1.Carolyn Sabin, ICST California State University Monterey Bay, carolyn_sabin@https://www.doczj.com/doc/05430358.html,
2.Terence C. Ahern, ICST, California State University, Monterey Bay, terence_ahern@https://www.doczj.com/doc/05430358.html,
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND CULTURALLY DIVERSE LEARNERS
Carolyn Sabin 1 and Terence C. Ahern 2
Abstract - California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) is a new comprehensive university founded in 1994 at the Old Fort Ord Army Base. One of its core missions is to serve the diverse people of California and to provide access to traditionally undeserved populations. To reach this goal, CSUMB has taken a different approach to typical college organizational structure. The institution is organized around Centers and Institutes that cluster related but historically separate disciplines. The goal is to facilitate better cross discipline collaboration and communication among disciplines.
Cultural diversity is customarily ignored and is almost never considered in developing a delivery strategy. During the process of designing the initial instructional design course we began to wonder if there was a way to better integrate cultural differences within traditional instructional design methodology. To do this would be consistent with the mission of the university of not just providing access but also helping to ensure the success of typically undeserved student populations within computer science disciplines. We used an approach by Samovar, Porter and Stefani that divides cultures into 2 basic groups that they call High and Low Context. This paper will report on our findings and recommendations.
Key words – cultural difference, instructional design, instructional technology
I NTRODUCTION
Prior to the 1920’s, the dominant view of instruction was that you exercised the mind like a muscle “It was thought that the study of certain disciplines would improve the mind just like calisthenics improves certain muscles.” [1] Over the next few decades, major social events such as the Great Depression transformed the public’s view of the importance of education, in its both purpose and value. Education was seen as providing people an opportunity for advancement not only for their children but also for themselves.
There was concurrent improvement in the how instruction was designed and delivered. The ideas of first writing general objectives and then behavioral objectives were tried with great success.
The advent of World War II provided the greatest impetus for change in both the design and the delivery of instruction. How was the United States going to train the hundreds and thousands of new recruits in the shortest time possible? One-way of meeting this challenge was to apply the new
technologies at the time, movies and radio, to solve the problem. The necessity for rapid training of the new recruits created the new “role of an instructional technologist” that provided the needed expertise in the development of systematic training and education using the new technologies. [2]
The development and use of designed instructional materials helped to deliver a consistent instructional content to the huge numbers of trainees. The systematic development of instructional materials was instrumental in the winning of World War II. The pioneering procedures developed at the time have become widespread not only in the military but has spread to schools and industry
Further, it has developed a whole new discipline for research and development. Over the subsequent years, great strides were made in understanding the nature and the development of instructional technology as a systematic process. Instructional design theory has produced tremendous results in creating portable and flexible learning environments. Nonetheless, there are major flaws within the instructional design theory. One major flaw in traditional practice is seeing audience as homogenous and gender neutral.
Cultural, ethnic or gender differences are viewed as not being important enough to require design considerations. Instructional design practice is more prepared to understand an audiences’ cognitive state such as pre-requisite skills, academic record and scores on tests than on examining cultural characteristics.
The development and implementation of learning materials are typically constructed with the idea that learners are all the same. While this approach worked for a truly homogenous population it has left instructional design theory unprepared to design for truly heterogeneous or culturally diverse populations that we now face in engineering and other departments across the country. A simple review of standard textbooks demonstrates little progress has been made in implementing change. Cultural, ethnic or gender differences in audience analysis or implementation are rarely dealt with. Mager does not provide any insight in how to prepare for a culturally diverse population. Further, culture is not mentioned in Dick and Carey [3][or in Seels and Glasgow. [4]
Instructional design specialists are slowly becoming aware of the importance of cultural issues in the development of instructional materials. Smith and Ragan [5] state that these additional “stable differences may be considered when designing instruction.”
Audience differentiation is starting to become included in some instructional design models. However, there was a lack of specific directions as to what to do when one has culturally mixed learners. Morrison, Ross and Kemp [6] provide a few more pieces to the puzzle. When conducting audience analysis they suggest “the importance of specific traits within each category will depend on both task relevance and accessibility of the learner information.” Specifically they suggest that learner information should include three categories: (1) general characteristics
(2) specific entry competencies and (3) academic information. Morrison, Ross and Kemp [6] define general characteristics and include “gender, age, work, experience, education and ethnicity.” Later there are several paragraphs that include additional “standards for effectively teaching minority students and culturally diverse learners” [6] with a directive to “consider getting help from counselors in an organization or community who have had direct experience working with such individuals.” [6]
There is a tremendous impetus to change given the development of the Internet. There are experiments, examples, directions, results that are very well written and exciting to discover. People all over the world are beginning to move, to ask for and to find ways that are allowing them to test new design models in order to improve the learner performance in heterogeneous audiences.
U NDERSTANDING D IVERSE P OPULATIONS
The California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB) was designed with the specific purpose of providing access to an institution of higher education for traditionally underserved populations. According to the vision statement of the university the, “campus will be distinctive in serving the diverse people of California, especially the working class and historically undereducated and low-income populations.”[7]
One way the university plans to accomplish this goal, which echoes the needs of the nation at the beginning of World War II, is “through integrated and experimental use of technologies as resources to people” [7]
To reach these goals CSUMB has taken a different approach to typical college organizational structure. The institution is organized around Centers and Institutes that cluster related but historically separate disciplines. The goal is to facilitate better cross discipline collaboration and communication among disciplines.
In trying to improve design practice and to achieve the goal of the university, we had to operationalize the idea of culture in a meaningful manner. Samovar, Porter, and Stefani [8] provided us with an approach that we feel can effectively be integrated into design practice. In contrast to Howard Gardner’s [9] Multiple Intelligences Theory which is based more on the cognitive process of the brain that appear to remain the same for all people regardless of culture.
Samovar, Porter and Stefani [8] quote the anthropologist E. T. Hall: “One of the functions of culture is to provide a highly selective screen between man and the outside world. In it’s many forms, culture therefore designates what we pay attention to and what we ignore.” They included Hall’s system that divides cultures into two groups which they categorize as being either high or low Context. They define context as the degree to which meaning comes from t he environmental settings in which words are exchanged.
High context cultures see information, as already within the person, so a minimum amount of verbal interaction is required. Very little information is explicitly transmitted as part of the message. They also tend to be aware of their surroundings and their environment and do not rely on verbal communication as their main informational channel. Finally, high context cultures have experienced stable traditions and history so that age, education, family background and such thing s that confer status do not change rapidly.
In dealing across cultures, high-context cultures become impatient and irritated when low-context people insist on giving them information they do not need. They perceive low-context people as being less credible because silence sends a better message. High context cultures tend to handle conflict in a more discrete and subtle manner and are predisposed to require learning for the sake of learning. For example, high context cultures include Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, African-American, and Native-American
On the other hand, low-context cultures are less homogeneous without a pool of shared common experiences that increases the need for interpersonal contacts to be compartmentalized. Verbal interaction requires detailed background information resulting in the message containing most of the meaning. Very little content is embedded in the context or in the participants. Communication tends to be direct and explicit with everything needing to be verbalized. Further low-context cultures expect messages to be detailed, clear-cut and to the point. They ask blunt questions and feel uncomfortable with the vagueness and ambiguity often associated with limited data. Further, they view high context cultures as being less open. They see learning having to be relevant or interesting. United States is the prime example of a low context culture.
I MPLEMENTING N EW D ESIGN P RACTICE
The Institute for Communication, Science and Technology (ICST) houses the traditional software and network engineering sciences. In addition, the related technologies of digital graphic design, multimedia and web design as well as Instructional Design are also part of this institute.
This has provided a very dynamic and rich environment for an integrated curriculum. Students in the institute are schooled both engineering principles and design concepts.
The underlying goal is to produce engineers that can design and designers that can engineer.
One way that students have satisfied the design outcome is to take an instructional design course. Introduction to Instructional Design presents the students with the underlying theories and models for the delivery of instruction. The students are then required in this course to apply what they have learned through the development of an instructional module on their own.
However, the typical instructional design approach to audience analysis is limited to identifying an audience’s deficiency between a target cognitive level of knowledge and skill and their current level.
In the process of revising the design of this course, we began to question traditional design methodology. What seemed to be missing in the development and design of instruction was the idea that an audience could be analyzed simply from a cognitive perspective. Some of our students were not doing well but not from a lack of appropriate perquisite skills or knowledge. It seemed that something was missing from the instructional design process itself. Given the institutional goals of CSUMB we started to look at cultural issues as being necessary in connection with the cognitive demands. Using Samovar, Porter, and Stefani [8] we incorporated the use of culture as an integral feature of instructional design practice. It seemed natural that the appropriate place in the process would be to incorporate the aspect of culture when analyzing the audience.
This view of culture was delivered to the students over the course of several semesters. They were then required to incorporate this factor into the design of the lesson or module that was required for their target population. They were to design the lesson as appropriate for both high and low context cultures.
To help them achieve this they were also given som e in-class exercises where they identified some possible improvements in the materials that specific cultures might require. During the class, they would give each other feedback on their ideas.
The results from the first semester of incorporating cultural aspects into the design process came as a complete surprise. All of the modules were complete but lacked any specific elements for separate cultures. The student module was designed according to standard processes with the module being one smooth piece for one targeted audience. During the next semester, changes were made in the lecture, handouts, homework and in-class activities. More attention was given to what students could do to design across cultures. At the end of the semester when the learning modules were turned in and again nearly the same results were received. This was interesting because many of these students were from diverse, underserved populations with expressed interest in designing across cultures.
At the end of the third semester, the results were more or less the same. We concluded that understanding cultural differences simply as part of audience assessment was insufficient to achieve better results. What was needed was to emphasize the incorporation of cultural understanding across the entire design process.
Part of the process of designing instruction includes problem identification, content organization and the implementation of the sequencing and pacing of leaning experiences in a way that helps the learner acquire the material.
One traditional method for sequencing lesson content is Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction. [10] The process “is based on a learning hierarchy that identifies skills that are dependent on other skills.” The purpose is to teach the prerequis ite skills first (e.g., how to sort checks before marking them as cleared).” before moving to more complicated or advanced processes.
In examining previous assignments, the students were not clearly making this design step explicit. In the fall of 2001, the lesson design module for this assignment was changed. Instead of having students simply, produce a chart listing the Nine Events of Instruction with one column for the events and one for the learner activity a second column was added. Further, we changed and the title of each of columns changed to Low Context Culture and High Context Culture. (See figure 1)
In Figure 1, the student developed a lesson on geography using an interactive map and sports content. Audience assessment is important so that now the student designer can incorporate this knowledge into the design and sequence of the lesson material. Notice in presenting the stimulus material the low-context culture simply uses an image of a map whereas for the high-context culture they include not only the map but also text labels.
Consider the strategies for enhancing learning retention and learning transfer. The low-context culture again uses a simple map; whereas the high-context culture is given a simple text based quiz.
In figure two, the module is designed to teach JavaScript to college students. What is interesting is the differences between the low and high context cultures tend come early in the process. This may be because they are college age students. Notice the difference between how the cultures respond to advance organizational strategies. The low-context cultures respond better to more flashy methods to gain their attention in contrast to the more traditional advance organizer.
Notice the difference in how the cultures r e spond to stimulating prior recall. The low-context cultures are constantly reminded of previous context and situations whereas the high-context cultures respond to direct questioning.
Strategy Culture A - Low Context Culture B - High Context Gain Attention Present learner with reasons why this lesson is
worthwhile
Rapidly changing images
Inform Learner of Objectives Present questions of what the learner thinks the
objectives to be; Then present objectives provided in
form of text
Objectives provid ed in form of text (straight
forward)
Stimulate Recall of Prior Knowledge Show the learner a map
Ask the learner what sports teams and states they
already know.
Ask pretest questions directly in text form with a
map
Present Stimulus
Material
Material presented in form of images Material presented in form of text and images
Provide Learning Guidance Present learner with a story behind the information Present learner with mnemonics or play on words to
help remember info
Elicit Performance Ask the learner to list the states that do not have a
sports team Ask the learner to list the states for particular sports teams
Provide Feedback Provide a clue and another chance when an incorrect
answer is given Provide positive feedback even if incorrect answer is given
Assess Performance Learner has ability to run program as long as they
wish to attain the information Learner has ability to run program as long as they wish to attain the information
Enhance Retention and Transfer
Present a map and have the learner click on states
that have pro sports teams
Present a series of text questions for the learner to
answer
FIGURE 1
GEOGRAPHY LESSON FOR CHILDREN
Implications
Cultural understanding has implications not only for those students who want to study instructional design or become an instructional technologist.
Cultural awareness transcends any specific content area or discipline. Our students, who take this design class, even though their career path may be in software engineering or network telecommunications, will benefit from this awareness. Cultural differences should now be included in all instructional design projects whenever appropriate. Further, this project has helped to create a better understanding of the impact of culture within the discipline of instructional design. What was taken for granted must now be reevaluated.
For example, research has shown that adults tend to like advanced organizers. However, it its clear that that research did not take into account the effect of cultural differences. As the world continues to shrink instructional designers, engineers, computer scientists, and others need to become more aware of cultural differences.
This realization and action research has demonstrated that further research is necessary in better understanding cultural influences on student performance.
This has far reaching consequences in the design and development of instructional material.
Strategy Culture A - Low Context Culture B - High Context
Gain Attention Possible loud, flas hy methods to gain attention of
the learner. More subtle ways of gaining attention, i.e. Startling Facts
Inform Learner of Objectives Detail exactly what the objectives are including
information that may seem obvious.
Briefly, discuss objectives, not taking time to
elaborate the obvious.
Stimulate Recall of Prior Knowledge Continually bring up past discussion items and
topics, reinforcing the subject matter.
Ask questions, possible intermediate quiz type
assignments to reinforce the subject matter.
Present Stimulus Material Provide Material. Users have the option of
reading through all of it or skimming for key
concepts. Provide Material. Users have the option of reading through all of it or skimming for key concepts.
Provide Learning Guidance Include “TIPS” or “HINT” statements to allow
learners guidance in learning.
Include “TIPS” or “HINT” links so that learners
have the option of viewing tips, hints if necessary to
facilitate individual learning.
Elicit Performance Provide Job Aids that can be printed and used to
help instruction flow and synthesis of
information. Provide Job Aids that can be printed and used to help instruction flow and synthesis of information.
Provide Feedback Testing Methods Only: Include hints for
incorrect answers, and tips/additional
information for correct answers. Possible
Animation Testing Methods Only: Include hints for incorrect answers, and tips/additional information for correct answers.
Assess Performance Done through the use of testing. Users will have
the option of choosing testing methods that
appropriately evaluate their own performance. Done through the use of testing. Users will have the option of choosing testing methods that appropriately evaluate their own performance.
Enhance Retention and Transfer Provide few examples, and review what has been
learned in the instruction.
Provide concrete examples of how the information
can be applied to actual work.
FIGURE 2
TEACHING JAVASCRIPT.
S UMMARY
Instructional design practice has been able to produce consistent instructional material by systematic design technique and methodologies. Instructional design practice is even more important today as we seek to develop not only reusable but more portable instruction. As the world, continue to shrink engineers, computer scientists and instructional designer need to become more aware of cultural differences. Instructional design practice must grow and adapt to the changing environment.
Cultural differences are non-trivial and contribute not only misunderstanding but also loss of productivity. These differences are highly dynamic and cannot be categorized as simply a one-way street. The dominant American culture exerts great influence on the emigrant and native cultures within the United States. However, these emigrant and native cultures also provide powerful evolutionary forces on the dominant America culture. Instructional designers need to be aware of this dynamic exchange in order to improve instructional design practice.
Further areas for research will be to investigate specifically what areas of intervention are most appropriate. Given different delivery models what types of strategies and tactics are effective for which cultural types.
R EFERENCES
[1]. Sara G McNeil, A hypertext history of Instructional Design [available online at https://www.doczj.com/doc/05430358.html,/courses/cuin6373/idhistory/]
[2]. Mager, R. (1997) Preparing Instructional Objectives: A Critical Tool in the Development of Effective Instruction 3rd Edition. The Center for Effective Performance
[3] Dick, W., Carey, L, & Carey, J. (2000). The Systematic Design of Instruction. Edition, Longman
[4] Seels, B. & Glasgow, Z. (1997) Making Instructional Decisions. Second Ed., Prentice Hall
[5]. Smith, P. & Ragan, T. (1999) Instructional Design . Second edition Wiley
[6] Morrison, G., Ross, S. & Kemp, J. (2000) Designing Effective Instruction. Wiley
[7] California State University Monterey Bay. “Vision Statement” [available at https://www.doczj.com/doc/05430358.html,]
8] Samovar, L., Porter, R. & Stefani, L. (1998) Communication between Cultures. Edition, Wadsworth
[9] Gardner, H. (1993) Multiple Intelligences: The theory into practice. Basic Books
[10] Gagne, R., Briggs, L, & Wager, W (1992) Design of Instruction. 4th. Ed. Holt Rinehart & Winston