Effects of an interculturally enriched collaboration script on student attitudes, behavior, and learning performance in a CSCL environment

Abstract

People increasingly collaborate with others across cultures and distances with the help of technology. Bridging individuals via technology does not, however, ensure that the cultures of the individuals involved are similarly bridged. This study introduced an interculturally enriched collaboration script (IECS) to foster collaboration and to bridge intercultural differences when students were working in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. A randomized, two group, pretest-posttest research design was used to compare the effects of the IECS with the effects of a general collaboration script (CS). The outcome variables were student attitudes towards online collaboration, online collaborative learning behavior, and learning performance of the culturally heterogeneous groups working in the CSCL environment. A total of 74 MSc students representing 22 countries worked in dyads on the environmental problem of biodiversity collapse. The IECS positively affected student attitudes towards online collaboration and their online collaborative learning behavior but not their learning performance. The IECS can thus be used to improve collaborative learning processes across cultures and distance in education.