Cultural disconnection in virtual education

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Cultural disconnection in virtualeducationPatrick Dillon a , Ruolan Wang a & Penni Tearle aa School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter ,UKPublished online: 19 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Patrick Dillon , Ruolan Wang & Penni Tearle (2007) Cultural disconnection invirtual education, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 15:2, 153-174, DOI: 10.1080/14681360701403565

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Pedagogy, Culture & SocietyVol. 15, No. 2, July 2007, pp. 153–174

ISSN 1468-1366 (print)/ISSN 1747-5104 (online)/07/020153–22© 2007 Pedagogy, Culture & SocietyDOI: 10.1080/14681360701403565

Cultural disconnection in virtual educationPatrick Dillon*, Ruolan Wang and Penni TearleSchool of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, UKTaylor and Francis LtdRPCS_A_240241.sgm10.1080/14681360701403565Pedagogy, Culture and Society1468-1366 (print)/1747-5104 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis152000000July [email protected]

This paper reports a small-scale investigation into the differences in learning behaviour exhibited bymembers of an intercultural group undertaking an online course on educational enquiry in supportof doctoral research in education. Differences in learning behaviour can be attributed in part to thedifferent cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the participants. As virtual learning environmentsare seldom designed to accommodate cultural diversity, there is often a disconnection between theintended and the actual experiences of the participants. This study explores the characteristics ofthis disconnection. It is suggested that virtual learning environments should be designed to takeaccount of the mutual transformation of both learner and environment in educational processes.Some technological developments that may lead to virtual learning environments becomingadaptive are described. However, it is emphasised that inclusivity will depend upon an adaptivedynamic in the virtual learning environment that is essentially social.

Introduction

As people increasingly use computers to communicate with one another, the Internetbecomes both a technological and a cultural phenomenon (Mann & Stewart, 2000)and virtual education becomes a mainstream approach. Virtual education is taken tobe learning in web-based situations and with electronic media such as CD-ROMs andDVDs. Collectively, these multimedia offer ‘virtual’ learning environments (VLEs).The term VLE is however commonly used to denote web-based environmentsdesigned specifically to support structured education. WebCT, First Class and Black-board are examples of commercial VLEs. In this paper we use ‘educational multime-dia’ as the general term to include any electronically mediated learning environment,and VLE for web-based environments. Most VLEs are structured to facilitatediscourse that is conducted in English. Since culture and language are so comprehen-sively intertwined, and the loss of one leads to loss of the other (Fishman, 1991; Wong

*Corresponding author. School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter,Heavitree Road, Exeter EX1 2LU, UK. Email: [email protected]

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Fillmore, 1991; Brown et al., 1997), English language structures and media may leadto educational experiences that for many global learners are culturally disconnected.

We adopt a sociocultural approach in our investigation of cultural disconnection invirtual education. This enables us to conceptualise educational environments associal and cultural situations where individuals and groups construct and expresstheir identities through the activities they undertake. Individuals change in responseto, and in relation to, situations, and through these interactions and transformationsdifferent kinds of meaning become connected. Stevenson (2004) suggests that, in itssociocultural use, meaning includes personal significance, or a ‘sense’ of something,derived from Dewey’s work on personally significant experience, and the collectiveunderstanding captured in language and other social artefacts, derived fromLeont’ev’s work on the object(ive) or motive that gives collective activity its purpose.The mutual transformation of both learner and environment leads to the idea ofadaptive educational environments (Loi & Dillon, 2006). Note the mutuality of therelationship. This is important in the context of the arguments made in this paper.When we use the term ‘adaptive’, we do not mean individuals adapting to thecharacteristics of the environment or vice versa in unidirectional ways; mutualtransformation implies a different kind of dynamic.

We argue that virtual education should be reconceptualised so that it is betteraligned culturally and linguistically with the needs of global learners and, byextension, that educational multimedia such as VLEs should be responsive to theseneeds. In this paper we:

● Provide a contribution towards a theoretical framework that accounts for culturaland language differences and can be applied to virtual education.

● Present the outcomes of a study through which the framework is tested in a virtualeducational situation with a defined group of people working in an Englishlanguage context.

● Discuss the implications of cultural and linguistic alignment to the design of VLEs.

Theoretical and methodological framework

The design of educational media, or ‘instructional design’, focuses on means toattaining goals for learning by identifying methods of instruction and ways to supportand facilitate learning (Reigeluth, 1999). Typically, instructional design is informedby a constructivist approach to learning where users construct meaning by drawingon previous experience in active engagement with content. In doing this, educationalmultimedia incorporates a number of instructional forms, for example anchoredinstruction, problem-based learning and goal-based scenarios (Jonassen & Roher-Murphy, 1999). A sociocultural perspective shifts the focus from the individual andhis or her interaction with the environment, to the transformative relationship betweenthe individual and the environment, where environment is taken to be the totality offactors in the learning situation. In VLEs this includes social factors in the broadestsense, as well as content, resources and infrastructure. Culture and language are two

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important elements in this mix, given their centrality to communication and socialrelations.

The concept of ‘culture’ has been defined in many different ways. For thearguments presented here, it is taken to be the beliefs, values, norms, mores, mythsand structural elements of a given organisation, tribe or society (Watson et al., 1994).In this view, culture is something that is both created by, and mediates between,people in the world in which they live and work. Differences between cultures andlanguages add richness to the fabric of human life.

Virtual education can draw on a global constituency. Participants in a virtualeducational community may be from culturally and linguistically diverse back-grounds, have different frames of reference and different styles of communicating andlearning, but culture and language privilege particular forms of knowledge and waysof learning. Joo (1999) observes that although the Internet offers an unprecedentedopportunity for under-represented groups to showcase their aboriginal languages andcultures, there can be few real social and cultural exchanges as long as the Englishlanguage and Western values dominate the Internet. Cultural bias and incompatiblecultural behaviours, often without the people concerned realising or recognising theirexistence, contribute to what can amount to disconnection in the educationalcommunity. These behaviours in turn impact on communication, the exchange ofideas and expertise and the construction of knowledge.

There may also be tensions between different cultural behaviours. Categorisa-tions of these tensions make distinctions between individualistic and collectivisticcultures where the emphasis in the former is on personal achievement and in thelatter on group goals (Hofstede, 1994); high and low context cultures where inthe former a lot of ‘unspoken’ meaning is transferred during communication and inthe latter meaning is largely encompassed in the utterances (Hall, 1976); and affir-mative and deferential cultures where ‘social distance’ is of lesser or greater signifi-cance during communication (Brown & Levinson, 1978). These categorisationshave led to a number of cultural generalisations. For example, Cross and Markus(1999) and Hofstede (1984, 1986) suggest that North American and WesternEuropean countries are associated with individualistic cultures, whilst collectivisticcultures are evident in South American countries and many Asian societies such asJapan, India and China. Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988) reported on the rela-tionship between individualism/collectivism and high/low context cultures. Theysuggest that the predominant mode of communication in collective cultures is‘high’ whilst in individualistic cultures it is ‘low’. Hence North American and West-ern European countries, which tend to be individualistic, are relatively low contextcultures, while most Asian cultures are relatively high context; a view previouslynoted by Hall (1976). Martens’s (1994) work in this field suggests that Australiahas an affirmative culture whereas Bradley and Bradley (1984) conclude that Asiatends to be deferential in terms of politeness. Whereas these generalisations providesome basis for cultural analysis, it will be shown later that they are inadequate foraccounting for the fine nuances of learning behaviour exhibited in interculturaleducational situations.

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In addition to culture, language plays a major role in establishing social identitiesand working relationships in educational situations. Human languages are viewed bysociolinguists as symbolic practices that derive their meanings from layers of collec-tive experience within a culture (Mayor & Swann, 2002). When people communicatewith each other, we call the system of communication that they employ a code. Inmost cases that code will be something we may also call a language (Wardhaugh,1986).

Language and culture are very closely linked. Allwood (1990) emphasises that ifculture is taken to be the means through which nature is regularised, language is themost prototypical example of the process. But language is linked to culture not onlyas an example of a systematic relation between nature and culture, but also throughthe representation of other non-linguistic cultural phenomena. Thus it is difficult toseparate linguistic and cultural competence. Becoming linguistically competentpresupposes becoming culturally competent and vice versa (Allwood, 1990).Language is also a formative influence on culture generally; it helps to introduce andpresent culture in particular ways. For instance, low context cultures tend to useexplicit messages while high context cultures use more implicit ways of communi-cating (Hall, 1976). If culture is the aggregate of ideas, values, knowledge and otherresources we use in interaction with the world around us, language is the symbolicguide to culture (Ungern-Sternberg et al., 2003). Serpell (1976) argues thatlanguage is a very obvious candidate for emphasis as a mediator between cultureand behaviour.

To people with knowledge of two or more different languages and cultures, it isusually self-evident that language and patterns of thought are interlinked (Hunt &Banaji, 1988). Nastasi and Clements (1992) reveal that students working togethercan increase verbal exchange leading to higher levels of task involvement andproblem-solving behaviours. However, for different speakers in different globalcontexts, the same word may have different meanings.

In virtual learning there is linguistic dissonance because of the difficulty of aligningthe conceptual structure and inner speech of the first language with that of thesecond. Pennycook (1994) notes that the development of English as a global languagehas conventionally been regarded as a ‘natural’, ‘neutral’ and ‘beneficial’ activity. Forlearners who have English as a second or foreign language, linguistic dissonanceincludes: low speed in reading, writing and in constructing ideas in English;misunderstanding during discussion with native English speakers; and disruption oflearning plans. Learners with limited proficiency may exhibit lower levels of interac-tion with English-speaking participants and reduced effectiveness of communication.Because in VLEs computers are the medium of discourse and learning, there isfurther dissonance: gestural and bodily elements of communication are absent as thelocational factors that form the cultural milieu.

Moore (1994) argues that designers of distance education programmes should besensitive to the values of other cultures and design environments to provide studentswith the opportunity to listen to and learn from peers of other nationalities. Althoughthere have been attempts to provide instructional principles for culturally sensitive

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learning environments (e.g. Collis, 1999; Ryan & Dunham, 2000), most are based onthe premise that online pedagogical design should facilitate teaching to align with thecultural orientations of all of the participants. This strategy may be helpful if learningtakes place in situations that involve one cultural group or groups that are culturallysimilar. However, in learning situations where the participants come from culturallyand linguistically diverse backgrounds, these instructional principles may exacerbatethe separation of cultural differences rather than encourage the connection of differ-ent cultures in a common endeavour. The more effort that is put into avoidingconflict amongst culturally diverse groups, the more misunderstandings appear, witha corresponding decline in the effectiveness of learning.

Educational multimedia can be used whenever an interface connects a person toelectronic information of any kind, in businesses, at home, in schools and universitiesand in public places. When well designed, educational multimedia can help to gainand hold attention, make points clearer, stimulate discussion and, in general, enhancethe learning process. Educational multimedia design is a process of facilitatinghuman–computer interaction and combining media technologies like text, graphics,sounds and moving images in meaningful ways (Vaughan, 1994). The design of aweb-based course in a VLE involves complex processes of designing, planning,developing and implementing.

In a VLE, teaching and learning are indirect processes. When a computer mediatesknowledge construction, learning content must be supported by instructional designprinciples and use of multimedia so as to engage learners in social practice. Dillonet al. (2004) argue that in educational multimedia it is difficult to pre-specify for thespontaneity and situatedness of the traditional setting, and instructional forms haveto be found that either anticipate or prompt teacher interventions. Cairncross andMannion (2001) also doubt that the very richness and complexity of interactivemultimedia can lead to success if the needs of the learners are not given carefulconsideration. As technology is used increasingly to ‘deliver’ education, it is impor-tant to keep in focus human needs and not let technology drive the process (Walker,1994). The gap between applying what is known from theories of learning andpromoting highly technical ‘solutions’ must be bridged. When there is no robusttheoretical framework underpinning the design of online courses, the result is oftenthat strong stereotypes are reproduced. For learners who are from different back-grounds and have English as a second or foreign language, current instructionaldesign and educational multimedia technologies frequently do not provide anappropriate environment to help them to communicate together effectively and henceto learn.

A sociocultural approach places emphasis on the context in which activity takesplace. The context is the interaction of factors associated with the place where theactivity is conceived, planned and realised, how it is experienced or interpreted by thepeople concerned, and the social and cultural norms governing these transactions(van Oers, 1998). Context so defined corresponds to the broad definition of environ-ment given earlier in this paper. Activity ‘theory’ provides a formalised framework forinvestigating the context of an activity. There are various formulations of activity

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theory (e.g. Kaptelinin & Miettinen, 2005). The research reported here takes anapplication of activity theory to teaching and learning that recognises the learner as asubject, engaging in a new activity in a social situation. Activity is directed at anobject(ive) or motive—something the collective group is trying to attain. Theobject(ive) gives the activity its meaning (purpose), and the object has an outcome.Collective activity is mediated through the environment. These interrelationships,known as an activity system, and developed from the work of Engeström (2001), whoin turn built on earlier cultural-historical traditions, are typically represented as aninterconnected triangular diagram (e.g. Dillon & Åhlberg, 2006).

Situational analysis offers a systematic framework for investigating the elements ofan activity system. The emphasis is on the significant environmental characteristics,the important aspects of the situation and the meaning and effects they have to thoseinvolved (Robson, 1993). Situational analysis is seen as particularly appropriate forinvestigating distance education, where cultural, social, political, historical andgeographical factors should be considered alongside infrastructure and the technolog-ical environment (Meacham & Zubair, 1992). By extension of these arguments, thesame might be said of virtual education.

Forest (1998) suggests that situational analysis may be broad based or highlyspecific depending on the application in question. A broad-based analysis takes ineconomic and political systems in a given cultural situation, relationships betweeneconomy and society, the role of government and international organisations in regu-lating the economy and education, the structure of power and how decisions affectindividuals and groups in the local situation. Although virtual educational situationsare influenced by the wider context, an investigation of their internal dynamicsrequires a more focused situational analysis. Specifically, it should take account of:the nature of the community; its demographic, social and cultural characteristics;roles and relationships within the community; the educational and language charac-teristics of its members; and the ways in which they learn and communicate. For avirtual educational situation, the technological infrastructure is also important.Situational analysis thus applied may be defined as an examination of a learningcommunity for the purpose of identifying issues, problems and opportunities thatmight be addressed through the process of virtual learning.

The study

In an intercultural learning situation, learning behaviour will be affected by a varietyof cultural and linguistic factors. The purpose of the study was to investigate how, ina defined educational situation, learning behaviours differ across cultures and whatthe implications are of these differences for online communication. For the purposesof this study, learning behaviour is defined as those actions involving learners’ self-motivation, interaction, communication and satisfaction with their learning in theonline environment.

The research situation was a course on the ‘nature of educational enquiry’ designedfor campus-based students undertaking doctoral research in education at a university

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in the UK. The group included those studying full time and part time and comprisedfive British students and 23 international students representing a range of cultural andlinguistic backgrounds. The language of communication in the VLE was English.

The objectives of the study were to:

● Identify the different cultural and linguistic characteristics of the group.● Describe the significant characteristics of the working environment, the VLE.● Identify factors that lead to disconnection in the VLE.● Suggest cultural and linguistic elements that might be incorporated into the course

content and the design of a VLE to minimise disconnection and improve intercul-tural effectiveness.

Methods and data analysis

In interpretive research, the researcher typically engages with and interprets the situ-ation through, for example, face-to-face interviews or real-time observations. In thisstudy, one of the authors, Wang, participated in the activities of the group using thisas a route to gathering data. Engagement took the form of becoming a member of thelearning group, undertaking the same tasks and engaging in the activities offeredthrough the VLE. Methods also have to reveal elements of the situation, that is, theyhave to be compatible with the principles of situational analysis. In addition to engag-ing in the learning group, data were collected through questionnaire, semi-structuredinterviews and from the exchanges in the discussion forum. The chronological flowand purposes of the different methods used are illustrated in Figure 1.Figure 1. Chronological and information flows of the different methods used in the studyAll 28 course participants were invited to use the purpose-built VLE (created inWebCT) set up especially to support the taught educational enquiry course whichwas part of their doctoral studies. The VLE contained various supportive features,

Questionnaire

Participatory observationData analysis

Data analysis

Verbal & face-to-faceinteraction

Descriptive data onstudents’ cultural,

linguistic, educationaland ICT backgrounds

Literature review toestablish ‘culturaltypes’ and inform

situational analysis

To find out whether the students’online behaviours had matched

previously reported ‘typical’characteristics of the

different cultural groups

To interpret and geta better understandingof the issues addressed

in the questionnaireand online

discussion forum.

OnlineDiscussion

forum

Semi-structureinterview

Figure 1. Chronological and information flows of the different methods used in the study

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one of which was an online discussion forum designed to complement the educationalenquiry course. Use of the discussion forum was ‘promoted’ by posing a discussiontopic which was closely related to the syllabus of the course, but was extended byadding a cultural element to it. The cultural element involved participants in identi-fying issues of cultural difference whilst working through a VLE. This introduced arange of sociocultural considerations relating to work that was otherwise substantiallyphilosophical. Data from the discussion forum were derived by analysing the contentof discussion, frequency of contribution to discussion and response rate to otherpeople’s comments.

The questionnaire, which was implemented in parallel to the activity in the onlineenvironment, was designed to collect background information about the participants,to investigate their views about VLEs and to identify any cultural issues which arosewhen they were working in them. The questionnaire comprised mainly ‘yes and no’questions with a small number of Likert-style questions. In particular the question-naire addressed the need to get a better understanding of the cultural and linguisticmake-up of the group by identifying the first languages and the geographical region/country with which each of the participants identified themselves. Questionnaireswere sent through email to all 28 course participants when they were part way throughtheir online course. Twenty-two replied (response rate of 78.5%), all of whom hadused the online environment to support their learning. Seven of the respondents hadEnglish as a first language and 15 had English as a second or foreign language, report-ing more than 10 different first languages across the group. There was one Bahraini,one Egyptian, one Iranian, one Kenyan, one Korean, one Mexican, one Omani, oneSaudi, two Irish, two Greek, two Thai, three Chinese and five British. Analysis of theresponses was undertaken by entering the data in Microsoft Excel to generatedescriptive statistics.

The third data collection method was semi-structured interview. These wereundertaken with eight of the campus-based participants selected to represent the fourmain cultural groups: Middle Eastern, Asian, British-European and American. Amajor purpose of the interviews was to find out the extent to which participants’online behaviours ‘matched’ previously reported ‘typical characteristics’ of the differ-ent cultural groups. The linguistic and geographical backgrounds of each VLE partic-ipant were established from questionnaire data. This information was used alongside‘cultural types’—a classification based on behaviours identified from a synthesis of theliterature (in particular Hall, 1976; Bradley & Bradley, 1984; Hofstede, 1984, 1986;Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988; Ting-Toomey et al., 1991; Martens, 1994; Cross& Markus, 1999), and said to be associated with people from different cultures andevident in teaching and learning situations. Cultural types include the high/lowcontext culture, individualistic/collectivistic culture and affirmative/deferentialculture. Table 1 summarises categorisations for the eight interviewees, showing theirrepresented cultural groups and, in the final column, the associated culture type.

The interviews were structured to enable responses to some parts of the question-naire to be explored in more detail and for issues arising from the discussion forumabout cultural differences in learning in a VLE to be taken up to facilitate the

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generation of ideas about making VLEs more culturally sensitive. An open, conver-sational style was adopted in the interviews (Kvale, 1996). All interviews wererecorded and transcribed. Coding and theme development were used to analyse andsynthesise interview data giving rise to the identification of recurrent themes, ideas,words and phrases. These were compared, contrasted and consolidated in triangula-tion with data from the questionnaires and the online discussion. An additionalfeature, explored through analysis of all the data, was to find out the students’ reac-tions to and thoughts about adding cultural and language elements into the virtualeducational experience, and to identify any new factors which might have emergedfrom the data. In the report that follows, names are omitted in order to protectanonymity.

Findings

The responses showed that participants saw cultural and language differences as themajor barriers to online communication (Figure 2). In many respects, data from theinterviews and online discussion confirmed and supported this. Three of the mostsignificant themes that emerged from the study were: (1) participants’ expectation ofa VLE; (2) issues of cultural difference; and (3) issues of linguistic difference. Not allof the issues are exclusive to VLEs. Many deal with matters of wider educationalsignificance which come to the fore in virtual educational situations.

Table 1. Categorisation of participants’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds

Continents Countries included Language Cultural types

Asia Eastern China Chinese CollectivisticHigh ContextDeferential

South-Central Iran Farsi (Persian)

CollectivisticHigh ContextDeferential

Western & Middle East

Oman & Saudi Arabia

ArabicArabic

CollectivisticHigh ContextDeferential

America North Mexico Spanish CollectivisticLow ContextDeferential

Europe Northern United Kingdom English IndividualisticLow ContextAffirmative

Ireland English IndividualisticLow ContextAffirmative

Southern Greece Greek CollectivisticLow contextAffirmative

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Figure 2. The reasons for encountering communicational problems (few respondents provided more than one reason)

Participants’ expectation of a VLE

All those who responded to the questionnaire felt that the knowledge provided in theeducational enquiry course (delivered in ‘face-to-face’ mode but supported througha VLE) was challenging but very helpful to their future research. Most (20 of the 22respondents) considered that there were not enough opportunities for them to inter-act and communicate with peers in their face-to-face lectures. Of the 22 respondents,15 agreed that the VLE was functional and provided them with a more flexible spacethan the classroom for communication regardless of time and location. The lecturerecording facility was reported to be a popular feature; participants can use this to re-run a lecture in order to reinforce their understanding. However, in the interviews,three students who had strong information and communication technology back-grounds commented that the web site did not fulfil their expectations of a VLE, citingin particular lack of good management. The problems students encountered includeddifficulty with logging on, inaccessible hyperlinks and lack of up-to-date informationin relation to the module.

In general, email was the most popular choice for participants’ online communica-tion (see Figure 3). Although most of the students visited the online discussion forumfrom time to time, only 6 out of 28 students were regular participants, postingmessages and replying to other people’s comments. Four of these reported finding

Figure 2. The reasons for encountering communicational problems (few respondents provided more than one reason)

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that asynchronous discussion allowed them to communicate with others without feel-ing under pressure of time. This was particularly important for some internationalrespondents whose competence with English was a barrier to synchronous communi-cation. Two of the respondents treated online discussion as an integral part of theirlearning following from the face-to-face lecturing and indicated that the online forumprovided a good environment for exchanging perspectives on course content.However, time constraints were a big concern and for many these were cited as thereason why they did not join the discussion, as they thought that the online writtenresponse required more time to prepare, especially if their writing skills were poor.Figure 3. The tools of communication students preferred in a VLE (few respondents chose more than one preferred tool of communication)One British student cited a lack of confidentiality as a reason for not making moreuse of the discussion forum. Personal identities are not hidden in any way, so peopleare all identifiable, and he thought this compromised free expression. Anotherstudent suggested that the low response rate for online discussion was due to partic-ipation being optional. Responses suggested that many of the respondents did notrecognise the online work as part of the course, and so did not take it seriously.

In summary, students’ expectations of a VLE fell into eight broad ‘categories’: fourderived from negative feedback via the questionnaires and interviews, and fourderived from positive feedback. The categories arising from positive feedback were:accessibility, interactivity, repeatable content and asynchronous communication.The categories arising from negative feedback were: the need for good management,confidentiality, tutors’ participation and writing support. These responses are specific

Figure 3. The tools of communication students preferred in a VLE (few respondents chose more than one preferred tool of communication)

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to this study, and can therefore be assumed to be influenced strongly by the subjectcontent, the mode of operation of the course and the needs of this particular group ofdoctoral students working in an intercultural learning environment.

Issues of cultural difference

Questionnaire data revealed that a majority of respondents (19) claimed to be cultur-ally aware while working in a VLE alongside people from such a range of cultures,and 17 respondents agreed that being involved in such an environment would benefittheir research. However, they also felt that cultural differences did impact on theirlearning and communication. Evidence of cultural disconnection took the form ofdifferent preferred learning styles, different forms of communication and different personalexpectations. These are discussed below, along with three more cultural differencesthat emerged from and were related to the content of the course being studied (i.e.the ‘nature of educational enquiry’): the ‘critical stance’, the ‘ethical stance’ and differentexperiences of policy-making.

Learning styles. Learning style preferences are partly shaped by culture. Kolb (1976)and Tobias (1990) provide detailed discussions on different learning styles. Somestudents had been tutor-oriented learners in their native countries and tended to relyheavily on direction from their tutors, even in a VLE. In contrast, other studentstended to be peer-oriented learners who believed that more interaction amongstudents should be encouraged. As one of the students observed:

Western students seem to be more active than Eastern students. They pose more questionsrelated to the course. They would like to express their views on certain issues or questionsin public and even raise debates between classmates on certain topics. For Easternstudents, they seem to be more reserved in the class and are not so responsive to thetutor … (Chinese participant)

Views expressed during interviews, and data from the analysis of online discussion,suggest that the learning styles of individuals were flexible and changed according toparticular situations. In this study, English students played an active role in face-to-face lectures but tended to be passive in the VLE, whereas Chinese students werepassive in classroom-based learning but participated more actively in online commu-nication. These observations challenge the pre-identified/preconceived ‘expectations’noted in Table 1. They reveal the importance of interrelationships between learningstyle, cultural behaviour and learning situation.

Forms of communication. Analysis of the online discussion forum revealed that themajority of participants who regularly joined the discussion, posted messages andreplied to the comments and opinions of others were international students. In theinterview, these same people reported that they often showed much more passivestyles in face-to-face classroom debates. This supports the finding of Jones (1998),who states that face-to-face communication is threatening for those who feel less

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confident about their spoken English or who hold culturally based perceptions ofsilence and reticence. Non-native English-speaking students felt that online commu-nication could help them improve some linguistic weaknesses such as spelling andbasic grammar. They also felt they had time to check the relevant materials if theywere confused by terms or concepts introduced in the course. The followingcomments illustrate different communication preferences of two of the students:

I prefer writing to oral communication. It is difficult to get people’s point through face-to-face talking, especially for the philosophical debates. (Greek participant)

I prefer a real time discussion rather than an asynchronous discussion forum, I don’t haveany problem with language and I prefer to get an immediate response. (British participant)

Personal expectations. In this study, participants were mainly mature students withvaried personal and professional goals. Some of them were funded by their govern-ments or institutions that had expectations about what would be achieved. Also,students with different cultural backgrounds have different personal expectations, notjust for their own learning, but also for their communication with other students andwith tutors. These differences become apparent in a shared learning environment,and may influence subsequent work in it. For example one student noted:

Some people from my class, they didn’t smile, they didn’t laugh, they didn’t show anypositive reaction and they even didn’t talk … after a while, I understood that the way Iexpected was not the way they expected … (Iranian participant)

The ‘critical stance’. Most of the international students commented that they hadencountered problems with understanding the concept of being critical; they feltunsure of what was expected of them when they were asked to be critical. The mainreason identified was different philosophical thinking in the different educationalsystems of the respective countries. For example:

We have been asked to write several critical analyses. But, what does the word ‘critical’mean here? Although I knew this term is very popular in the Western higher education, Inever really catch what it exactly means, because in our country, such term seldom appearsin the circle of education. (Chinese participant)

The ‘ethical stance’. Some of the international students had difficulties in applyingprior research skills in a British educational research tradition. Despite the fact thatduring the course students spent time learning Western research ethics, they felt thatdoing research in their own countries was easier. They also found difficulties whenapplying British ethical requirements to their own cultural contexts.

… in the UK researchers are supposed to conduct their studies in a formal manner andcomply with certain well-defined policies of code of conduct using, for example, aninformed consent, and treating the participants with a high degree of respect and value,whereas in my country, researchers don’t bother to design an informed consent, and whena researcher asks participants to sign an informed consent, the participants find thatamusing, funny, or even lack of trust. (Saudi participant)

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Experiences of policy-making. Conflicts between different cultures often occur atpolitical, social and economic levels. Politics is an environmental factor that has adirect influence on educational research. While students are required to develop anunderstanding of the relationships between educational research, politics and theexercise of power, confusion arises because British policy-making systems may bevery different from those in their own countries.

… while policy makers in the UK make evidence-based decisions, in my country most poli-ticians would make decisions based on their intuition or on what other countries do with-out considering the context … (Mexican participant)

Issues of linguistic difference

Both native and non-native English-speaking students referred to language differ-ences as a major factor that contributed to a feeling of ‘cultural disconnection’ in theVLE. Although the VLE minimises dependency on spoken interaction as most of thecommunication is through text, this in itself gives rise to problems of miscommuni-cation and misunderstanding because of different usages of words and writing styles.

Some students pointed out that difficulties with language gave rise to problemssuch as a lack of confidence, which in turn caused a disconnection between nativespeakers and non-native speakers. One student noted:

I do find difficulties especially when I discuss with a group of international students, theyall looked at me and expected me to speak only because I am a native English speaker. Ifelt they don’t have confidence at all even if they do have the knowledge. (Britishparticipant)

Two other students also raised issues stemming back to language problems:

Although I love to communicate with people, I couldn’t [do it] as I don’t competent inEnglish … for me, cultural difference are easier to bridge compare with language difference.(Omani participant)

The Western students are more active in the face-to-face lectures; it is obvious to see thatit is because of their language advantage. They prefer the immediate responses. However,for international students, we need time to think and to digest. (Chinese participant)

The problems students encountered most in the discussion forum included: theirlow speed in reading and writing in English, the slow responses when they had toconstruct ideas in English, and misunderstandings during the discussion andinterpretation of other people’s comments. The students who struggled with Englishsuggested that the analysis of cultural differences should pay serious attention to theissue of language difficulties.

Apart from difficulties with English, 16 students (both native and non-nativeEnglish speakers) noted that the course was hard to understand because of theunfamiliar philosophical terminology involved, for example use of terms such as‘paradigm’, ‘epistemology’, ‘positivism’ and so on. For those international studentswho also had difficulties with use of English, the unfamiliar terminology madethem more perplexed and less confident while communicating with peers for the

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course-related topics. Similarly, nine Eastern students experienced problems withconcepts when used in a Western philosophical context, illustrating links betweenlanguage and knowledge. Some of the native English students explained that theypreferred to communicate with other native English speakers because it was morestraightforward for them. This was also true of the international students; most ofthem (10) felt more comfortable when communicating with those who have Englishas a second or foreign language rather than native English speakers. In this study,problems with philosophical understanding and language proficiency resulted insome factionalisation in the learning group.

Discussion

These investigations of students’ learning behaviours and their perspectives of onlineinteraction suggest that a VLE does have the potential to fulfil their expectations foractive learning. The study also demonstrates a number of difficulties internationalstudents experience with regard to language and culture, specifically in relation tosome of the core content of a taught course. Understanding and acknowledging thedifferent cultural and linguistic perspectives and needs is a necessary first step todeveloping a framework and taking action to address them.

Some of the problems noted are of a practical nature and can be resolved at a locallevel. For example, the support system behind the online environment described inthis study needs to be restructured to be more accommodating of students fromdiverse backgrounds and to offer clearer guidelines about working online. Exampleslike this, although specific to the study in question, may also provide insights into thedesign of VLEs more generally so that they facilitate culturally and linguisticallysensitive communication and accommodate different cultures in a synergistic way,and thus enable students from diverse backgrounds to work together effectively.

Culture both mediates activities among members of a learning group and has aninterpretative function for the members of that group. Hofstede (1991) proposes amodel for the study of culture which comprises a set of ‘layers’, and likens it to anonion which can be peeled layer by layer in order to gradually get closer to the centreand to reveal the ‘heart’. In this study two ‘layers’ of culture were identified, whichmay be describes as the outer culture and the inner culture.

Outer culture can be defined in terms of the behaviours associated with differentcultural types mentioned previously: high/low context cultures dealing primarily withlanguage and expression; individualistic/collectivistic cultures concerning the rela-tionships between groups and individuals; affirmative/deferential cultures character-ised by politeness and social distance. Outer culture patterns provide the rudimentaryconcepts for intercultural research and are frequently cited and incorporated intoresearch in this broad area. Behaviours associated with outer culture characteristics,such as language, religious beliefs and relationship between society and individuals,are the primary factors that cause disconnection in online learning and communica-tion. Inner culture, on the other hand, can be seen as the culture of individual person-ality. It is influenced by a number of individual-specific factors such as family

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background, working experience and gender. The way an individual learns andcommunicates is an outcome of the interactions and mutually transformativerelationships between behaviours associated with outer culture characteristics, innerculture characteristics and the educational environment.

Behaviours thus change according to situations and the personalities involved. Themain findings of this study support this argument, showing that while native English-speaking students appear to cope well with verbal inputs but are passive in the onlinecommunication, non-native English-speaking students exhibit a marked preferencefor the written form of communication and are by comparison quite active in theonline discussion forum. This challenges the pre-identified/preconceived ‘expecta-tions’ associated with the cultural types noted in Table 1. For example, Table 1 iden-tifies Western and Middle Eastern as collectivistic cultures, but the behaviour of anOmani participant suggested he was an individualistic learner. This may be explainedby the fact that his difficulty with the English language isolated him from his peers interms of communication. In another example, a British participant admitted that hisheavy family and working commitments gave him less time to communicate withpeople, and even when he did ‘talk’ with others, he showed little interest andenthusiasm for the topics. The predefined ‘low context’ cultural type, which as anEnglish person he would have been identified with, is inappropriate in this case.These cases serve to illustrate that defining learning behaviour according togeneralised cultural types is over-simplistic; outer culture patterns are not the onlyconditions to determine learning behaviour. Learning behaviour deeply coheres withboth outer and inner factors in a complex and transformative interaction withlearning situations and environments.

The cultural behaviour most people exhibit in their everyday life is probably done‘unconsciously’ and with little reflection because it is part of a way of life, a set of dailybehaviours. It is probably only when individuals come into contact with people fromother cultures that they become aware of differences in their patterns of behaviour. Inthis study, the group of students came from 13 countries, with more than 10 differentfirst languages between them. Cultural awareness and a harmonious atmosphere insuch an intercultural learning environment are important. Most of the students feltpositively about working in this mixed group and considered learning in an intercul-tural environment to be beneficial; it motivated them to communicate and mostperceived this to have an associated positive impact on their learning. However, it isimportant when designing a VLE not to expect a common set of behaviours associ-ated with the majority culture. Individual cultures and their associated behavioursshould be respected and accommodated through shared activities that are culturallysensitive as well as academically appropriate.

Differences in culture and individual background require attention to be given topeople’s different expectations about learning, as there is a direct effect on commu-nication when students all share the same learning environment but are expecting andrequiring different things from it. As this study indicates that learning and communi-cation styles are flexible and change according to personalities and situations, theVLE should provide sufficient flexibility to meet diverse needs and expectations. For

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instance, in this study, the complexity and challenges of the subject matter madeasynchronous tools the most appropriate for online communication for non-nativeEnglish speakers. But opportunities for synchronous communication should still beavailable to those students who want immediate responses, as it provides a more‘natural’ environment, allowing students to chat together in ‘real time’, in immediateand active ways.

This study highlighted the importance of ‘time’ factors in communication througha VLE. It is important to take these into consideration at the design stage of a VLE.A real-time voice (audio) chat facility may be challenging from a language point ofview, but its use may help overcome some of the time-consuming matters manystudents raised. Moreover, a text support system, where spoken words or the keywords of a conversation are simultaneously displayed on screen, would aid cognitionand comprehension, and help those wanting to communicate synchronously but whofind their spoken English a barrier to doing so. Most importantly, from a technicalpoint of view, asynchronous and synchronous forms of communication should beinterchangeable, so that users can switch between different modes within the sameenvironment, according to who they are talking with and what they are talking about.Improvements to both modes of communication need to be considered, and theinclusion of spelling and grammar facilities linked to the asynchronous discussionforum is one possibility, as non-native English speakers are often conscious andconcerned about what they consider to be their limited written English skills.

Although enhancing different forms of communication to assist internationalstudents with their language difficulties is important, attention should also be paid tothe issue raised by a British student about anonymity for inputs into the discussionforum. The divulgence of identity may inhibit some students. Expressing personalopinions may be difficult for some people, especially if the opinions are of a type notencouraged within the home culture. Although there was only one student in this studywho raised the issue of confidentiality, designing more flexibility into discussion facil-ities to enable anonymity in certain situations is worth serious consideration. Face-to-face discourse is mediated through situation-specific protocols and varies accordingly;there is no reason why online discourse should not operate in a similar way.

Collis (1999) considers flexibility is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition forresponding to culturally related differences among different actors in universitycourses. She suggests that ‘sensitivity needs to come from better skills and morewisdom in terms of listening to and observing persons from cultures outside our own’(Collis, 1999, p. 212). In this study, students encountered some culturally relateddifficulties which can be said to be global in character, for example differences in crit-ical and ethical stances and different experiences of policy-making. Compared withsome of the more practical matters raised earlier, global ones cannot be easily resolvedat a local level. However, conflicts and confusions among learners who have diversebackgrounds might be reduced if tutors recognise differences and have an under-standing of them and if finer resolution, and thus greater sensitivity, is designed intoVLEs by adopting some of the features offered by the latest technology (see theConclusion). Rather than being fixed entities, VLEs could be designed as flexible

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environments so that they could be adapted to the cultural needs of the people usingthem. Co-design as well as collaboration would minimise cultural misunderstandingwhile promoting transformative, contextualised and culturally responsive learning.

This study highlights the importance of language in cultural disconnection. Prob-lems with language adversely affected communication for international studentswhile working in a VLE. There were frequent misunderstandings during discussionand about the interpretation of other people’s comments. Writing styles and the usageof words are influenced by cultural behaviours, for example low context cultures tendto use more explicit words to express messages while high context cultures use moreimplicit ways of communication. An Asian student pointed out that some words areused frequently in an English academic tradition but seldom in his own culture, forexample ‘seminar’, ‘critical’ and ‘plagiarise’. Words may be ideologically charged, orpolitically sensitive, or may belong to a particular world view.

Most of the international students in this study exhibited signs of an underlyinglack of learner confidence, which interpretation of the data suggested was partially, atleast, related to their linguistic abilities. Also, since language influences humanthought processes (Hunt & Banaji, 1988), for those students who have English as asecond or foreign language more time is required to think and present ideas. Themultitasking involved typically requires them first to construct ideas about the topicin their mother tongue, or first language, and then ‘translate’ those ideas into English,the language being used for communication.

Another issue raised in this study was the absence of paralanguage in the VLE.Paralanguage includes tone and character of voice, body language and proxemics, thesocially conditioned spatial dynamics of human relations. These things are culturallybound and help facilitate effective communication and, just as importantly, preventor minimise ineffective communication. In a VLE paralanguage is not apparent andthus communication between people from different cultural backgrounds is fraughtwith the possibility of misunderstanding. In the course described here, face-to-facelectures were audio recorded and made available in the VLE. This was seen as a veryuseful facility because it allowed students to go back over lectures in their own time.Audio recording enhanced with an optional video format, so students can see thetutor’s facial expressions and body movements, would be a first step towardsaccommodating paralanguage in virtual education.

The international students in this study felt they were not adequately prepared forthe obstacles they encountered when they came to access the VLE. Unfamiliarityleads to feelings of isolation that some students experienced. A context-setting intro-ductory workshop, with cultural and social interaction as well as technical induction,might enhance communication and the exchange of ideas with peers and provide agradual, guided introduction to enable students to become familiar with the course,the learning environment and the practicalities of working and communicatingonline. Such a workshop might address the different linguistic skills needed for work-ing in a VLE compared with a face-to-face situation, and ways in which non-nativespeakers might be supported in their written English in this academic, but still rela-tively informal, genre of communication.

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The importance of skilled and senior tutors participating in the online community,especially in intercultural situations, cannot be over-emphasised. Although studentsin this study were working at a high academic level, and were generally self-motivatedand self-directed learners, they still needed someone whom they felt had more knowl-edge in the subject area to lead and steer discussion. When tutors were regularlyonline, students made more use of the online discussion facility. Tutor ‘presence’ isparticularly important when students encounter unfamiliar and/or culturally specificterminologies, concepts and philosophies. As content is developed within a course, itssociocultural and historical contexts need to be explored. In the course describedhere, philosophical terms and ideas were introduced that were either unfamiliar tosome participants, or held different cultural associations for them. Whilst facilitieslike an online glossary may help, the real need is for appropriate contextualisation.

Conclusion

In the last two decades, information and communication technologies have materiallychanged the processes of education. Educational institutions worldwide use VLEs tosupport teaching and learning in a wide range of subjects. However, most VLEs donot offer a good intercultural learning environment. Course designers and tutorswould benefit from greater insights into the cultural differences that affect teachingand learning in virtual situations. This study supports the view of Collis (1999) thatwhile individual designers and tutors can redesign courses for more cultural flexibil-ity, good institutional leadership and effort is needed before students can experiencea consistent and system-wide online support service.

Many of the problems reported in this study are not new, and some have been wellreported in the literature on virtual education (e.g. Sutton & Tse, 1997; Chen et al.,1999; Joo, 1999; Vita, 2001; Selinger, 2004). Most proposed ‘solutions’ areconcerned with local improvements to existing infrastructures. However, we openedthis paper with the assertion that sociocultural theory requires us to consider themutual transformation of learner and learning environment. This in turn leads to thenotion of adaptive educational environments. Adaptation is a characteristic of anysocial situation, including the conventional classroom, as individuals accommodateeach other through activity and discourse. The site of this activity, the environment,is changed in the process, often in subtle but sometimes in dramatic ways. For virtualsituations the argument needs to be taken a stage further. The virtual environment isin some respects contrived, a designed surrogate for the ‘real thing’. In the currentgeneration of VLEs, the dynamic between learner, tutor and infrastructure isconstrained. An intelligent learning environment would enable a more ‘natural’ inter-action between all participants and adapt itself to those interactions.

In conclusion, we mention briefly some of the technological developments thatmight contribute to the design of culturally adaptive VLEs:

● Shared augmented reality is the term given to collective experience augmented bysocial software.

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● Augmented memory denotes a hyperstructure where filters become intelligent agentsand offer possibilities of educational histories and memories and ontologicallydriven learning through cumulative, personalised connections.

● Semantic/syntactic webs involve agents and a natural language system that reasonabout narration, augment structures, undertake intelligent aggregation of materialand support interpretation rather than simply provide answers.

These technologies offer the prospect of virtual environments that operate aseducational ecologies rather than computerised support systems. Discussion andfurther details of the technologies, and a review of related educational literature, canbe found in O’Malley and Fraser (2005).

The notion of virtual environments as educational ecologies is discussed in Loi andDillon (2006). In ecological terms, all elements of the learning environment, includ-ing people and infrastructure, are seen as resources in the broadest sense. The systemneeds to be considered as a whole since change in one of its parts leads to change inthe relations between the remaining parts. Loi and Dillon describe ‘designed inter-ventions’—technologically and pedagogically mediated interventions that facilitateparticular educational outcomes. These principles may also be applied to VLEs:cultural and linguistic sensitivity achieved through good use of technology andappropriate (i.e. adapted) pedagogies.

The next generation of intelligent learning environments might enable some of thecultural and linguistic disconnections outlined in this paper to be addressed moreprofoundly. But even in the most technologically sophisticated virtual environment,the mediating relationship between tutor and student is paramount. Technologicaladvances will require more not less sensitive engagement between tutors and studentsin virtual environments. However, as tutors and students are seldom the people whodesign and manage VLEs, a more functional relationship between all of the actors isimplied. As Goodfellow (2005), from a review of the literature on VLEs and theirimplementation in a variety of educational contexts, observes, the practices of virtualcommunication and the social practices that give rise to learning communitiesreciprocally shape each other. To be inclusive, adaptive educational environmentsshould not simply accommodate social interactions, but have the capacity to changein response to them.

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