Evaluation of adaptive teamwork system based upon individual differences in culture dimension (Individualism - collectivism)

Abstract

Although there are various personalised and adaptive eLearning systems developed, a culture factor has been not sufficiently considered in adaptive and personalised learning environments. This paper presents a personalised and adaptive system based on individual differences in cultural backgrounds (individualism and collectivism). A culturally adaptive teamwork system called IdeasRoom is used to implement cultural additions. The IdeasRoom system has adaptations to its interface to include two different versions of design: individualist version (IND) and collectivist version (COL). The paper summarises an initial evaluation of the proposed system. This evaluation of the proposed Ideas‐ Room system relates to the responses of the participants of the study that involved 52 postgraduate students, so that the version that was not personalised to partic-ipants’ cultural backgrounds is compared with the version that was personalised to participants’ cultural backgrounds in terms of their perceptions of usability their preferences of design. The findings show that the participants had perceptions of usability that are shown to be at a higher level when teamwork learning systems are personalised to participants’ cultural backgrounds, which suggests that these results based on identifying users’ cultural backgrounds are of significant importance. Also, this evaluation concludes that participants’ preferences for experiencing a system are matched to their cultural inclinations.