators, and learners

-  are not aware on how to deal with cultural diversity -  rather focus on national/local audience/contents

1 RICHTER, T. & ADELSBERGER, H.H. (2011). E-Learning: Education for Everyone? Special Requirements on Learners in Internet-based Learning Environments. In: Proceedings of the EdMedia conference 2011, Lisbon, Portugal. 2 RICHTER, T. et al. (2011). Beyond OER: Shifting Focus to Open Educational Practices. Due-Publico, Essen, Germany, 2011

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What is the Context of E-Learning 1/2

• RICHTER, T. (2010). Open Educational Resources im kulturellen Kontext von e-Learning. Zeitschrift für E-Learning (ZeL), Freie elektronische Bildungsressourcen, 3/2010, pp. 30-42.

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The Context of E-Learning 2/2

RICHTER, T. & PAWLOWSKI, J.-M. (2008). Adaptation of e-Learning Environments: Determining National Differences through Context Metadata. In: ARLT, H. (Ed.), TRANS. Internet-Journal for Culture Studies. No17/2008, INST, Austria. http://www.inst.at/trans/17Nr/8-15/8-15_richter-pawlowski17.htm

Most influence factors were quite easy to determine. Diffe-rent contexts can be compared. Comparison results are under-standable.

“Culturally motivated” attitudes and expectations of learners have been unknown.

There are unknown side-effects between influence factors.

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Desk Study1: Grouping Cultural Influences on Learners‘ Attitudes and Expectations n  Relationship to authorities n  Gender related issues

n  Motivation n  Feedback

n  Group work experience n  Group building processes n  Group behaviour

n  Time Management

(applies, if interaction between learners/learners & learners/educators is intended)

(is there contact to lecturers/tutors?) (is there interaction between learners?) (general issues)

(documents to be written, time-line set?)

How to determine those culturally-specific attributes?

1 desk-study was conducted from 2007 to 2011 and descriptions of conflicts in learning scenarios in over 600 journal & conference papers were analysed on cultural background (RICHTER 2007-2010)

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10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0

Impact significant

Germany (35)

Austria (11)

South Korea (60)

China (80)

Impact not

significant

Impact not

significant

Why not to use what we already have got? n  Culture concept

o  Hofstede (1980): one nation – one culture o  Leonardi (2002): language is strongest indicator for culture (e.g., India: 179

languages) o  Poglia (2005): Differentiation between smaller societies needed (e.g., social

networks, public/private enterprises, institutions, associations,…)

n  Dimensional culture models (Hofstede; Hall & Hall; Trompenaar; House, Mansour & Schwartz; Henderson, …) are too generic to deduce concrete attitudes and to give answers to our questions1.

n  Example Hofstede dimension ‘power distance index’: Relationship to authorities (in learning context, e.g., professors, lecturers, elder students)

n  Also unclear: Who particularly is a person of authority?

1 RICHTER, T., PAWLOWSKI, J.-M., & LUTZE, M. (2008). Adapting E-Learning situations for international reuse. In: SUDWEEKS, F., HRACHOVEC, H., & ESS, C. (Eds.), CATaC'08 Proceedings (Nimes, France): Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication, School of Information Technology, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia, pp. 713-725.

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Standardized questionnaire used in comparative study: Examples for cultural differences (questionnaire covers 107 items)

Item Korea % (p/n) Germany % (p/n)

Feedback: directly when mistake found 82.27 (p) 77.38 (p)

Feedback: at the end of the task 72.18 (p) eq. dist

Feedback: item related (vs. task related) 64.92 (p) 84.31 (p)

Group building process: Used to build groups? 60,08 (n) 66.26 (p)

Group Work (kind of action): memorising 99.19 (p) 75.67 (n)

Motivation: content related to needs (exams) 81.45 (p) 63.68 (p)

Motivation: what to do when task too difficult? I just solve the manageable parts…

90.32 (p) 67.25 (n)

Role of Lecturer: L. is unfailing person 75.81 (p) 69.68 (n)

Role of Lecturer: L. is expert 95.97 (p) 99.57 (p)

Tasks of Lecturer: provide preselected contents 87.90 (p) 97.69 (p)

Tasks of Lecturer: provide technical support 81.85 (p) 65.66 (n)

Gender related: same abilities eq. distr. 75.78 (p)

Gender related: contents should be the same 75.40 (p) 93.29 (p)

3 German universities, online (1817 students, all degrees, f/m ratio 1:2), 6 German companies (each 8-15 responds - not included here); Korea, 32 universities, paper@street (300 students, all degrees, f/m ratio 3:2)

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Differences regarding collaborative work and recommendations

n  for Korean students, showing/discussing failures seems more difficult (familiar context preferred/needed)

n  Korean students memorize in groups; German students memorize solely n  parameters for selected group members differ: German students likability,

Korean students expertize n  Korean students are not used to form groups themselves (lecturer should

form groups in virtual scenarios) n  Korean students prefer collective solving of tasks while German students

prefer solving a subtask solely and joining each students’ results n  German students defend their own opinion more than Korean students

(raise understanding for and acceptance of cultural differences) n  deadlines tough for both, but insisting on deadlines common for German

students; Korean students expect more flexibility (prepare all students to understand consequences of missed deadlines in the context of education)

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Conclusions

n  survey “learning culture” led to syntactically and semantically comparable results

n  limitation: results just “validated” for learners in HE and in language-homogeneous contexts

n  in most cases of the items, cultural background proven

n  Providing data to raise awareness seems a promising first step n  Further research needed

n  We need help/volunteers for international data collection (translation work & data collection): data collection in foreign contexts almost impossible

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Thank you!

Thank you very much for your Attention!

Are there any questions?

(Also feel free to contact me after the session)

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The Adaptation Process Model

PAWLOWSKI, J.M.; RICHTER, T. (2010). A Methodology to Compare and Adapt E-Learning in the Global Context. In: Breitner, M.H. (Ed.). E-Learning 2010 – Aspekte der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Informatik. Physica-Verlag HD, Berlin, pp. 3-14. (model extended and modified)