Discussions

In this chapter two experiments have been conducted. The first experiment was carried out to explore the cultural factors of the Saudi Arabian students. An online questionnaire survey (Appendix B) has been applied. The online questionnaire received replies by 175 students from several Saudi Arabian universities. The study adopted the Hofstede cultural value dimensions as a theoretical framework. Hofstede’s national culture dimensions were considered as a base for understanding the influence of national culture on people’s behaviour. In this study, the findings showed that Saudi Arabian students’ cultural characteristics are similar to Hofstede’s 1980 [16]analysis for the Arab world and can be applied to Saudi Arabia e-learning. This research has contributed to the understanding of the link between culture and education in Saudi Arabia and issues linked to the acceptance of a learning system. Its findings encourage an understanding of what factors might help an effective web-based education implementation.

The second experiment was conducted to explore the needs of the students for the recommended project membership, tasks and communication tools for group projects in e-learning. The participants were 17 Saudi Arabian students from two universities, the School of Computer Science at the

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University of Nottingham and the Department of Computer Science from the Nottingham Trent University, in the UK.

However, the results indicate the following points that development of group project in e-learning intended for Saudi Arabian students should be aware of as following.

 Saudi Arabian Culture has a high power distance dimension, students respect their teachers and they prefer to listen and get feedback from their instructors. That means that students need more support and guidance from teachers/leaders or the e-learning system.

 Saudi Arabian Culture is a collectivist culture. This implies that Saudi Arabia students desire to study collaboratively in a group rather than work individually, and they accept the recommendations from their peers to enhance their education. This result indicates that if e- learning system supports social interaction and teamwork in coursework such as discussion forums, chat and email, the student is more likely to have positive intentions towards using it.  Saudi Arabian Culture is a masculine society. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is strongly affected by cultural traditions and religious Islam. The separation of the genders is obligatory in Saudi Arabian cultures and societal norms impact on all sides of life, including the educational environment. The classes for each gender are in separate buildings. Communication between females and males is not allowed, except for close relatives and in special situations. These points to creating group projects in e-Learning system that offer social interaction, with separation of the genders. If this is provided, the Saudi Arabian student is more likely to have positive intentions towards using such a system.

 Saudi Arabian culture shows high uncertainty avoidance. Thus uncertainty and ambiguity are not acceptable for the majority of students. This might be because students’ experience with the internet is limited, especially with regards to group projects in e-learning. They need more guidance with help in the lessons, simple designs with clear descriptions and limited an amount of data, to decrease ambiguity and uncertainty.

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 The outcome gives indications about what parameters can be considered for the recommendation of project topic, group members, communication tools and project task which were shown to be statistically significant.

a) Recommendations of the project topic are according to the student’s knowledge level, skill, interests and personality.

b) Recommendations of group members could be according to student’s knowledge level, skill, collaborative behaviour, and gender.

c) Recommendations of communication tools could be according to student’s personality and collaborative behaviour.

d) The recommendations of project tasks could be according to student’s personality, skill and project state progress.

 Although most research has used system-organised group formation, the results revealed that students’ self-defined virtual project group allocation based on system-recommendations from learners’ profiles (e.g., skills, interests, knowledge and gender) is preferable to them, when compared to system-organised virtual project group member allocation.

 The result also showed that all participants use daily the Facebook and Twitter social network platforms. The main reasons for using Facebook and Twitter were that they are a place to share users’ interests and discover the latest news. Also, Facebook provides users with a place to interact with their friends and family. This indicates that Facebook can be used to build the user model and profile.

 The results from the questionnaire showed that the highest rated tool was resources, schedule, message, chat and forums discussion and that the lowest rated tools were announcements. Based on these results, a model for recommendation of group projects in and existing e- Learning system has been developed. It was further implemented on top of the Topolor 3 system architecture. It is integrated with a Facebook system and social personalised adaptive e-learning system, in order to build student profile data (e.g., students’ skill, knowledge and students’ collaborative behaviour). The system architecture of Topolor 3 (Figure 12) presents

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the features for the Recommendation of project, group members, tasks within project management, and communication tools, supporting collaborative group project-based learning.

5.10

Conclusion

This chapter identifies Saudi Arabian users’ cultural characteristics, by analysing Hofstede’s cultural value dimensions, and their appropriateness for Saudi Arabian e-learning. The quantitative data from the students was collected by using an online questionnaire. In this study, the findings demonstrate that Saudi Arabian users’ cultural characteristics are similar to Hofstede’s 1980 analysis for the Arab world and can be specifically applied for Saudi Arabian personalised e-learning. Hence, implementers of e-learning in Saudi Arabia need to be aware of these strongly influential factors and implement them in their learning solution.

The main aim of the second experiment was to investigate the needs of the students for the recommended project and communication tools for the group project. The outcome illustrated the parameters which can be considered for the recommendation of group project topics, group members, communication tools and project tasks.

Moreover, this chapter explores the needs of the students for the recommended project and tools communication for group project. Both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected and analysed. The outcome showed the parameters which can be considered for recommendation of group project topics, group members, communication tools and project tasks.

In addition, this chapter has shown the process of design and implementation of the Topolor 3 system.

In conclusion, this chapter aims to address the research objectives O4 ‘explore the cultural characteristics of Saudi Arabian students using Hofstede’s cultural value dimensions and O5: explore the needs of the students in relation to the recommended project group membership, the recommended task and the recommended communication tools for the group project, with the aim of determining

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what is necessary for implementation of the recommendation environment’. Based on the hypotheses and results from O4 and O5, a framework was constructed, as per objective O6 “proposing a framework for recommendation of collaborative projects within e-Learning”. Based on this framework, the architecture of the Topolor 3 system was defined, and the system implemented.

The process of addressing these research objectives, together with the result from the work that is described in chapter 6, contributes to answering research question R3: “Are personalised virtual project and team formation methods for e-learning more acceptable to Saudi students than traditional project and team formation methods for e-learning?”

In the next chapter, the system evaluation with students is described, to investigate the learners’ perceived acceptance of the recommended project, group membership, task, and communication tools.

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Chapter 6: Evaluation of Collaborative