Email as a learning technology in the South Pacific: An evaluation

This paper examines how students from different cultural backgrounds use email to communicate with other students and lecturers. The South Pacific region, isolated, vast, and culturally diverse, was selected as an excellent research environment in which to study the effect of cultural differences and educational technology on distance learning. The context of the research was two competing distance education institutions in Fiji, the University of the South Pacific and Central Queensland University. The two institutions use email for teaching and learning in quite different ways. At CQU email has been incorporated in teaching pedagogy across all courses, whereas at USP email is available to students, but usage is voluntary. Three research questions are addressed: Does cultural background affect the extent to which students use email to communicate with educators and other students for academic and social reasons? Does cultural background affect the academic content of email messages? Does cultural background influence students' preference to ask questions or provide answers using email instead of faceto-face communication? Two studies were conducted in parallel. Subjects were drawn from business information systems and computer information technology classes at USP and CQU. 400 USP students located at different regional centers were surveyed about their use of email. In the CQU study, postings to course discussion lists by 867 students based in Fiji and Australia were analyzed. The results suggest that there are significant differences in the use of email by students from different cultural backgrounds.