The Role of Culture in Student Contributions to Online Group Work
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In the face of the growing numbers of international students in the UK, many universities have encountered challenges to integrating them into the classroom and larger campus community. One strategy for combatting these difficulties is the use of group work. However, group work can also be challenging for students, particularly when they must work with diverse group members. One explanation for these challenges could be that cultural and personality traits influence human behaviour in group work in different ways, leading to mismatched expectations between group members. In order to test this notion, we used Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and the Big Five Personality Dimensions to answer the important question: How do culture and personality traits influence the types of contributions that students make in group work? Our study is based on a lab activity in which 58 business school students participated, involving a Harvard Business School case study and using an online chat for communication. Our analysis suggests that cultural traits in particular influence and can predict student group work behaviours.
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The Role of Culture in Student Contributions to Online Group Work
- 1. The Role of Culture in Student Contributions to Online Group Work Jenna Mittelmeier Institute of Educational Technology The Open University, UK @JLMittelmeier Co-Authors: Yingfei Heliot (University of Surrey) Bart Rienties (The Open University) Denise Whitelock (The Open University)
- 2. Over 425,000 international students in the UK (HESA, 2013) ‘Passive xenophobia’ on UK campuses (Harrison & Peacock, 2009) https://flic.kr/p/fNoxPM
- 3. Group Work • Foster cross-culture communication (Cruickshank, Chen, & Warren, 2012) • Increase social networks (Rienties, Heliot, & Jindal-Snape, 2013) https://flic.kr/p/fKkZKS
- 4. Many students prefer group members from their own cultural background (Strauss, U, & Young, 2011; Summers & Volet, 2008; Volet & Ang, 1998)
- 6. Research Questions ● How do cultural and personality traits influence the ways that students contribute to group work? ● To what extent can students’ cultural and personality traits predict the ways they contribute to group work?
- 8. Harvard Business School Case Study
- 9. Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions • High: Strong hierarchies, submission to authority • Low: Flatter organisations, Stronger emphasis on teamworkPower Distance Index • High: Focus on ’I,’ free speech encouraged, Expected to speak up • Low: Focus on ‘we,’ group harmony focus, avoidance of confrontation Individualism vs Collectivism • High: Ego-oriented, conflict resolved through force • Low: Relationship oriented, conflict resolved through negotiationMasculinity vs Femininity • High: Preference for structure, formality with strangers • Low: Comfortable with unstructured environment, informality with strangers Uncertainty Avoidance Index • High: Focus on the future, willing to delay immediate gratification • Low: Focus on the immediate, focus on immediate gratificationPragmatism • High: Free gratification of desires, more positive and extraverted • Low: Believes desires should be curbed, less positive and more cynicalIndulgence vs Restraint Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010
- 10. Big Five Personality Dimensions •High: Enjoys interacting, energetic, enthusiastic, talkative •Low: More socially reserved, quiet, low-keyExtraversion •High: Values getting along with others; Willing to compromise •Low: Uncooperative, suspicious, unconcerned of others’ well-beingAgreeableness •High: Self-disciplined, prefers planned activities •Low: Impulsive, can more easily handle spontaneityConscientiousness •High: Tolerant to stress, calm, less easily upset •Low: less tolerant to stress, easily upset; higher anxietyEmotional Stability •High: Intellectually curious, willing to try new things, imaginative •Low: Straightforward, prefers familiarity, Resistant to change Openness to Experience McCrae & John, 1992
- 11. Data Retained and Analysed Students’ nationality (converted to Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions) Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) survey (Gosling et al., 2003) Students’ module grades Number of posts to online chat Summed word count submitted Number of references to case study material information
- 12. Agreeableness (α = .011) Conscientiousness (α = .142) Emotional Stability (α = .390) Extraversion (α = .566) Openness to Experience (α = .690) Ten Item Personality Inventory Reliability
- 13. Findings – Bivariate Analysis
- 14. Findings - Regression Analysis Number of Posts Made 30.3% of variation explained by: Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance (β= -.419, p = .001) Hofstede’s Individualism (β=.329, p = .007)
- 15. Hi….does anyone know what is happening here? Are we supposed to give just one best step…? Sorry about my typo…
- 16. Findings - Regression Analysis Number of Posts Made 30.3% of variation explained by: Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance (β= -.419, p = .001) Hofstede’s Individualism (β=.329, p = .007)
- 17. If morale is low, it might be because they are hiring external people rather than focusing on the staff they already have Yes, more training for existing foremen, so they can work better and be promoted more easily that fits with my idea of more opportunities to be promoted :)
- 18. Summed Word Count Submitted 25.5% of variation explained by: Hofstede’s Masculinity (β= -.419, p = .001) Hofstede’s Individualism (β=.329, p = .007) Findings - Regression Analysis
- 19. Our assignment is to give ONE suggestion on how to stop the high rate of turnover Can you be a bit more specific about the special information you were given? That’s sarcasm, yeah? Alright guys we have to find a conclusion. Everyone come with your suggestions and we’ll look at them.
- 20. Findings - Regression Analysis Number of Case Study References 5.9% of variation explained by: Hofstede’s Individualism (β=.247, p = .039)
- 21. Research Questions ● How do cultural and personality traits influence the ways that students contribute to group work? ● To what extent can students’ cultural and personality traits predict the ways they contribute to group work?
- 22. Practical Implications for Educators Scaffolding Role assignment Assessment
- 23. References • Cruickshank, K., Chen, H., & Warren, S. (2012). Increasing international and domestic student interaction through group work: a case study from the humanities. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(6), 797-810. • Gosling, S. D., Rentfrom, P. J., & Swann, W. B. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504-528. • Harrison, N., & Peacock, N. (2009). Cultural distance, mindfulness and passive xenophobia: using Integrated Threat Theory to explore home higher education students' perspectives on 'internationalisatin at home'. British Educational Research Journal, 36(6), 2009. • Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (3rd ed.): McGraw-Hill. • McCrae, R. R., & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the Five-Factor Model and its applications. Journal of Personality, 60(2), 175-215. • Rienties, B., Heliot, Y., & Jindal-Snape, D. (2013). Understanding social learning relations of international students in a large classroom using social network analysis. Higher Education, 66, 489-504. • Skinner, C. W., & Beckham, H. (2008). Treadway Tire Company: John dissatisfaction and higher turnover at the Lima plant. Harvard Business School Brief Case 082-189. • Strauss, P., & U, A. (2007). Group assessments: Dilemmas facing lecturers in multicultural tertiary classrooms. Higher Education Research & Development, 26(2), 147-161. • Summers, M., & Volet, S. (2008). Students' attitudes towards culturally mixed groups on international campuses: Impact of participation in diverse and non-diverse groups. Studies in Higher Education, 33(4), 357-370. • Volet, S. E., & Ang, G. (1998). Cultural mixed groups on international campuses: An opportunity for inter-cultural learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 17(1), 5- 23.
- 24. Contact Information Jenna Mittelmeier Institute of Educational Technology The Open University, UK jenna.mittelmeier@open.ac.uk Twitter: @JLMittelmeier
Editor's Notes
- In 2013, there were over 425,000 international students in the UK. Although international students can be found in all disciplines, some faculties see a larger concentration than others. For instance, a full 38% of registered business students in the UK are international. 32% of engineering students are international, 25% in law, and the like. As you can imagine, this changes the dynamics of the classroom. International students bring a host of benefits to UK campuses, not just economically, but also in the classroom due to the increased potential for cross-cultural communication and exchange of ideas. However, the process of integrating on campus, particularly socially, is not easy for international students. In fact, a culture of ‘passive xenophobia’ has been noted towards international students from host national students. It has also been heavily documented that international students face challenges in forming connections with host national students and that their social networks tend to rather homogenous, comprised by mostly students from the same country, similar culture or religion. This is unfortunate as it diminishes the potential for knowledge exchange between diverse groups of students.
- One potential solution to this problem is the use of collaborative group work in the classroom. After all, group work can force students to work with one another when they might not otherwise have a reason to communicate. Indeed, group work has been shown to increase cross-cultural communication and foster more cross-cultural social connections between classmates.
- However, using cross-cultural group work comes with its own challenges. For instance, many students dislike group work and prefer to complete it with students of a similar cultural background. This could be for a number of reasons, such as perceived asymmetrical workload, cultural stereotypes, or communication barriers. But one weakness in the current literature, is that it tends to rely on student reflections of the problem, rather than analysing actual student behaviours to see how they differ, such as with learning analytics.
- One explanation could be that cultural and personality traits influence human behaviour in group work in different ways, leading to mismatched expectations between group members. Students’ frustrations with cross-cultural group work might be avoided if they (and their instructors) have more realistic expectations at the start of their projects about the types of contributions that their culturally diverse peers naturally gravitate towards in group work.
- So that is where this research positions itself. In this study, we looked at two primary research questions. First, we wanted to know how culture and personality traits influence student contributions to group work. Second, we wanted to know if student behaviours could be predicted by culture and personality traits.
- This research was conducted in a master’s level module at a UK business school. Altogether, we had 58 participants from 58 countries. This study took place in a computer lab environment, where we split students into small groups of 3-5 students. Students were seated around the lab so that they did not sit adjacent to any of their group members. Next, we asked them to roleplay. Students were asked to pretend that they were members of an international consultant agency, tasked with a problem by one of their clients. We asked them to pretend they were working from their own home countries with experts from around the world, using an online chat as their sole means of communication. In this sense, the activity mimicked a real-world task that they might be asked to participate in during their business careers.
- The problem that students were given was based on a Harvard business school case study. This case study outlined a tire company that was facing a high worker turnover rate. The case study was about 15 pages long, but we divided it so that each group member received a unique set of information in order to foster communication. Much of the case study information was text based. However, some of it was also raw data. We gave participants about 15 minutes of reading time, then asked them to log into an online chat system through their VLE. At this point , students were given 45 minutes to discuss in the online chat to determine one best solution to the problem.
- In order to analyse culture and personality, we adopted two quantitative scales in this research. For culture, we retained information about students’ nation of origin, and converted it to Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions. Hofstede argues that culture can be represented by a set of six dimensions, shown here. Each dimension is a quantitative scale and it varies by country. Each scale measures things like the strength of hierarches in a country, individual vs group focus, ego vs relationship orientation, preference for structure vs comfort in unstructured environments, focus on the future vs focus on the immediate, or free gratification of desires vs a belief that desires should be curbed. However, we recognized that Hofstede’s framework is flawed. Indeed, it would be impossible to measure cultural quantitatively without flaws. One criticism of Hofstede’s framework is that it focuses on very macro-level influences, ignoring the more micro-level influence on individual behaviour. For this reason, we also wanted to look at personality.
- To measure this, we adopted the Big Five Personality Dimensions, which is a commonly used scale to measure personality in psychology and educational psychology. This measurement highlights five major traits of individual personality: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience. These scales are typically captured by survey. In this study, we used the Ten Item Personality Inventory, which is a short, 10-question survey that measures Big Five dimensions.
- In this study, we retained various informational data about students, such as their nationality (which we converted to Hostede’s cultural dimension scales), the results of a Ten Item Personality Inventory, as well as students’ module grades. We used this data to analyse behavioural traces of students in the chat, such as the number of posts made and the summed word count submitted. Finally, we did a bit of textual analysis and manually coded when students made an explicit reference to information they were given as part of the case study materials.
- Now, while the Ten Item Personality Inventory has been found to be a reliable method of obtaining Big Five Personality Dimensions, we unfortunately found in our case that the cronbach alphas of 3/5 scales were too low to be considered reliable. One explanation for this could be that most participants were non-native English speakers and that translation errors skewed their answers to certain questions. Nevertheless, two of the scales did demonstrate reasonable reliability: Extraversion and Openness to Experience. For analysis, therefore, only these two scales were used.
- Now, what did we find? We started with bivariate analysis to determine some simple correlations. We looked specifically at whether our behavioural traces correlated with students’ Hofstede’s dimensions, personality traits, or module grades. Culture in particular significantly correlated with all three of the behaviour traces analysed. Surprisingly, neither personality traits nor student grades correlated.
- Next, we conducted stepwise regression analysis to determine the predictive power of culture and personality traits. In this analysis, we used three individual dependent variables, which were our behavioural traces – number of posts, summed word count, and number of case information references. Our independent variables were, again, students’ Hofstede’s dimensions, personality dimensions, and grades. For the number of posts made, our regression analysis demonstrated that a full 30.3% of the variation could be explained by two cultural traits – Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance and Individualism. This tells us that students from cultures that feel less comfortable with unstructured environments are predicted to post more. This makes sense, as these students may be more likely to ask questions or clarify expectations.
- Here’s a student from China, which was the country with the lowest uncertainty avoidance scale in our study. When the chat starts, this student logs in and immediately asks what is happening. Later, she asks more questions for clarifications and apologizes for typos. You can sense that she seems overall unsure and seeks reassurance from her peers.
- Additionally, this also tells us that students from more individualistic, I-centered cultures are predicted to post more. This also seems logical, as students from more individualistic cultures may feel more comfortable with free expression of ideas or opinions.
- Here’s a study from the UK, the most individualistic country in our study. This student is the first to offer their opinion…see top comment. When another student asks for suggestions, this student is the first to respond….comment #2. Finally when another student makes a suggestion, this student responds that it goes well with MY comment earlier. You can sense more confidence in comparison to the previous student.
- Next, the analysis highlighted that 25.5% of the variation in the summed word count submitted could be explained by two cultural traits – Hofstede’s Masculinity and Individualism. This shows us that more Feminine cultures, those that are more relationship-oriented and focused on conflict resolution, are more apt to submit more overall words. Again, this seems to make sense as students were working to solve a problem and students from cultures that value conflict resolution may have felt more in their element. Additionally, individualism again drives more contributions.
- Here’s a study from Denmark, our most feminine country in the study. This student is a natural leader in the group, pushing the problem solving forward. When his group members start offering too many suggestions, he reminds them they must find only ONE solution. When he doesn’t understand someone’s comment, he seeks clarifications. And when they get to the end of the assignment and still don’t have a solution, he is the one to rally everyone together to finish the task.
- Finally, when looking at the number of references to the case study information given to students, this analysis shows that 5.9% of the variation between students can be explained by Hofstede’s Individualism. However, this lower percentage, combined with fewer predictive traits, begs the question of whether the differences between diverse students’ contributions are cosmetic, or more about quantity than quality. However, a more in-depth textual analysis would be necessary to confirm this.
- So, looking back at our original research questions: what did we actually discover? Firstly, we wanted to determine how culture and personality traits influence student contributions to group work. In these sense, we found that culture is an important influence on student behaviour, which was demonstrated by both bivariate and regression analysis. However, personality did not seem to have as strong of an influence, perhaps due to the low reliability of some of the scales we used. Interestingly, student grades also did not appear to be a significant influence. Thus, this highlights that the macro-level influences of culture may be more important influences than other micro-level influences, such as personality or academic achievement. Our second research question looked at the predictive power of culture and personality traits. In the case of culture, we can say ‘yes,’ that cultural traits, at least in this study, can in fact predict the quantity of student contributions in group work. However, personality, again, was not demonstrated as a predictor, and neither was student achievement.
- The next step in this research is to highlight evidence-based interventions that can help drive more equal participation in group work across cultures. In the meantime, however, what do these findings mean, practically, for educators? Based on these findings, what tips might we give educators of diverse groups of students? First, additional scaffolding may be helpful at the start of projects to inform students how culture influences their own and others’ group participation. Too often we give students instructions about the project, but not advice about how to work effectively with one another. This is unfortunately considering that the classroom is often the first time that students have the opportunity to work closely with those from other cultures. This could be as simple as explaining Hofstede’s dimensions and giving students tools to understand that cultures, in general, vary along these lines. As culture correlates with amounts of contributions, role assignments might also encourage more equal contributions. By giving students roles with explicit instructions for how they should contribute to the group, students from more reserved cultures may feel more comfortable contributing more, for instance. Finally, I feel this has implications for the way that we look at assessment of group work. It certainly lends to the argument that students should be assessed by quality, rather than quantity of contribution as deeply ingrained factors, as culture may be influencing the quantity of participation in ways that are perhaps not immediately apparent. This research is relatively preliminary and certainly will require future studies to confirm and build upon these finding. However, if there is one key take away from what we’ve learned so far, it’s that these results further validate the notion that students’ diverse backgrounds are important influences on their measurable behaviours in the classroom, and that it should be a consideration to researchers and educators alike.