Cross-cultural Comparisons of Online Collaboration

This study investigated two interconnected conferences formed by students and instructors from two different cultures—Finland and the United States—to discuss case situations or problems in school observations, in order to examine cross-cultural differences in online collaborative behaviors among undergraduate preservice teachers. A conference for Korean students in the following semester was added and analyzed for more diverse cross-cultural comparisons. In terms of the first part of this study, computer log data indicated that there were more cross-cultural postings in the Finnish conference by U.S. students than Finnish visitors within the U.S. conference. In addition, student postings made up nearly 80 percent of these discussions. Qualitative content analyses of computer transcripts were conducted to compare their collaborative behaviors with the conferences. Results revealed some cross-cultural differences in the participants' online collaborative behaviors. Korean students were more social and contextually driven online, Finnish students were more group-focused as well as reflective and, at times, theoretically driven, and U.S. students more action-oriented and pragmatic in seeking results or giving solutions. The U.S. and Finnish students spent much time sharing knowledge and resources and also providing cross-cultural feedback. Findings indicate that instructors who facilitate online collaboration among multicultural students need to be aware of cultural differences in the learners' online collaborative behaviors, and such differences need to be taken into account to foster online collaboration among culturally diverse learners. Some data from post-collaboration questionnaires, student interviews, and videoconferencing further informed these findings.