Considerations Towards Culturally-Adaptive Instructional Systems

摘要

This work proposes a conceptual framework that captures cultural considerations in providing options in the way learners interact with an instructional system. It revisits the longstanding relationship between culture and learning behavior and how cultural background influences the design and implementations of instructional systems. The literature presents some approaches including the use of cultural references embedded into the learning material which draws from the concept of shared meanings and cultural familiarity; and through the development of immersive environments using virtual reality to provide cultural experiences. Aside from domain limitations and technological requirements, these approaches are usually focused on the content or environment rather than the interaction. In order to identify culturally-biased behaviors and preferences, the paper looks at the contextualization of Hofstede's cultural dimensions in educational software linked to interaction concepts in the Cultural Artefacts in Education (CAE) framework. These adaptation rules are then anchored to the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines to provide a more cohesive pedagogical structure and as an attempt to make them applicable across disciplines and domains. Future work includes the implementation and validation of the proposed framework.