Culture's Impact on Technology Mediated Learning: The Role of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism

The horizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism and collectivism are an important characteristic of cultures. These dimensions have many implications for the ways in which individual learners use and respond to interactive technologies. This article reports on a study that investigated the impact of culture, specifically horizontal individualism (HI), vertical individualism (VI), horizontal collectivism (HC), and vertical collectivism (VC) on the effectiveness of technology mediated learning. Results indicate that the four dimensional patterns have differing effects on the use of TML communication capabilities, feelings of sense of community, satisfaction with the TML experience, perceived learning, and declarative knowledge acquisition.