The impact of cultural factors in an online learning environment in Hong Kong

Teaching and learning is essentially culture transmission and acquisition. The education systems in many non-western countries/regions (such as Hong Kong) adopt the Western framework of transfer of knowledge, skills and values, and in those places teaching is undertaken with little regard to the non-western values a learner brings into the learning environment. A lot of instructional materials and the media used for the delivery of instruction also mirror western values and orientation. In the case of Hong Kong students, this often causes cultural clashes between their traditional background (Confucian culture) and the Western culture the learner is made to acquire. The Web is being used for instructional and learning purpose with little regard for the cultural orientation of learners. Studies in cultural research have shown that the worldview students hold influences classroom practice and ultimately meaningful learning. Hong Kong students have a worldview different from the dominant one in western countries in which the technology of online learning operates. Thus it is of interest to Hong Kong educators to study how cultural factors affect their online learning. An instrument was designed for measuring the cultural factors in an online learning environment in Hong Kong, and questionnaire surveys were carried out using the instrument. Some interesting research results will be reported in this paper. Copyright © 2004 the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australia (HERDSA).