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American and Chinese Cultural Differences and their Implications
for Distance Learning.
P. Clint Rogers, Su-Ling Hsueh, & Stephanie Allen
Abstract
As students,
faculty, and professionals from China and
America interact more frequently through
face-to-face exchanges and through networking
technologies they are more and more aware
that cultural assumptions and values affect
the ways they communicate and learn from
each other. Unstated assumptions regarding
individualism, competition, time, and authority
tend to differ between American and Chinese
cultures. These differences,in turn, have
implications for creating effective technology-enhanced
distance learning environments. Further
research is needed on issues such as whether
cultures that put heavy emphasis on the
authority of the teacher and predispose
learners towards the transmission model
of learning, are less favorably disposed
to existing distance learning models, and
how novel models could meet these challenges.
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