Investigating cultural aspects of online instruction for adult learners in two Saudi online learning programs: An instructional design focus.

摘要

Online learning is becoming ubiquitous in many formal and informal educational and training environments. Designing online instruction for a specific population requires taking into consideration several aspects of that population, including the local culture. Several instructional design models claim to be culturally sensitive in their processes, including the Cultural Based Model (CBM). This multiple case study explored how culture was considered by local Saudi instructional designers (ID)s in their work (research question 1) and whether the CBM model for instructional design has succeeded or failed in accounting for considerations and elements reported or observed in the analyzed pool of data (research question 2). Data was collected from three sources: eight ID interviews, seven user interviews, and eight e-learning courses across the two cases. Participants' interviews followed a semi-structured interview protocols. For the e-learning courses, thick description was used in producing descriptive data for each e-learning course. The data was analyzed through thematic analysis via an open coding process. Findings on the first question identified that culture was used as a vehicle for heightening content's appropriateness and as a tool for developing awareness on cultural efforts in the content among future users. Findings on the second question identified that the CBM has partially succeeded in corresponding to the first case IDs' considerations, partially failed in encompassing its users' experiences, and fully succeeded in envisioning its e-learning courses' elements. On the same manner, the CBM has partially succeeded in corresponding to the second case ID's considerations, partially succeeded in encompassing its users' experiences, and fully succeeded in envisioning its e-learning courses' elements. From a cross-case perspective, the model mostly failed in addressing agreement themes between the two cases' IDs, however it did much better on both cases users' agreement themes and courses' agreement themes.