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摘要

This article examines personality and participationin an online intercultural exchange(oie) between 57 university students in Japan(n = 28) and Taiwan (n = 29). The two-monthoie used Facebook (fb) as the medium ofcommunication. During the online exchange,participants communicated linguisticallyusing English as their common language andpara-linguistically through photos, videos, andemoticons. The revised version of the 60-itemhexaco personality inventory was usedto assess personality traits and to comparethose traits with participation as measured bya fb participation rubric created for this study.From the data two themes emerged: 1) overallparticipation rates were high; 2) participationpositively correlated with the personalityitem Modesty and negatively with the itemsSincerity and Organization. These results suggestthat a degree of modest-insincerity maybe natural for student engagement in onlinesocial interaction and that the asynchronousnature of the exchange suits students whofavor less structured communication activities.One of the implications of this researchis that, with the required coaching and support,students can develop the necessary skillsto successfully partake in oies.