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Research Aim: This PhD thesis is focused on investigating whether culture can pose conflicts to the communication, collaboration and/or cooperation of multicultural groups comprised by students coming from South East Europe (SEE) and studying in Greece, by using synchronous text-based chat. Thus, this PhD attempts to answer the following research question: "Are there problems of communication, collaboration and cooperation in multicultural groups engaged in eLearning activities by using synchronous text-based communication?" Methodology: In order to investigate the existence of cultural conflicts, the research design for the study adopted logical positivism as an epistemology through the use of quasi-experiments. More specifically the research is based on two components: questionnaires to re-evaluate Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory and provide an initial expectation of the interaction behavior between the students from the cultures participating; and quasi-experiments to explore multicultural communication conflicts in the context of a meaningful learning activity. The students, who participated on this research, were undergraduate students from Computer Science and Business Administration and Economics departments of CITY Liberal Studies. The students who volunteered to participate were fourteen Greeks, fourteen FYROMs (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), four Serbians, four Albanians, and four Bulgarians were selected. Students were allocated to four monocultural (control) or to four multicultural groups (experimental). In particular, the students were split into four control groups (two groups with five (5) students each from FYROM and two groups with five (5) students each from Greece) and four (4) multicultural groups (having one student from each nationality). At the first stage, Hofstede's questionnaires were used in order to provide a better understanding of the cultural backgrounds of each participant. The dramatic changes that SEE region faced during the recent years have made the replication of Hofstede's questionnaires and the re-calculation of new values for each dimension a necessity. At the second stage, quasi-experiments were performed in order to explore areas of multicultural communication conflicts. After the identification of the conflicting multicultural communication areas, through the analysis of logs of communication during a purposely-designed activity, one-to-one interviews were employed in order to clarify and further explain the identified communication conflicts that resulted from the log analysis and their relation to culture. Research Findings: The outcome of the analysis process showed that although group communication was interrupted due to cultural misperception, misinterpretation and misunderstanding it never broke down and the groups were all able to fulfil the goals of the activity more or less. A summary of the behaviours identified in this PhD thesis (see section 7.3.3) is described in the next two paragraphs. Control groups, for instance, groups consisted from students from the same culture, tend to face less communication problems and develop mechanisms in order to trigger the involvement of silent members and control the structure of the conversation. Moreover, control groups showed the tendency to develop the "joyful mood" behaviour that led the discussion to become informal, causing the disturbance of the group and the failure of reaching the goal on the given time. Multicultural groups made the discussion more open in order to include all the different opinions presented in the discussion formulating a general answer. This behaviour of "generalizing the answer" exhibited in the multicultural groups led to the development of communication conflicts by students that were not satisfied by the generalized answers triggering behaviours like "vitiation of different opinion" having as a result the disturbance of the group communication for some turns or behaviours like "abrupt end" having as a result an immediate and coercive agreement of the group members. Conclusions: By examining the interaction of students in a synchronous eLearning activity, this PhD concludes that culture influences communication, collaboration and/or cooperation, even if the cultures of the participants are close. The initial expectations of the potentially conflicting areas provided from the questionnaire analysis were confirmed in the group interaction of the participants. Although, communication of the participants in the activity never broke down, multicultural conflicting areas were identified, in which the participants demonstrated a delay in providing an answer. These identified rnulticultural conflicting areas can provide the basis for an analytic tool for assessing and analysing cross-cultural communication conflicts. The communication experience, and the collaboration/cooperation of the users of eLearning environments can be enhanced, by tackling the identified conflicting areas. Research Limitations: The research was limited in terms of resources and time, which are the typical characteristics of a PhD study. Limitations in time did not allow the researcher to test potential solutions on re-runs of the experiments and replicate the experiment on different institutions and/or different cultures, allowing the results to be used outside this country's context. Moreover, the small numbers of the participants used in this research can add further to the problem of generalizing outside the study's context. Finally, the results could potentially be different if students were participating in actual eLearning courses from different places such as their home. Originality and contribution to current research: This PhD study is one of the few that examines cultural communication problems between students coming from close cultures with common history and background. On this premise, the findings that although cannot be generalised can contribute to current research by adding the consideration of students' cultural backgrounds into the communication elements offered in e-Learning environments. This PhD provided a first attempt into highlighting the importance of this consideration even from close/similar cultures. Moreover, the identified multicultural communication conflicts can be used to identify, prevent and manage miscommunication in multicultural group discussion. Finally, educational vendors in their existing e-Learning environments can use the identified conflicting areas in order to minimise the occurrence of cross-cultural conflicts.

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There is an increasing demand for distance education to be implemented nowadays by most educational organizations. The Internet has become the medium for course delivery, and Web Course Management Systems (WCMS) are widely used to deploy distance courses which need to provide appropriate support to both students and instructors. The instructors play a central role in managing the course, and their success in dealing with reported problems in distance learning, such as students’ isolation and disorientation in hyperspace, depends on the understanding the instructors have about what is happening in distance classes. Based on tracking data, most WCMS provide statistical information to help instructors monitor their students. However, there is a lack of automatic features to guide instructors by pointing at important situations and highlighting possible problems. Such features may help instructors, and reduce the workload and communication overhead needed for managing distance classes effectively. In this thesis, an approach is proposed where an artificial advisor is built to inform course instructors and facilitators about possible problems and needs of individuals and groups of students, as well as to suggest appropriate actions, when possible. A framework named TADV (Teacher ADVisor) has been developed to build fuzzy student, group, and class models based on the tracking data generated by WCMS. A taxonomy containing three main categories of advice related to the performance of individual students, groups of students, and the whole class is proposed, and an advice generator mechanism is developed. Important situations are highlighted to instructors and, when appropriate, possible actions are recommended. A prototype of TADV is implemented and integrated within an existing WCMS. An empirical evaluation of the prototype has been conducted in a Discrete Mathematics course at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Egypt. The evaluative study has shown that TADV provides practical and effective advice. It allows advice generation and informing of instructors, which, in turn, made it easy to send help and feedback to distance students. The instructors confirmed the appropriateness of the generated advice and appreciated the knowledge they gained about their students. The students appreciated the feedback received from the instructors, which was a result of TADV recommendations. The study showed better overall satisfaction and social aspects for the students who used TADV advising features.

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Flexible e-Iearning refers to an intelligent educational mechanism that focuses on simulating and improving traditional education as far as possible on the Web by integrating various electronic approaches, technologies, and equipment. This mechanism aims to promote the personalized development and management of e-learning Web services and applications. The main value of this method is that it provides high-powered individualization in pedagogy for students and staff. Here, the thesis mainly studied three problems in meeting the practical requirements of users in education. The first question is how a range of teaching styles (e.g. command and guided discovery) can be supported. The second one is how varieties of instructional processes can be authored. The third question is how these processes can be controlled by learners and educators in terms of their personalized needs during the execution of instruction. In this research, through investigating the existing e-Iearning approaches and technologies, the main technical problems of current virtual learning environments (VLEs) were analyzed. Next, by using the Semantic Web concepts as well as relevant standards, a schema-driven approach was created. This method can support users' individualized operations in the Web-based education. Then, a flexible e-learning system based on the approach was designed and implemented to map a range of extensive didactic paradigms. Finally, a case study was completed to evaluate the research results. The main findings of the assessment were that the flexible VLE implemented a range of teaching styles and the personalized creation and control of educational processes.

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The purpose of the research was to determine how educators could be motivated to implement internet technology in education. The literature study highlighted the need for e-learning while suggesting that educator support would not be achieved easily. The empirical study, however, revealed that at the international school examined, educators accept internet learning and demonstrate a willingness to introduce it into their pedagogy, were a blended approach to be adopted. Technological and psychological barriers had already been breached, as e-learning was taking place in a non-threatening environment. Educators were being empowered to experiment with e-learning in their subject areas. The study revealed that, having already embraced e-learning methodology educators would continue to do so if they could clearly perceive the benefits to be achieved. The study also showed that given a technologically nurturing environment, it would not be difficult to motivate educators to introduce internet technology into their pedagogy. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Adult Education)

The ability to utilise information and communication technologies (ICTs) has become a new literacy for the twenty first century. This literacy raises a number of challenges for teachers’ vis-à-vis their technical ability, knowledge and expertise in ICTs. These challenges are also identified by the White paper on e-Education as: participation in the information society, impact of ICTs on access, cost effectiveness and quality of education, and integration of ICTs in the teaching and learning process. There is a gap in the ability of learners and teachers to use ICTs effectively, to access online content, to create content of their own, to communicate and collaborate, and to integrate technology into teaching and learning. There is also little evidence of technology integration into classroom activities such as systematic planning and implementation of lessons. This study describes barriers to effective technology integration in senior secondary schools. This was a qualitative case study conducted in technology rich senior secondary schools in the Tshwane North District, Gauteng Province. Data was collected from semi-structured interviews with office-based and school-based officials, focus group interviews with learners, lesson observations and document study. The findings point to lack of ICT specialist teachers to teach students computer skills, lack of teaching experience with ICTs, lack of support from the Department of Education, insufficient technology resources and absence of desired integration of ICTs in the curriculum. The long term aim of the study is to make substantive recommendations on the integration of ICTs in teaching and learning. In conclusion, this study clearly indicates that there are schools around Gauteng Province with computer technologies that are not used for teaching and learning. Based on the research findings and suggestions for further research, a national strategy for designing and implementing computer technology policy should be developed in Tshwane North Region to integrate technology effectively into teaching and learning. This will help teachers to plan and teach with technology and assist learners to become technologically compliant with 21st century demands. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)