This document summarizes a study that investigated cultural differences in students' expectations of instructor support across 5 countries. The study found major differences, with South Korean students expecting more individual support compared to German students who expected mainly content selection. Understanding these differences is important to avoid conflicts in international online learning programs. The full spectrum of answers showed little overlap between Germany and South Korea, suggesting different expectations could be frustrating without preparation. The results highlight the need to tailor educational programs and communications to different cultural expectations.

1. Culture Matters: Learners’ Expectations Towards Instructor-Support
Thomas Richter
University of Duisburg-Essen
Information Systems for Production and Operations Management
Germany
thomas.richter@icb.uni-due.de
Abstract: In the context of Internet-based e-Learning, including an international auditory is a logical conse-quence.
However, due to uncertainty regarding the foreign learners, e-Learning programs often are limited to
local or national participants. Understanding the different expectations of learners regarding instructor-support
is one step in order to enable providers of educational services to tailor educational programs that fit
the requirements of an international auditory. We asked university students in five countries regarding their
expectations towards instructor-support and found major differences between the investigated countries.
Introduction
With the Internet as a central platform for education, learners from all over the world can easily be
connected. What on the one hand is a great opportunity, e. g., to fostering international exchange and reaching a
larger amount of customers, on the other hand must be understood as a tough challenge: Related Internet-based
courses do not only need to be comprehensible and manageable for the learners from those different national
contexts, but also, should meet their culture-specific understanding of what actually is motivating. Motivation is
a critical condition for productive learning in general (Pintrich & Schunk 2002). However, for e-Learning, it is
the most important factor influencing the learners’ success (Richter & Adelsberger 2011, p.1603).
In the traditional face-to-face education, decreasing motivation can be recognized through observation
and thus, appropriate counter-activities can be implemented at an early stage (Rothkranz et al. 2009, p.1). In e-
Learning scenarios, in contrast, timely recognizing decreasing motivation is extremely difficult because the vis-ual
indicators (mimics and gestures of the learners) are completely missing (Moore 1991). Thus, interventions
can only follow if the learners explicitly communicate their satisfaction and/or frustration (Sandanayake & Ma-durapperuma
2011, p.72). Depending on their cultural background, learners may rather accept unmet expecta-tions
than communicating their frustration: According to HOFSTEDE & HOFSTEDE (2005, p.53), some cultures
understand criticism towards instructors (or programs) as an expression of lacking respect (which means an in-acceptable
violation of general social rules) or at least as impoliteness.
Our investigation was inspired from NILSEN’s (2009, p.546) central research question: ‘How can lec-turers
maintain student’s initially high motivation?’ Even though any effort to increase the learners’ motivation
surely is reasonable, their already existing, initial motivation first of all should be preserved or at least not ‘de-stroyed’
(Bowman 2007, p.81) by confronting them with unnecessary conflicts. While there is a high number of
publications available which theoretically and experimentally investigate the questions what learners understand
as being motivating and which activities raise motivation (e. g., Dörnyei 1994; Williams & Burden 1997), re-search
of influences that lead to decreasing motivation is rare. NILSEN (2006) found that the main reasons for
students’ dropping out were ineffective study strategies, a mismatch between expectations and content in the
study-program, and a lack of motivation. According to BEKELE (2010, p.124-125), support services through in-structors
always play a central role for the level of satisfaction of students in higher education.
In his experiments, NILSEN (2009) implemented practical work elements and social activities in order
to maintain the initial motivation by putting the program into a practical context and fostering social relation-ships
between learners and educators. With those activities, he was able to significantly lower the dropout rate
(p.555). However, he did not focus on finding out which (missing) activities may threaten the learners’ motiva-tion.
In our study, we focused on national differences in the learners’ understanding towards which particular
services an instructor should provide during the educational process. From BEKELE’S (2010) results, we as-sumed
that the students’ motivation could directly be threatened by not meeting substantial expectations to-wards
the support through their instructors (educators, lecturers). PAECHTER ET AL. (2010) confirm our assump-tion:
They found that ‘students experience the instructor’s support and expertise as especially important for the

2. acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competences, and for course satisfaction’ (p.228). One central question for
our research was if expectations regarding the type and intensity of instructor-based services are generalizable
at all. CRONBACH & SNOW (1981) claim that the students’ understanding of aspects that are motivating for them
differs individually (p.1). BYE ET AL. (2007, p.155) in contrast, found that students had expectations in com-mon;
but those differed with increasing age. Both studies were each limited to a single national context and did
not take national differences into consideration.
For our research, we assumed that learners from different national contexts have different educational
experiences. According to GARFIELD (1995), ‘no [teaching] method is perfect and will work with all students’
(p.32). However, given our assumption were right, the students should have specific ideas and thus, expecta-tions
in common, how education should take place. As expectations, we understand ‘the standards against
which a vendor’s or service provider’s performance should be judged’ (Cooper et al. 1998, p.43). Meeting such
expectations is relevant to achieve a high level of student satisfaction (Kotler & Clarke 1987, p.72) and finally,
a high level of satisfaction is crucial to keep the students’ motivation up (Eom et al. 2006). In our study, we
wanted to learn more about context-specific differences of such expectations and investigated the learners’ un-derstanding
of tasks and responsibilities of lecturers/educators in the context of Higher Education in Bulgaria,
Germany, South Korea, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Operationalization
In order to get an impression on which services students might expect their instructors to provide, we
conducted a small qualitative survey: We addressed students in Seoul, South Korea and informally interviewed
them on their opinion regarding the tasks and responsibilities of a lecturer. Besides lecturing, the interviews
showed expectations that were related to technical support, preselecting contents, support of the organization of
learning processes, individual support regarding information research (e. g., by providing books/papers or at
least comprehensive literature lists), and evaluation (results, knowledge status, and potential for further devel-opment).
Their claims for particular instructor services fully are backed up in the common literature (Zeithaml
et al. 1990; Philips & Peters 1999; Steyn & Schulze 2003). The following items derived for our questionnaire:
What do you consider being the lecturer’s/professor’s tasks and responsibilities in the learning process? A lec-turer’s/
professor’s tasks and responsibilities base on …
1. giving support according to technical matters, which are relevant for the learning process (e.g. in case
of computer problems or installation of soft-ware).
2. providing well-selected contents and contextual information.
3. giving support according to organizing the learning process.
4. assisting within the individual student’s process of finding information.
5. giving feedback on my knowledge base, working results and general professional development.
Firstly, we wanted to know, if the demands differ between the investigated national contexts and if the results
can be generalized for (at least) particular educational contexts. Secondly, we wanted to get an impression on
how different the extent of the claims could be between national contexts, so that we had a basis to decide if fur-ther
steps should be taken. We think that understanding such national differences is crucial in order to install
preventive activities that can avoid potential conflicts in international learning scenarios. Such preventive activi-ties
can consist of simply informing learners regarding the differences between their actual (nationally biased)
experiences and the context in which a particular educational scenario takes place (as preparatory activity) but
they also can include the implementation of culturally adapted programs (individualized platforms, contents,
and/or didactics) in which learners can choose the course design, which they consider best fitting to their needs.
Study Setting
In the first implementation phase of our survey, we limited our questionnaire to German and South Ko-rean
university students. We provided the questionnaire in each national language (German & Korean). While
in Germany, we conducted a vertical design (in-depth), addressing a high number of students from a low num-

3. ber of universities (1817 fully completed questionnaires from 3 universities), we chose a horizontal design
(broad) for South Korea (including a high number of universities with each a low number of students: 286 fully
completed questionnaires from 39 universities). We chose this design in order to explore if significant differ-ences
between the answers of the various faculties of each university (German faculty culture) could be found
and how far a particular university-culture could blur the national results (South Korean university culture). For
the initial investigation, we chose the countries Germany and South Korea because both countries culturally are
more or less homogenous (Ziltener 2006), have a similar technological infrastructure, living standard, a single
national language (see limitations), and are culturally very diverse to each other. With the support of the Ger-man
university administrations, we invited the German students to participate by sending mass e-Mails through
each of the internal e-Mail distribution systems. In contrast due to legal reasons, the survey in South Korea had
to be conducted in a paper-based form (according to the regulations of the Korean universities, sending mass e-mails
via e-Mail distribution systems was impossible). Due to the different surveying methods, the response-rates
varied; while in Germany, in the online survey, we received fully completed questionnaires from about 4%
of the actually addressed students, the non-response rate from the South Korean students, who all were invited
in face-to-face situations was about 50%. In order to reach students from a high number of South-Korean uni-versities,
we conducted our paper-based Korean investigation in the subway in Seoul, including all subway lines
and following a random path algorithm for the choice of participants.
Later on, we were able to extend our survey to students in further countries (Bulgaria, Turkey,
Ukraine). The questionnaire, also here, was provided in each country’s national language and conducted as
online questionnaire. With the support of our own international students, we got access to regional and national
student associations in those countries, which kindly supported our research by sending our invitations for par-ticipation
to their linked student members. Even though, the selection process in those cases is far from being
random, and the numbers of participants was quite low, we think the results are sound and thus, provide a good
impression on what could be expected if the survey would be conducted on a larger scale: After investigating
randomly chosen parts of the full samples from the German context, we found that a larger sample size mainly
influences the answer-spectrum but actually, the general answer-patterns (tendencies) kept very similar: For this
particular investigation, we randomly chose 100 response-clusters with a size of 30 sample elements of the
German overall sample; in 2% of the results, we found accumulations of extreme values, which obviously re-flected
impossible answer-constellations. For the other randomly built response-clusters, the data per item re-flected
the patterns of the full sample.
Study Results and Findings
Before evaluation, the responses were binarized in positive (1 & 2) and negative (3 & 4) answers. The
Item Nr. in the following Table 1 refers to the initial numbers at each item of the above listed statements. Apart
of the results (percent positive answers of total: % p.) per item and country, Table 1 displays the means (m) and
the largest found distance between the highest and the lowest results (amongst countries).
item Nr. Bulgaria Germany Korea Turkey Ukraine max. distance
m. % (p.) m. % (p.) m. % (p.) m. % (p.) m. % (p.) % total
1 2.14 56.67 2.91 28.23 1.92 81.82 2.08 72.50 1.94 62.26 53.58
2 1.53 90.00 1.38 97.69 1.77 89.86 1.78 90.00 1.87 79.25 18.44
3 1.70 83.33 2.39 54.76 1.65 89.86 1.88 82.50 1.87 75.47 35.10
4 2.07 76.67 2.47 53.11 1.80 86.01 2.03 85.00 1.89 83.02 32.90
5 1.57 86.67 2.07 71.77 1.59 90.21 2.10 72.50 1.38 90.57 18.80
Table 1: Tasks and responsibilities of a lecturer/professor: survey results from five countries
The results (Table 1) clearly show that the level of expected support differs between the investigated countries.
While in Germany, the students’ expectations regarding their lecturers’/professors’ tasks are limited to an ap-propriate
selection of contents (extreme pole of item 2), the South Korean students additionally expect diverse
services in order to support their individual learning processes (extreme pole of the items 1, 3, & 4). Even
though we found a certain variance in the answers between different faculties and universities (spectrum of an-swers),
the average patterns (see Figure 1) kept very similar within each national context (Richter & A-delsberger
2012, p.7-9). An additional study, which we conducted in the German context of adult education,

4. showed that the patterns of higher education basically differ from those of adult education (op cit, p.14). Figure
1 shows a visualization of the differences between the five investigated countries. Please note that not the full
displayed patterns consist of defined values but just the crossing points with each axis. However, displaying the
national values in this form allows the on-sight revealing and distinguishing of national patterns.
Figure 1: Tasks and responsibilities of a lecturer/professor: visual comparison of answers from five-countries
Even though the comparison of the average positive answers (Figure 1) suffices to get an impression of the level
of differences between the cultural contexts and to generally decide if further activities are required in order to
make a program better manageable for a certain group of learners, a decision on the possible impact of conflict-ing
potential, requires further information. For this purpose, the full spectrum of answers for each item is to be
analyzed and compared (Figure 2). We expect that students will experience serious conflicts in their learning
processes, as soon as differences exceed their level of acceptance. The level of acceptance as a comparative in-dicator
for cultural differences is promoted by PLESS & MAAK (2004, p. 130). In the context of our survey, it
could be understood as the spectrum of answers within a cultural context: The average German student can be
expected being able to study his/her specific subject at any German university without experiencing conflicts
that seriously jeopardize his/her motivation (in this thought, individual happiness is not taken into considera-tion).
This can be understood as a crucial precondition for the appropriateness of the nation-wide centralized
distribution of students in Germany (ZVS).
Figure 2: Contrasting the spectrum of German and South Korean students’ expectations

5. Contrasting the spectrum of answers from Germany (blue) and South Korea (red), just the small overlaying part
defines expectations on services, which the students of each context actually have in common. A situation in
which a student receives more services than expected may rather be positive (Germ. students) while in contrast,
relying on an instructor’s support and not receiving it, might be very frustrating and thus, demotivating (Korean
students). In this case of Germany and Korea, it is strongly recommended to at least prepare the Korean students
for the educational situation, which they are going to face when wanting to study in the German university con-text.
Also, the German instructors should be aware of the different expectations in order to avoid misjudgments.
Limitations and Conclusion
The herein presented results cannot be transferred to the context of adult education. Further on, the ex-periments
of BUEHLER ET AL. (2012) in the context of school education revealed that learning culture does not
yet bias pupils below an age of twelve years; consequences are unclear. Further on, in culturally inhomogeneous
contexts, the different societies need to be separately investigated in order to achieve valid results instead of de-fining
national average values. The use of different languages within a single national context can serve as a
first indicator for cultural diversity within this context (Leonardi 2002, p.314).
While our study results show that there actually are significant differences in expectations regarding
instructor-based services between national contexts, we still have no evidence, from which level of differences
actually conflicts result that are serious enough to jeopardize the learning motivation. Further (experimental) re-search
is required and will be conducted within the next years.
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