Pre-Publish version of: Richter, T. & Adelsberger, H.H. (2011). E-Learning in Culturally Diverse Settings: Challenges for Collaborative Learning and Possible Solutions. In: Nunes, M.B. & McPherson, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference e-Learning 2011, part of the Multiconference on Computer Science and Information Systems (MCCIS), IADIS Press, Rome, Italy, Volume 1, pp. 141-149.

1. E-LEARNING IN CULTURALLY DIVERSE SETTINGS:
CHALLENGES FOR COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Richter, Thomas
University of Duisburg-Essen
Universitätsstrasse 9, 45141 Essen
Adelsberger, Heimo, H.
University of Duisburg-Essen
Universitätsstrasse 9, 45141 Essen
ABSTRACT
When using the Internet, E-Learning can be provided in internationally diverse settings. However, according to an expert-study
we conducted in September 2010, participation in E-Learning courses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland mostly
is limited to national (local) learners. The organizations argued that truly international settings are not sufficiently under-stood
to be coped with, particularly because of intercultural challenges. In this paper, cultural challenges of collaborative
work in international E-Learning scenarios are focused on. First, the general background is introduced. Sequently, cul-ture-
related challenges for group-work are discussed, based on our survey on culturally motivated attitudes of learners.
The survey has been conducted in the period from August 2010 to February 2011, involving university students in Ger-many
and South-Korea. Finally, possible solutions are proposed.
KEYWORDS
E-Learning, Culture, Learning Culture, Collaborative Learning, Internationalisation
1. INTRODUCTION
When using the Internet as a learning platform for distributing educational materials and supporting learning
processes (in the following, according to Kerres & Witt, (2004), referred to as E-Learning), the audience is
not necessarily limited to a certain region. However, unlike national or culturally homogenous settings, inter-national
settings can provide challenges which are not yet fully understood. In such a setting, particularly the
cultural diversity of the learners forces educators to develop new educational strategies which are quite dif-ferent
to those known from the regionally limited traditional face-to-face education in local schools and uni-versities.
A first and crucial step to foster such changes is raising the awareness on possible issues that are to
be taken into consideration when teaching in or adopting learning materials from/to other contexts. In this
paper, special challenges on collaborative learning scenarios in international settings are focused on.
As for international learning scenarios in E-Learning, we have isolated four different settings, which in
the following are briefly introduced:
• The audience is mainly nationally/culturally homogenous but there are a few ‘foreigners’ involved:
This is the situation we are familiar with from traditional face-to-face education in schools and uni-versities.
The usual strategy to deal with the exception of cultural diversity is encouraging the learn-ers
to fully adapt the given educational scenario.
• The educational setting itself is not international: Learning situations (The term ‘learning situation’
refers to the educational design while ‘learning scenario’ is an extension including given contextual
aspects) are transferred from one context to another. The mentoring educators are locals. In case of
need, the learning situations are adopted to the new context (Richter, 2010) and learners in the new
context just cope with familiar learning situations.

2. • The audience is bi-national, whereby both nations are chosen and therefore, known from the start.
Courses are offered simultaneously to learners in both national contexts. Learning cultures within the
different contexts need to be taken into consideration regarding the design of learning materials as
well as educational/supportive activities.
• The audience is multi-national. Learners anywhere in the world can simultaneously participate in the
same courses using the Internet. In such a scenario, providers cannot foresee the nationality and/or
cultural background of the learners before they have registered for a course/program. This scenario is
highly complex: An adaptation is almost impossible because (in the worst case) it had to be provided
to each individual learner and just in time.
In the following, the third scenario is focused on. The cultural diversity of learners and their different
learning styles often lead to conflicts. By analyzing facial expressions in face-to-face situations such conflicts
can be recognized and solved just in time before they become too serious. In E-Learning scenarios, face-recognition
is impossible because most (all) communication is text-based. Therefore, a much higher aware-ness
of possible conflicts is demanded from educators.
In collaborative learning-scenarios where learners do not only interact with the educator but additionally,
also with other learners, the situation is even more complex. The awareness of cultural diversity and possible
resulting conflicts is not just demanded of the educators but to some extent also of the participating learners:
In E-Learning, it is crucial that learners keep motivated within their learning process. Seemingly unsolvable
conflicts can lead to defence motivation (Masterson & Crawford 1982) and in the worst case to permanent
frustration.
In September 2010 we conducted a Delphi-study on special requirements for learners in E-Learning scen-arios.
The participating experts considered motivation as the most critical success-factor for learners in the
context of E-Learning (Richter, 2011). This study also revealed that E-Learning-based programs, in Ger-many,
Austria and Switzerland mainly are limited to a culturally homogenous audience. In feedback-interviews
conducted subsequently with five of the 16 involved experts from Germany, Austria and Switzer-land,
those conjointly stated that the complexity of international educational settings is not sufficiently under-stood
and therefore, they do not provide their education in such settings. As a consequence, neither cultural
awareness/openness nor English language skills have been considered necessary to successfully participate in
their E-Learning programs. Typical abilities, needed in scenarios of collaborative learning have been evalu-ated
as being strongly demanded: On an evaluation scale from 0 (not needed) to 6 (absolutely crucial), in av-erage,
the experts rated ‘competency for communication’ with 4.31, ‘ability to collaborate’ & ‘team related
skills’ with 3.37, and ‘mediation ability’ & ‘patience’ with 3.31. Any average rating higher than 4.31 was
limited to aspects related to self-learning processes: The three highest ranked aspects were ‘self-motivation’
with an average answer of 5,38, ‘self-organisation’, evaluated with 5.31, and ‘capability to independently or-ganize
the learning process’ with an average score of 5.13.
The main focus of our research on learning culture (in E-Learning scenarios) is raising the awareness of
educators and learners on cultural diversity and conflicts which mainly result in learning processes. In the
long term, we aim to develop an Internet-based decision support system, assisting educators, providers and
learners in their decisions on which aspects in unknown contexts are to be taken into consideration when ad-apting
learning materials/scenarios or teaching/learning in other contexts, and, in case of necessity, what to
change. The basic research question for this paper is how we can support educators, providers, and institu-tions
in overcoming the challenges on collaborative learning in international educational scenarios in E-Learning.
In the following, first, the terms ‘collaborative learning’ and ‘culture’ are introduced. Then, culturally
motivated attitudes and expectations of learners impacting collaborative learning (in the following referred to
as ‘group-work’) are discussed. In this context, after introducing the setting of our bi-nationally conducted
survey and scoping the results, the concrete results regarding group-work are discussed. Possible challenges
and solutions are shown. In the end (conclusions), the general findings are outlined and future research is an-nounced.
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

3. In this chapter, the terms ‘collaborative learning’ and ‘culture’ are defined. In the last paragraph of this chap-ter,
former research is introduced, the concrete aspects of collaborative learning focused in our study are de-termined,
and finally, the expected scope of the results is delimited.
2.1 Collaborative learning
There are various definitions available which basically differ in the question, if collaborative learning is the
same as group-work and if it necessarily includes cooperative work. According to Woolfolk and Schönpflug
(2004, p. 503), collaborative learning is the same as group-work and describes a task or a set of tasks, a num-ber
of learners have to solve within a limited time-frame. In the opinion of Woolfolk and Schönpflug, the
task does not necessarily need to be solved in cooperation. Konrad and Traub (2008, p. 5) synonymously use
the terms ‘group-work’ and ‘cooperative learning’ and understand group-work as a necessarily cooperative
process. In the following, the term ‘collaborative learning’ describes learning situations, where a group of
learners, however, have to jointly produce a common result. This can be a highly cooperative production pro-cess
where the learners carry the same responsibility from start to the end product, but also a group-task di-vided
into subtasks which learners solve individually. In the second case, the collaborative work is limited to
joining the parts to the demanded result.
Regarding collaborative learning in E-Learning scenarios, various challenges are described in the litera-ture.
Such problems have their source in different fields, e. g., team-building processes (Oakley, et. al., 2004,
p. 11) communication (Breuer, 2002, p. 143), cognition (Reinmann-Rothmeier, 2001, p. 12), culture (Richter
& Pawlowski, 2007), technological issues (Harasim, 1993, p. 127), and others. What all such problems have
in common is that they can lead to major conflicts in the group and thus, often to frustration.
2.2 Culture
The term ‘culture’ is not clearly defined (Straub et al., 2002). The various definitions particularly differ in
what is considered to be part of the concept ‘culture’ and which social constructs are described. In some
models the political system or religion are part of the concept (Edmundson 2007), others are limited to a
basic understanding of the world (Schwartz, 1999). Hofstede and Hofstede (2005, p. 4), who basically de-clare
culture being a national issue, define culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distin-guishes
the members of one group or category of people from others”. Although in the literature, their cul-tural
model frequently is referred to, their generalisation to national contexts is criticised (e. g., McSweeney,
2002; Ng, et al 2007). The understanding of culture as a general national phenomenon is doubtful: Leonardi
(2002) understands language as the most significant indicator for culture and recommends a differentiation at
least basing on the level of language. Poglia (2005) divides social frameworks into “representative areas for
cultural differences in various small sized groups”. As examples, he names “social networks, private and
public business enterprises, institutions, associations, communities”. Another level of differentiation is pro-vided
by Oetting (1993, p. 41) who writes that “these various cultures then form a hierarchy, ranging from
very large nationality or racial groups to small subcultures consisting of only a few people“. Oetting exam-ines
a lot of culture definitions and comes to the conclusion that the term culture „is used to describe the cus-toms,
beliefs, social structure, and activities of any group of people who share a common identification and
who would label themselves as members of that group.“ (1993, p. 41). This is the definition, we use in the
following.
In our research on learning culture, we suspected that according to Poglia, smaller societies, e. g., com-panies
(corporate identity), universities, faculties, a. o., may have their own cultural traditions which could be
in the ascendant of the nations’ learning culture. An investigation was necessary in order to determine the
scope of our results taken from university students: With a standardized questionnaire covering 107 items
from different cultural areas we examined seven companies and three universities (2010/2011) in Germany
and compared the results. In the (randomly chosen) universities, we had the opportunity to address all stu-dents
with the online-form of our survey (1400, 298, 119 responses). In the companies, it was necessary to
implement the paper form of the questionnaire. We got access to the very limited number of 25 employees in
each company (8-15 finally participated). As we hoped to gather information on cultural differences, the
companies explicitly were selected by their different focuses, which were energy, IT, consulting, production,
telecommunication, and administration.

4. To make it short, regarding some issues covered by the questionnaire, we found significant context-specific
differences amongst the companies and between the companies and the universities. However, the
number of interviewees in the context of companies was too small to understand the results as representative.
Further investigations are needed in this field. In contrast to the employees of the selected companies, in most
items, the university students just showed little diversity: Amongst the universities and also between the fac-ulties
just slightly different results have been found. We can assume that it is reasonable to hypothesise a
German national learning culture in Higher Education but we cannot transfer the results from university stu-dents
to other learner-groups. Also, we need to be aware that Germany is a language-homogeneous country.
According to Leonardi (2002), in countries where more than one language is spoken, a national learning cul-ture
may not exist. For the next steps, we plan to implement our survey in India which has 2 official national
languages (Hindi/English) and 29 regional languages (census of India 2001), each spoken by at least 1 mil-lion
native speakers.
2.3 Learner-related cultural influences on collaborative learning scenarios
Regarding collaborative learning, we first of all wanted to know if certain aspects have a cultural background
or are individually motivated. We focused on aspects that are relevant for E-Learning: However, all those as-pects
also apply to face-to-face scenarios. First of all, we chose aspects, which in the literature basically were
related to culture. We were unsure if general cultural aspects (like the relationship to authorities) necessarily
also affect learning culture (the relationship to a lecturer/professor). As there is no critical value defined on
how many percent of a society need to be of the same opinion to allow a deduction on a cultural background,
we decided for 60% (this at least defines a vast majority). In the common cultural research, the cultural back-ground
of an investigated item/attitude generally is assumed and the specific regional occurrence is the object
of investigation (Handwerker 2002, pp. 107-108).
Hofstede (1980) developed an approach to describe national cultures with four dimensions (later on it be-came
five dimensions, Hofstede & Bond, 1988). For group-work related topics, particularly two of those di-mensions
appeared to be applicable:
• The dimension ‘Individualism/Collectivism’ led to questions regarding the acceptance of group-work.
In individualist societies, people choose their own affiliations and are expected to develop and
display individual personalities. In collectivist societies, the welfare of the group always is in the fo-cus.
People define themselves as members of long-term groups, such as families or companies, and
assign others to in-group and out-group people. Examples for strongly individualist societies are
Germany and the USA and for collectivist societies, South-Korea and China.
• The dimension ‘Masculinity/Femininity’ led to questions regarding time management, communica-tion
styles and the ability to listen to others. Also competitive needs correlate with this dimension.
When people from rather masculine societies cooperate with people from rather feminine societies,
particularly communication causes conflicts, because those from rather masculine societies are very
direct in their speech and often are understood as being offensive.
Along with the dimensions, Hofstede developed numerical values on a steadily growing scale between
one and 100. Those shall represent societies’ cultures on a national level. In his original survey (later on, it
was extended), he investigated the concrete values for more than 40 nations by penetrating various national
agencies of IBM with his questionnaire. Those values can be quite helpful to get a first idea if differences be-tween
two or more national contexts may be expected and further research on concrete cultural aspects is
needed. As the following example shows, for deducing more concrete information from those values, they
are too generic:
Regarding the dimension ‘Power Distance’, which shows people’s relationship to authorities, the differ-ence
between Austria and Germany is the same as the one between South-Korea and China. Just considering
those two pairs of nations, one could assume that the result sounds coherent: Austria and Germany are cultur-ally
quite compatible in all fields. South-Korea and China, at least both are Eastern Asian countries. How-ever,
the same ‘power distance’ can be found between Germany and South-Korea (Richter et al, 2008). If we
now examine the relationship between students and educators (teachers/professors), we will find that a
teacher from Germany can easily also teach in Austria (and vice versa). If this teacher moves to South-Korea
and teaches in the same way as he does in Germany, this may cause major conflicts with the learners: A typi-cal
German educational scenario is asking the learners to critically discuss the taught content. Korean stu-

5. dents would never question their educator because this is understood as most disrespectful. Insisting on such
a critical discussion may lead to stress and frustration. The compatibility of two learning contexts seems to
depend on a context-specific acceptance threshold regarding national differences. This threshold somehow
defines itself through a variety of parameters and their constellation within and between the contexts (Richter
& Pawlowski, 2007, p. 50-52).
In our survey, we asked learners to make statements on their opinion on the efficiency of group-work to
support their learning processes in different learning scenarios, their role in group-building processes, their
communication style within the group, their preferences regarding evaluation, and their time management.
3. DESIGN OF THE COMPARATIVE STUDY – CONTEXT
The first international implementation of our standardized questionnaire happened between August and No-vember
2010 in Germany (various cities) and Seoul, South-Korea. The questionnaire has been provided in
each national language, German and Korean. The translation was necessary to ensure that particularly all lo-cals
without sufficient knowledge of the English language can participate. To ensure the correctness of the
translation from German to Korean, we translated the Korean version back into German, compared the re-sults,
and corrected translation errors. South-Korea has been chosen as a comparative sample because of
good contacts, the authors’ personal relationship to the Korean context, and known cultural differences to
Germany in various fields. In both countries a single language is spoken and the technological standard is
similarly developed (Seoul has a higher technological standard than the ‘average Germany’). Those com-monalities
lowered the risk of a falsification of the results basing on unknown influences. In Korea, we lim-ited
the research to the area of and around Seoul: The city hosts 50+ (private) universities and accommodates
almost 50% of all inhabitants in South-Korea. Students from the whole of Korea come to Seoul to study. This
is very different in Germany, hence there, we needed to investigate Universities in different regions.
Also different to Germany, in South-Korea, it was impossible to implement university-wide surveys. As
an alternative, we used the paper form and asked students in the subway in Seoul to participate: It was very
difficult to motivate Korean students to participate when asking them in Universities, book cafés or in coffee
bars. In the subway, the students were bored because they had to wait. To achieve at least semi-random sam-ples,
we defined the following rule for choosing the participants: Enter the subway door closest to the stair-case
and (try to) involve all students in your wagon who at least have to travel for further 6 stations. For a
better understanding, in average, finishing the survey took 9-15 minutes, and per station in the Seoul-subway
3 minutes are to be calculated. Finally, we managed to collect 248 finished questionnaires in Seoul within
two months. The participating students came from 32 universities so that the samples are reasonably inde-pendent.
For the German dataset, we summed up all results from the three universities (discussed in chapter
2.2) which in total are 1817 samples. The male (m) /female (f) ratio in Seoul was 119 m / 162 f and in Ger-many
it was 1267 m / 538 f. Students from Bachelor-, Master-, and doctoral programs have been included in
both scenarios.
4. FINDINGS AND TAKE-AWAYS
In this paragraph, the results of our bi-national survey are analysed. As shown in section 2.3, different aspects
of group-work have been investigated. However, group-work is not the only theme covered in the question-naire
(We additionally investigated the relationship to and expectations on educators, motivation, feedback,
and gender related issues.
We wanted to know if students consider group-work helpful for their learning processes. We targeted the
efficiency of group-work and asked the students to evaluate if concrete learning actions are fostered by
group-work. The corresponding answers are presented in table 1.
1. Group-work is efficient, because
a. discussions make me realize problems, I have not been aware of before.
b. it is an adequate method to discuss problems.
c. listening to other opinions helps me deepening my understanding.
d. I can better admit understanding-problems in a familiar group than in an audience.

6. 2. Group-work is not efficient, because
a. I can do it better alone.
b. it takes too much time.
c. I basically do not see any benefit in group-work.
3. Group-work supports my own learning processes in order to
a. consolidate the learning content.
b. do case-studies.
c. learn and understand basics.
d. memorize.
In the following tables, the previously introduced questions and sub-questions are listed by number. For
each context, the student’s answers are first displayed on a percentage basis showing how many percent of
the students agreed (p) on the statements or not (n). Second, the mean value of the answers is given: The an-swers
internally are interpreted as natural numbers between 1 (fully agree) and 4 (disagree; “5” was con-sidered
as “not applicable” but was rarely used. From the following analysis, it has been excluded). A mean
of 1.8 shows that the average students’ answer (per item) was between 1 (fully agree) and 2 (somehow agree)
with a tendency to 2. Both answers, ‘fully agree’ and ‘somewhat agree’ in the following, are understood as
positive answers. A mean between 2 and 3 can be understood as not having a clear cultural background in the
investigated context. In cases of a mean between 2.3 and 2.7 (2.2 = 60% pos.; 2.8 = 60% neg.), both values,
the positive and the negative are included in the cells.
Calculating the mean regarding ordinal scales is controversially discussed in the literature (Stevens 1946,
Knapp 1998, Wang et al. 1999). An example for a commonly accepted calculation of the mean regarding or-dinal
scales is the overall average grade of examinations. We calculated and provide this value particularly
because the mean can provide valuable information on the tendencies of the subsumed answers (between 1
and 2 or 3 and 4), which could not be interpreted as long as not all available values are presented. However,
since the distribution between positive and negative answers cannot clearly be deduced from the mean, its
meaningfulness needs separately to be analysed for each case.
The standard type I error (α = 0,05) has not been discounted: The impact of 0,05% difference just affects
the rounding of the least displayed decimal place of the mean answer and the error itself just covers wrong
clicking or marking.
Table 1. Efficiency of group-work – Learner opinions
Germany South-Korea
% mean % mean
1. a 81.89 (p) 1.8 87.90 (p) 1.85
b 81.01 (p) 1.84 89.92 (p) 1.79
c 79.2 (p) 1.79 91.94 (p) 1.66
d 68.35 (p) 2.03 62.50 (p) 2.28
2. a 48.05 / 47.39 2.47 54.44 / 43.15 2.41
b 59.93 (p) 2.28 72.13 (p) 2.08
c 75.53 (n) 3.44 86.69 (n) 3.38
3. a 76.55 (p) 1.9 100.00 (p) 1.12
b 68.30 (p) 2.01 100.00 (p) 1.18
c 47.33 / 48.93 2.52 100.00 (p) 1.5
d 75.67 (n) 3.33 100.00 (p) 1.67
In table 1, the answers on the first statement (including all four sub-aspects) show a clear cultural back-ground
in both contexts. Apart from sub-question c, no remarkable differences have been found. A possible
explanation could be the different concept of errors and reputation in both societies: While in Germany, it is
nothing bad to make an error or not having understood something, in Korea, this is close to losing reputation.
German students freely ask during the lesson when they do not understand something, while Korean students
hope for a later understanding. In E-Learning scenarios, particularly the Korean learners should have a
chance to frequently self-evaluate their understanding. Regarding question 2.a, no cultural background has
been shown in both of the contexts (< 60%). The students in both contexts realize a clear benefit of group-work
on their learning progress (2.c). The Korean students positively (100%) evaluated all aspects in ques-

7. tion 3. What is interesting here, is the fact that very different to the German students (who clearly disagree
with the statement), Korean students are also used to memorizing in groups.
In the next block, the group-building process has been focused on. We wanted to know which attributes
make someone a favored group member and if the students themselves are used to building groups (selecting
group-members). The results are shown in table 2.
4. How do you choose group members?
a. Likeability is my primary criteria.
b. The person has shown engagement before.
c. The person has a deep understanding of the subject.
d. I do not build groups by myself.
Table 2. Group building process
Germany South-Korea
% mean % mean
4. a. 86.96 (p) 1.79 80.24 (p) 1.97
b 85.69 (p) 1.73 85.48 (p) 1.80
c 65.50 (p) 2.17 89.52 (p) 1.72
d 66.26 (n) 2.98 60.08 (p) 2.25
While in Germany, likeability is more meaningful for the decision on selecting someone for a work-group
than in Korea, in Korea, the expertise (c) of the selected students play a higher role. In the context of E-Learning,
this insight is quite interesting because different to situations in the traditional educational scen-arios,
the members of classes often do not know each other before entering. Another remarkable difference
can be found regarding who takes the initiative for forming a group: While the majority of the German stu-dents
(66 %) are used to forming groups by themselves, 60% of the Korean students are not. In South-Korea,
groups are built and led by an older student who earns respect, e. g., because of his age, reputation, or special
skills. In an E-Learning scenario, the group building process may be easier for the students in Korea, if the
educator forms the groups. However, it is unclear how a ranking within such groups happens and if it actually
is needed in virtual environments. Further investigation is needed.
In the following block of questions, different topics are brought up for evaluation. The results are pre-sented
in table 3.
5. Evaluate following statements:
a. A task in group-work is to be collectively solved.
b. In group-work, I defend my own opinion.
c. I would like the results of the group-work to be collectively evaluated.
6. When do you do your work?
a. As soon as I have the task.
Table 3. Evaluate statements
Germany South-Korea
% mean % mean
5. a. 49.81 / 48.54 2.45 77.42 (p) 1.91
b 91.85 (p) 1.48 78.23 (p) 1.98
c 45.02 / 50.52 2.52 53.63 / 43.15 2.39
6. a 70.39 (p) 2.02 79.44 (p) 1.87
While for the Korean students, group-tasks should be solved collectively, the German students are di-vided
on this issue. Students from both contexts are in two minds about a collective evaluation of group-work
(5.c). In this item, at least in the investigated contexts, no specific cultural background has been found.
The different communication styles and self-perception within the two contexts lead to the results of
question 5.b. Insisting on and fighting for one’s opinion is quite typical for individualist cultures but often
understood as being rude in collectivist cultures. The learners from western cultures should be sensitized to
this aspect to avoid building frustration because of difficulties in group-communication.
Concerning time management, the results from Germany and South-Korea have been quite close to each
other. All students consider deadlines as being tough (an additional question, not displayed here) but try to

8. meet the deadlines. However, the Korean students stated more difficulties in meeting deadlines than the
German students. While universities in Germany are financed by the public and studying is almost free of
charge, Korean universities are private and studying costs a lot of money. Therefore, Korean students are
much more treated as customers than German students. Passing a deadline in German universities mostly
leads to a failure while in Korea, the deadlines are often understood a bit more variable. For German lectur-ers,
this difference basically (not just related to group-work) may be meaningful to know because Korean
students might react with incomprehension if the consequences are too strict. At least, in advance, they
should receive guidance on what is expected of them.
5. CONCLUSION
In respect of collaborative learning in international settings, remarkable cultural differences between students
in South-Korea and Germany have been identified. As discussed in paragraph 2.3, particularly in such E-Learning
scenarios that are designed for collaborative work, significant conflicts can occur because of miss-ing
eye contact. A first step to a solution is enabling educators and learners to determine and understand such
contextual differences. A general solution is not available: Every two contexts define their own system so
that solutions need to be case-specific. In concrete cases of conflict-potential, solutions have been recom-mended.
The survey led to syntactically comparable and semantically usable data: An implementation of a related
database is possible and the comparison is expected to lead to sound results regarding the identification of
conflicting potential within culturally diverse settings. Provided that the necessary contextual data are avail-able,
the comparative process can be made automatically and Internet-based.
Still, a lot of aspects are not understood well enough so that automatically deduced suggestions on pos-sibly
recommendable adaptations still are up in the air. Collecting more data and comparing more learning
contexts may lead to deeper insights. Also, collecting and analysing information from practitioners on cul-tural
conflicts which have occurred in certain contextual constellations will be necessary.
We have experienced that it is extremely difficult convincing students in foreign contexts to participate in
the survey, particularly when the interviewer is not familiar with the national language. Therefore, support
from institutions all over the world is strongly needed, be it in terms of translation work or inviting national
students to participate in the online survey.
Regarding the scope of the results, collected by questioning university students, it has been shown that
university-based contexts can successfully be compared on a ‘national’ level (as long as they speak the same
language; see chapter 2.2). At least with today’s knowledge, a generalisation of the results for all learners
within a national/cultural context is inappropriate: The differences found amongst the investigated company-contexts
and between the company contexts and the university-contexts were significant. For a better under-standing,
more research has to be carried out.
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