THE BENEFITS OF SOCIO-CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF E-LEARNING IN THE ACADEMIC SYSTEM

Abstract

Nowadays all the students, no matter the nationality, develop critical and reflective thinking skills and are encouraged to care about the world around them. Thus they may realize that some degrees of personal or social transformations are required. Taking into consideration this, it is important to note that transformational process can be enhanced with online learning (especially e-learning). Therefore, knowledge about the relationship between culture and online education is very relevant. The goal of this study is to explore the relationship between national culture and the usability of an e-learning system. Hofstede's cultural dimensions (Power Distance, Individualism/Collectivism, Masculine/Feminine, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-term Orientation vs. Short-Term Orientation, Indulgence vs. Restraint) will be used to guide the cultural aspects of this study. We will conclude that individual cultural backgrounds contribute substantially to the usability of most online learning systems. Teachers can talk about crafting or designing the learner experience, but the level of control over learner experience is quite indirect and mediated by several factors not under teacher control. The participants will be observed while performing tasks and will be given a questionnaire at the completion of the tasks. The results of this study could be useful and interesting for academic environments. Today, despite information technologies such as the World Wide Web, there is no "global village culture" and we have not reached Francis Fukuyama's "end of history". Repeated measurements of culture show that countries that get richer get more individualistic. For the other dimensions, no such trends are apparent. Since worldwide differences in wealth are on the rise, this would point to increasing cultural differences, not cultural convergence.