Cross-cultural Comparative Research Research Articles

Boundaries of the built environment: defining the significance of the material presence of spatial morphology in social life

Settled societies inhabit environments shaped by building activity. Geographic data in social scientific and geographical research are generally composed of architectural and social categories derived from commonplace lived experience and societal knowledge, thus carrying socio-culturally specific meaning. The mundane pragmatism of such categories conflate spaces and buildings with their use and may obstruct effective comparison. Here I introduce a set of formally redescriptive ontological concepts for built environments that operates on the basis of how differentiation and subdivision constitute distinct occupiable spaces through boundaries. An ontology of the inhabited built environment arises from the application of these socio-spatial and material concepts called ‘Boundary Line Types’ (BLT). I present and photographically illustrate the definitions of the BLTs, which are conceived on a critical realist basis and rooted in a multidisciplinary body of theory concerning the development and inhabitation of built space. Considering inhabited built environments through BLTs foregrounds the emergent logic by which spaces are divided and connected, creating configurations of boundaries as material frames that afford everyday social life. Since BLTs offer transferrable empirical principles from which these material frames emerge, they also enable diachronic and cross-cultural comparative social research. My proposition to approach social scientific built environment research through constitutive material boundaries offers a comparative complement to commonplace and socio-culturally specific spatial categories that compose most geographic data, enabling formal thick redescriptions and the potential for quantitative spatial analysis.

DRIVE-THRU REVOLUTION: ENHANCING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION THROUGH DIGITAL TWINS

In business, understanding consumers is paramount. Digital Twins technology provides virtual representations of consumers and real-time insights. This study evaluates the implementation of Digital Twins in drive-thru services, focusing on efficiency and user experience. A survey was conducted with 2000 drive-thru consumers in the US and analyzed using SEM-PLS. The findings of this study indicate the significance of Digital Twins in purchase accuracy, interactivity, and satisfaction. The importance of strategic implementation is highlighted to maximize benefits and offer a framework for secure implementation. Limitations of this research include geographical constraints of the respondents, data collection methods, and limitations in relevant literature due to the new nature of Digital Twins technology in the context of drive-thru services. Future research needs to explore cross-cultural comparative research, longitudinal studies, and mixed-methods approaches to further understand the impact of this technology.

The Relationship Between Anxiety and Maladaptive Daydreaming in Nursing Students: A Correlational Study

In this cross-sectional study conducted among nursing students in India, the research explores the intricate relationship between maladaptive daydreaming (MD) and anxiety, filling a gap in a context where limited prior research exists. Using self-administered questionnaires, including the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale (MDS-16) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the study reveals a moderate positive correlation between MD and anxiety symptoms (r = 0.494, p < .001). Notably, MD was identified as a significant predictor of 24.2% of the variance in anxiety levels among nursing students. Moreover, the Kruskal-Wallis test demonstrated significant differences in anxiety levels across groups with varying degrees of MD tendencies. This research underscores the substantial impact of maladaptive daydreaming on anxiety among nursing students, emphasizing the imperative need for tailored interventions and support mechanisms. The study offers insights into these complex psychological phenomena within a unique cultural context, setting the stage for cross-cultural comparative research and targeted strategies for this student population's well-being.

An Empirical Analysis of Influencing Factors of Government Decision-Making on Public Crisis

As the times and the world are changing in an unprecedented way, public security issues have become increasingly linked, transnational, and diverse, causing huge impacts on the global economy and society, as well as posing great challenges to the government in dealing with public crisis decision-making. This study aims to determine the factors affecting the government's crisis decision-making and analyze the interrelationship among the factors affecting the government's crisis decision-making and the performance of its crisis decision-making. The questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from 400 samples of various groups, including government department personnel, scientific research institute practitioners, university lecturers, the public, and university students, both online and face-to-face. The structural equation model (SEM) is used to evaluate the structural relationships of the relevant variables, including the crisis decision-making body, crisis decision-making procedure, crisis decision-making performance, the decision environment, and value identification. It is found that the diversified decision-making subject and decision-making environment have a positive and significant impact on the public crisis decision-making process, value identification, and decision-making performance, respectively. This study has contributed to the following issues. Firstly, it developed new measurement tools and indicators for better evaluating the quality and effect of public crisis decision-making and exploring the influence of different factors on the crisis decision-making of the government. Secondly, it employed cross-industry and cross-cultural comparative research to find commonalities and differences and provide targeted recommendations. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2024-08-02-03 Full Text: PDF

Influences on student motivation and independent learning skills: cross-cultural differences between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom

IntroductionThis study examined the ways in which different influences on student motivation and the development of independent learning (IL) skills might be constituted across students learning within different educational cultures. Previous studies on student motivation and IL have suggested the potential for differing conceptualizations of IL and its strategies (ILS), prompting questions as to the sources of these distinctions. One theory is that they might be influenced by differing cultural constructions of these concepts or may be linked to different motivations with respect to the purposes and outcomes of education.MethodsThis study addressed a research gap with respect to these differences in the British and Chinese contexts by examining the responses of students sampled from a university in Scotland and a university in Hong Kong. Through mixed-methods research comprising quantitative analysis of questionnaires and thematic analysis of interview data, this research project compared conceptualizations of IL and ILS across both these contexts and highlighted the role that student motivation might play in either context.ResultsThe analytical results showed differences in the conception of IL and the implementation of ILS potentially due to differing cultural contexts.DiscussionFurther cross-cultural comparative research is needed with a study design that excludes the influence of institutional and demographic factors to better isolate the influence of culture on perception of IL and use of ILS.

Beauty and Dao: The Transcendental Expressions of Nature from Emerson’s Prose and the Zhuangzi

As an aesthetic resource in ancient China, the Zhuangzi’s description of Dao is similar to the American philosopher Emerson’s experience of beauty, and both reveal that the essence of beauty lies in its inherent vitality, spiritual transcendence, and the unity of multidimensional connotations. Emerson defines beauty as the constitution of all things in the world and believes it to be an expression of the universe. The Zhuangzi proposes the thought of tiandi damei 天地大美 (lit. Great Beauty of heaven and earth) as a manifestation of the function of the wordless Dao. Nature, intact from any human interference, becomes the common intermediary for Emerson and the Zhuangzi to elaborate on the connotations of beauty. The Emersonian definition of beauty originates from the philosophical implication of the world in ancient Greek, whereas the meaning of Great Beauty in the Zhuangzi, which embodies the worship of heaven in primitive religion, is very close to Emerson’s definition of beauty. The pattern of mei 美 consisting of da 大 (lit. great, equivalent to Dao) and yang 羊 (lit. auspice) signifies the natural celestial phenomena predicting good or bad luck and can be seen as synonymous with Dao illuminated by Daoism. By describing such natural imagery as forest, time sequence, dawn, and wilderness, Emerson reveals the vastness, harmony, brightness, and tranquility of beauty, which not only delights the spirit but also brings the human soul back to its natural state and improves personality. Emerson’s illumination of beauty conforms to those of Dao unraveled by the Zhuangzi. Despite the difference between the former’s poetic linguistic feature and the latter’s application of allegorical fables, both resort to visualized language to express internal aesthetic perceptions of the physical nature. Using the approaches of word tracing, textual comparison, and logical analysis, this article identifies the consistency in the original meanings of beauty in both Emerson’s essays and the Zhuangzi first and then goes on to analyze the similarities between their descriptions of natural imagery, so as to hint at the commonality in their understanding of natural beauty and verify the significance of literary language in cross-cultural comparative research.

한국인의 두려움

The purpose of this study is to analyze the meaning of the Korean emotion word ‘겁(keop)’ by applying the NSM proposed by Wierzbicka. NSM is a very linguistically and culturally neutral approach and is known to be very useful for cross-cultural comparative research based on the ethnopragmatics. This study attempted to explain the meaning of ‘keop’ by constructing a cognitive scenario with an explanatory framework consisting of canon sentences based on semantic primitives that can be universally understood in any language and their combination, syntax.
 First, ‘keop’ (1) which expresses [fear] of physical damage or threats, ‘keop’ (2) which expresses the unknown [fear] of something bad that might happen, ‘keop’ (3) which expresses the anxiety that something bad might happen, ‘keop’ (4), which is expressed in [guilt] of doing something very bad, and ‘keop’ (5), which expresses [embarrassment] when something unexpected happens. This meaning of ‘keop’ can also be compared to the meaning of emotional words such as ‘fright, fear, dread, guilt, surprised’ in English. However, the English word for ‘keop’ cannot be found, and it can only be said to be an emotional key word that comes from the cultural background of the Korean language.

Boundaries of the built environment: defining the significance of the material presence of spatial morphology in social life

Settled societies inhabit environments shaped by building activity. Geographic data in social scientific and geographical research are generally composed of architectural and social categories derived from commonplace lived experience and societal knowledge, thus carrying socio-culturally specific meaning. The mundane pragmatism of such categories conflate spaces and buildings with their use and may obstruct effective comparison. Here I introduce a formal redescriptive ontology for built environments that operates on the basis of how differentiation and subdivision constitute distinct occupiable spaces through boundaries. The ontology consists of formally redescriptive socio-spatial and material concepts called ‘Boundary Line Types’ (BLT). I present and photographically illustrate the definitions of the BLTs, which are formulated on a critical realist basis and rooted in a multidisciplinary body of theory concerning the development and inhabitation of built space. Considering inhabited built environments through this ontology foregrounds the emergent logic by which spaces are divided and connected, creating configurations of boundaries as material frames that afford everyday social life. Since BLTs offer transferrable empirical principles from which these material frames emerge, they also enable diachronic and cross-cultural comparative social research. My proposition to approach social scientific built environment research through constitutive material boundaries offers a comparative complement to commonplace and socio-culturally specific spatial categories that compose most geographic data, enabling formal thick redescriptions and the potential for quantitative spatial analysis.

Research on Psychology and Cognitive Science of Children's Dance Education

Children's dance education is an important field, which combines with the research of psychology and cognitive science to provide in-depth understanding and insight. Children's dance education contributes to the comprehensive development of children's perception, cognition and motor skills. Dance is not only a physical activity, but also a cognitive challenge, which helps to improve children's perception, memory, problem solving and creative thinking. Perception, perceptual development and the cultivation of coordination skills are one of the key goals of children's dance education. Future research directions include cross-cultural comparative research, integration of cognitive science and technology, in-depth study of emotional intelligence, research on the influence of self-concept and self-esteem, and customized learning and personalized education. These studies will help to further improve the quality of children's dance education and cultivate more children with comprehensive skills and emotional intelligence. The research of psychology and cognitive science provides a solid theoretical foundation for education in this field and promotes the continuous improvement of educational practice.

Childhood Gender Segregation in Context: A Cultural Sociocontextual Approach

Childhood gender segregation, the tendency for children to form acquaintanceships and friendships with those of the same gender (Mehta & Smith, 2019), has been proposed to be a universal phenomenon (Maccoby, 1998; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). However, as socialization and peer culture vary cross-culturally (Munroe & Romney, 2006), gender segregation may vary according to cultural context. This paper uses a sociocontextual framework to review cross-cultural comparative research on childhood gender segregation, considering cultural similarities and variations in correlates of gender segregation, including behavioral compatibility, age, the homosocial norm, availability of playmates, familiarity with peers, and gendered societal norms and constraints. In closing, the paper reflects on what cross-cultural research tells us about gender segregation and offers recommendations for future research.

Cross-Cultural Dialogue and the German Theatre in St Petersburg

This article explores the history of the German theatre in St Petersburg in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a subject forgotten for a hundred years due to historical reasons. Svetlana Melnikova uses cross-cultural research methods, which, as she has discovered, appeared in Russian criticism concerning the arts as early as the nineteenth century. The ideas of Russian scholars turned out to be concordant with modern findings in cross-cultural dialogue and comparative research methods, because the process of establishing Russian culture was influenced by earlier cultures in a variety of ways. The German diaspora in the capital of the Russian Empire at the turn of the nineteenth century, and the artistic qualities of the German theatre (the activities of its managers, the company, the repertoire, theatre buildings, as well as the target audience) described in this article, are here presented as the expressive elements of intercultural communication that provide theatre history with a sense of actuality. The author introduces unique archive materials from the Russian State Historical Archive, as well as from publications preserved in Russia-focused departments of major Russian and German libraries. Examining these materials, she reconstructs the history of this rare phenomenon in the context of the mutual influence between German and Russian theatres. Svetlana Melnikova is Professor of Art at the St Petersburg State University of Film and Television. She is the author of six books, including Kotzebue in Russia (2005), and ninety-six articles on the history, theory, and practice of theatre in Russian and German.

Unearthing the common core for reflective teacher training in Antigua and Barbuda, England, and Canada

Teacher education and training vary across the world, yet research from diverse cultures supports the development of reflective teachers. Claiming that the complex dynamics of the 21st-century classroom can be managed best by reflective teachers. Through the reflective process, teachers are empowered as change agents to modify learning environments to benefit their students. Teachers hold the power to influence student learning. Therefore, it is important to understand the training processes that serve to produce reflective practitioners. In conducting rigorous cross-cultural comparative research, identifying common evaluative indicators underpinned by a theoretical framework is critical. Hence, the principles of the pre-service emerging reflective teacher training (PERTT) model were explored quantitatively and explained qualitatively to specifically focus on teachers’ perceptions of their experiences of the psychosocial interpersonal process outcomes of the teacher-training environment (i.e. reflective practices, instructional scaffolding, guidance and support, modelled behaviours and reinforcement) provided during their teacher training. Such an exploration is critical because the philosophical underpinnings of the PERTT model have not been interrogated outside of Barbados. The findings demonstrate that there is merit to key theoretical principles of the PERTT model based on the lived experiences of the teachers in Antigua and Barbuda, England, and Canada during their teacher training.

Cross-cultural Study of Teacher Passivity through the Lens of Educational Transactional Analysis

This article was previously published in the European Research Studies Journal, Volume XXIV, Issue 3B, 72-95, 2021, and we acknowledge with thanks the permission given by that journal to reproduce it here due to its TA content.
 Like IJTARP, the ESJR is a refereed open access publication. It covers a wide variety of topics in the fields of business and economics, and can be accessed at www.ersj.eu.
 We have used minimal editing, which has included formatting and English spelling.
 Purpose: The purpose of the article is to present the research results based on the concept of passivity in accordance with the assumptions of transactional analysis – one of the psychotherapeutic modalities in the humanistic school of thought. Passivity is defined as behaviors that block constructive and solution-oriented actions.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The main research methods included diagnostic surveys and questionnaire techniques. The study used the “Reality of an Educator” questionnaire by Anna Pierzchała (2013). 441 respondents provided their answers from Guatemala, Poland, the UK and Ukraine. The differences were identified using the Kruskal–Wallis test, the equivalent of a one-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) that is commonly used for independent samples.
 Findings: The comparative cross-cultural research on teacher passive behaviours indicated significant educational differences between countries. The lowest levels of passivity were reported in Guatemala [1] and the highest in Ukraine. The Hofstede Model of Cultural Dimensions enabled the authors to outline some generic tendencies concerning passive behaviours in the countries studied. Individually reported levels of passivity were bridged with cultural determinants resulting from teachers’ social functioning.
 Practical Implications: The study offers some guidelines for tackling teacher passivity and identifies strategies of enhancing problem-solving skills. The most common passive behaviour across all countries was overadaptation, which underlined the importance of developing teachers’ awareness of interpersonal phenomena from the point of view of transactional analysis.
 Originality/Value: The research presented has not been carried out before and at this stage has an exploratory character, indicating certain inter-culturally declared patterns and at the same time determining areas for further investigation. Transactional analysis appears to be a useful theoretical construct in the design of cross-cultural comparative studies.

Self-Esteem Levels of Physical Education Teacher Candidates in Turkey and Iran: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

The aim of this study was to compare the levels of self-esteem of pre-service teachers studying in the physical education and sports teaching department in Turkey and Iran. 80 Turkish and 111 Iranian students constituted the participant group of the study designed using the cross-cultural comparative research method. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, the validity and reliability studies of which were conducted in both countries, was used as a data collection tool in the study. Two-way analysis of variance (was used to analyze the data. When pre-service teachers' self-esteem scores were analyzed, it was observed that pre-service teachers both in Turkey and in Iran were above the moderate level. However, in terms of mean self-esteem scores, although it appeared that the mean scores of preservice teachers in Turkey were higher than the mean scores of pre-service teachers in Iran, it can be said that pre-service teachers' levels of self-esteem did not differ according to the culture they live in, in other words, they were at similar levels. According to the results of the study, it was determined that self-esteem scores were not significantly different according to both gender, grade level, perceived level of academic achievement and culture variables.

Modeling Impression Formation Processes Among Chinese and Americans

This study offers the first investigation on the normative processes through which Chinese form impressions of others in social interaction. Using affect control theory and its archived sentiment data from China, I estimate the Chinese impression formation models with a new Bayesian method. I then compare the Chinese models to the impression formation dynamics in U.S. English. Results show cross-cultural commonality in the affective processing of cultural concepts, with determinants of impression formation processes being largely universal. Findings also reveal two cultural variations that align with patterns uncovered by comparative cross-cultural research: (1) the Chinese models show less rigidity in the definition of situation and (2) across two cultural models, the balance term has opposite effects on actor and behavior evaluation. To explore the implications of the impression models, I present a series of simulations, illustrating the predictive power of affect control theory as well as the impact of different cultural rules on social interaction.

Building Quantitative Cross-Cultural Databases From Ethnographic Records: Promise, Problems and Principles

Quantitative cross-cultural databases can help uncover structure and diversity across human populations. These databases have been constructed using a variety of methodologies and have been instrumental for building and testing theories in the social sciences. The processes and assumptions behind the construction of cross-cultural databases are not always openly discussed by creators or fully appreciated by their users. Here, we scrutinize the processes used to generate quantitative cross-cultural databases, from the point of ethnographic fieldwork to the processing of quantitative cross-cultural data. We outline challenges that arise at each stage of this process and discuss the strengths and limitations of how existing databases have handled these challenges. We suggest a host of best practices for cross-cultural database construction, and stress the importance of coding source meta-data and using this meta-data to identify and adjust for source biases. This paper explicitly discusses the processes, problems, and principles behind cross-cultural database construction, and ultimately seeks to promote rigorous cross-cultural comparative research.

Focus Groups as a Questionnaire Pretest for Surveys in Cross-Cultural and Cross-National Comparative Research

As a research method, focus groups have methodological advantages for understanding the views and behavior of group members or for understanding the social system as a whole, since it covers the interaction between people, groups, and the interpersonal environment quite well that widely recognized in the social sciences. These advantages are introduced in the context of mixed-methods, including conducting a survey together with focus groups as a pretest questionnaire in a comparative perspective in cross-national and cross-culture research. Focus groups provide to reach construct equivalence and elaborate an appropriate context-oriented language for questionnaire questions. Using the focus groups in this way can be an effective approach to overcoming the initial limited ability of surveys to valid measure more complex socially constructed concepts, the meaning of which can vary significantly from one group to another, especially from a comparative perspective in cross-national and cross-culture research. Using focus groups, data is collected in a more natural way, that is, more close to the real world, while the generalization is ensured by a detailed description of specific conditions, participants, and research environment. In addition, the discussion group is a miniature thinking society, and unlike dyadic interviews or surveys, focus group discussions give participants the opportunity to express their opinions, discuss their views and opinions with other participants, listen to other peoples opinions, disagree or to develop thoughts by reasoning out loud - this is similar to what happens in real life. This increased awareness about the described advantages of the approach for cross-cultural and cross-national comparative research likely contributes to its more active employ.

Cross-cultural Study of Teacher Passivity through the Lens of Educational Transactional Analysis

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to present the research results based on the concept of passivity in accordance with the assumptions of transactional analysis – one of the psychotherapeutic modalities in the humanistic school of thought. Passivity is defined as behaviors that block constructive and solution-oriented actions. Design/Methodology/Approach: The main research methods included diagnostic surveys and questionnaire techniques. The study used the “Reality of an Educator” questionnaire by Anna Pierzchala (2013). 441 respondents provided their answers from the four countries mentioned above. The differences were identified using the Kruskal–Wallis test, the equivalent of a one-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) that is commonly used for independent samples. Findings: The comparative cross-cultural research on teacher passive behaviours indicated significant educational differences between countries. The lowest levels of passivity were reported in Guatemala [1] and the highest in Ukraine. The Hofstede Model of Cultural Dimensions enabled to outline some generic tendencies concerning passive behaviours in the countries studied. Individually reported levels of passivity were bridged with cultural determinants resulting from teachers’ social functioning. Practical Implications: The study offers some guidelines for tackling teacher passivity and identifies strategies of enhancing problem-solving skills. The most common passive behaviour across all countries was overadaptation, which underlined the importance of developing teachers’ awareness of interpersonal phenomena from the point of view of transactional analysis. Originality/Value: The research presented has not been carried out before and at this stage has an exploratory character, indicating certain interculturally declared patterns and at the same time determining areas for further investigation. Transactional analysis appears to be a useful theoretical construct in the design of cross-cultural comparative studies.

Epistemic diversity and cross-cultural comparative research: ontology, challenges, and outcomes

ABSTRACT This paper reflects on the transpositional comparison in Marginson and Yang’s article in this special issue, with a focused discussion on epistemic diversity and cross-cultural comparative research. It argues that in global research, epistemic diversity largely co-exists with epistemic inequity and injustice, despite long-standing normative appeals. Against this backdrop, cross-cultural comparative studies have significant value, albeit facing a range of challenges. There are five outcomes of cross-cultural encounters: assimilation, immiscibility, and being different together (including unity in diversity, harmony with diversity, and together with diversity). Although East–West encounters demonstrated all possible outcomes, being different together is both possible and valuable, not only for East–West encounters but also for cross-civilisational comparisons.

Developing and Validating a Japanese Version of the Multidimensional Attitude toward Ambiguity Scale (MAAS)

As the COVID-19 pandemic clearly shows, we are living in an age of uncertainty and ambiguity. This study develops a Japanese version of the Multidimensional Attitude toward Ambiguity Scale (MAAS), which was originally developed by Lauriola et al. (2016) and has better psychometrics and reproducibility than previously developed personality trait scales for ambiguity. It assesses three factors: discomfort with ambiguity, moral absolutism/splitting, and need for complexity and novelty. To test our newly developed MAAS, we asked 347 participants (147 females and 200 males, =39.07, =10.58) to complete a back-translated Japanese version of the MAAS online. The Japanese version was found to have sufficient or good internal consistency, retest reliability, and construct validity. We newly found that there were correlations between attitudes toward ambiguity and several scales (e.g., subscales of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Minimalist Well-Being Scale), and that there are differences in the scores of our Japanese study participants and the Italian samples in the literature. We hope that our Japanese version of the MAAS will be actively used in future cross-cultural comparative research.