Different working styles

Culturally different decision-making styles, problem-solving styles and different ways of complying with the MGW instructions and requirements has been reported in previous research as difficulties hindering the students’ MGW progress (Popov et al., 2012). Participants in this study also pointed out the negative impact of different working styles:

Example 3.9a

Q3038.1: “It is quite difficult because people from different countries have different working styles.”

Example 3.9b

Q3118.1: “Sometimes communicating can be very challenging and people from different cultures have different attitudes and working style”

176 In Example 3.9a and Example 3.9b, the participants refer to these differences as “quite difficult” and “very challenging”. Different styles of working, for example people who start early and are prepared compared with people who start late and are last-minute, would be likely to cause a clash in the MGW process, where they were expected to work on the task at a similar timescale and speed. Siri shared her frustration with group members who like to start work later:

Example 3.9c

I04 [Siri]: “… we had a problem with different levels of commitment and some people were, well I know that they were “It’ll be fine, I’ll do it next week”. And, I’m a bit, I’m not too much of a last-minute person, so I tended to start panicking a little bit, and because I couldn’t really discuss the group work with them. And, whenever I tried they were like “er…”, which made me realise: Ok, so maybe I will get more out of talking to the people that were more committed…”

She described herself as “not too much of a last-minute person” and might therefore “start panicking a little bit” when others tried to reassure her that they would do it next week (Example 3.9c).

Participants also pointed out there were different levels of directness in the conversation and different approaches of working and discussing:

Example 3.9d

Q3029: “…Some people are blunt, some are polite and some prefer to work than talk; It is so amazing to see so many different working styles...”

Example 3.9e

I06 [Ivanka]: “… it’s the amount of attention you give to the detail, it’s the amount of time you plan to spend on work, it’s also in a group, if you’re used to speaking out loud and expressing your opinion, as people being like ‘I'm not going to say anything, I'm not going to express myself’.”

In Example 3.9d, the participant comments on the “amazing” diversity of working styles, including “blunt”, “polite”, and preferring to “work rather than talk”. Ivanka in Example 3.9e lists various differences in attitudes towards working, attention to detail and different approaches of communicating with group members. She also commented on culturally different expectations of group member relationships and dynamics:

177 Example 3.9f

I06 [Ivanka]: “…how you treat your peers and how you, you know in some cultures, there is the whole, there is a more pronounced leader thing and then in some cultures you're more going towards let’s all try to be as equal as we can, so there is that, so some people in the group might choose a leader and look up to that person whereas others might try to be equal and that will kind of disbalance the whole thing…”

She described the tension between people who have more hierarchical values, “in some cultures there is a more pronounced leader thing”, and people who have more egalitarian values, “let’s all try to be as equal as we can”, as something that will “disbalance” multicultural group work (Example 3.9f). In Example 3.9g, she elaborated on the disbalance, or the impact of students bringing their own expectations about leadership style into working with students from different cultures:

Example 3.9g

I06 [Ivanka]: “…because the leader in that case, regardless of which culture he or she comes from, he or she will be in a very difficult position, whether you lead or you work with, you can’t do both at the same time to be honest, you're tyrannical basically, which is completely acceptable in some cultures, which is what people sometimes expect of a person who’s taking the leadership will tell them what to do, whereas from other cultures, everybody tries to be like “yeah, but” and that creates a difficulty..”

In particular, she highlights what “a very difficult position” any leader would be in trying to manage these different expectations of leadership style, as would the other team members (Example 3.9g). She describes the more hierarchical preference as expecting to be told what to do, and the more egalitarian preference as all the group members feeling they can challenge being told what to do.

The data presented in this section show that students came across different working styles through MGW; for example, while some people prefer to finish the work as early as they possibly can, others prefer to complete it at the last minute. Noticing such differences indicates that working in groups develops students’ observation skills. Moreover, learning how to manage and accommodate to them so that they work more effectively with others is a secondary level skill that requires practice and collaboration. It is possible that students found the different working styles of their peers to hinder MGW progress because they had not sufficiently developed the skills needed to manage and accommodate difference.

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