Cross-cultural Collaborative Online Learning: When the West Meets the East

Contemporary information and communication technologies have brought the world together by interconnecting more people in more nations. The rapid growth of online learning worldwide has created a need to study the design of online environments which foster inter- and multicultural learning communities. This study investigated cultural influences on students’ online social and learning behaviors and students’ opinions and attitude toward cross-cultural collaborative online learning. Based on the findings from this study and contemporary social constructivist theories, an instructional model was proposed.

[1]  Benjamin J. Broome.  Facilitating attitudes and message characteristics in the expression of differences in intercultural encounters , 1981 .

[2]  Päivi Tynjälä,et al.  Communication and Collaborative Learning at Work: Views Expressed on a Cross-Cultural E-Learning Course , 2002 .

[3]  E. Rose.  Cultural Studies in Instructional Design: Building a Bridge to Practice , 2005 .

[4]  Matthew J. Smith,et al.  Exploring Human Communication , 1999 .

[5]  George F. MacDonald,et al.  What Is Culture , 1991 .

[6]  Charles M. Reigeluth,et al.  Instructional-design Theories and Models : A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory, Volume II , 1999 .

[7]  E. Trumbull,et al.  When "Helping Someone Else" Is the Right Answer: Bridging Cultures in Assessment , 2003 .

[8]  M. Defleur,et al.  Theories of mass communication , 1968 .

[9]  Rodney H. Jones,et al.  Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach , 1994 .

[10]  J. Bruner.  The Culture of Education , 1996 .

[11]  Tim S. Roberts.  Online Collaborative Learning: Theory and Practice , 2003 .

[12]  Ralph Schroeder,et al.  Intercultural Communication in a Virtual Environment , 2000 .

[13]  D. Silverman.  Interpreting Qualitative Data , 1993 .

[14]  Albert L. Ingram,et al.  Methods for Analyzing Collaboration in Online Communications , 2004 .

[15]  Lauren Cifuentes,et al.  Teaching and Learning Online , 2001 .

[16]  M. Patton,et al.  Qualitative evaluation and research methods , 1992 .

[17]  L. Vygotsky.  Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes: Harvard University Press , 1978 .

[18]  M. Patton.  Qualitative evaluation and research methods, 2nd ed. , 1990 .

[19]  G. Hofstede.  Cultural differences in teaching and learning , 1986 .

[20]  P. Rohrlich.  Toward a unified conception of intercultural communication: An integrated systems approach , 1983 .

[21]  Curtis J. Bonk,et al.  Electronic Collaborators: Learner-Centered Technologies for Literacy, Apprenticeship, and Discourse , 1998 .

[22]  David H. Jonassen,et al.  Constructivism: new implications for instructional technology? , 1991 .

[23]  Gary Oddou,et al.  Person perception in cross-cultural settings: A review of cross-cultural and related cognitive literature , 1984 .