Intercultural Collaborative Learning in Virtual Worlds

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the potential of virtual worlds for intercultural collaborative learning. A case study of a global lecture series is presented that used a virtual world as a platform for intercultural student collaboration. Students' subjective reports served as a basis for exploring cross-cultural differences in the perceived usefulness of virtual worlds for intercultural collaboration, and to examine what they have learned from working in an intercultural virtual team, what problems occurred, and how they resolved them. Based on the evaluation results, suggestions are provided for a cultureaware design of virtual worlds to facilitate intercultural collaborative learning and the development of intercultural literacy.

Sociocultural Conventions in Avatar-Mediated Nonverbal Communication: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Virtual Proxemics

“…Theoretically, such research may provide us with new insights about the way humans adapt to new types of mediated social experiences. Hence, the findings of the current study are not only relevant to the field of cross-cultural NVC, but also have implications for the design of culturally sensitive virtual environments (Hasler, 2011). We need to advance our understanding of cross-cultural differences in the use and perception of virtual spaces and how they need to be designed in order to effectively support cross-cultural trainings, intercultural team collaboration, or conflict resolution between different cultural groups.…”

“…Participants were 139 students (114 men and 25 women) from different East Asian and European universities who volunteered to take part in a research project in the context of a global lecture series called The ShanghAI Lectures 2 (Hasler, 2011). They were graduate, post-graduate, and PhD students majoring in Computer Science and Engineering, between the ages of 19 and 39 years (M ¼ 24.58, SD ¼ 3.44).…”

Implementing Learning Models in Virtual Worlds - From Theory to (Virtual) Reality

“…The terms collaborative and cooperative learning are often used interchangeably though they do not represent the same idea. In cooperative learning, the group members work individually and usually asynchronously towards multiple subtasks which are assembled to produce the final outcome (Hasler, 2011). On the other hand, collaborative learning refers to the synchronous social interaction (e.g.…”

Playing well with virtual classmates

“…Such environments present excellent platforms for collaborative group processes because they can bring people together from geographically and culturally diverse locations and facilitate the sharing and construction of knowledge within these groups [14,10]. Such virtual group interactions are often mediated by customizable virtual self-representations (i.e., avatars), and the attributes of these avatars are likely to relate to such interactions, given that various elements of avatar use have been found to influence users' behaviors and attitudes in single-user contexts.…”