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Korean undergraduate students
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Sandra Webster, professor of psychology at Westminster College
in Pennsylvania, went to South Korea with the goal of wanting
to understand how Korean students learn, and particularly how
to engage them in collaborative learning using Internet instructional
resources.
She taught at Korea University (one of the oldest and top-rated
Korean universities) and Sungshin Women's University (a mid-level,
younger university). She also spent three weeks doing research
with students from a variety of universities at an English camp
between semesters.
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Sungshin womens graduate students
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In using the Internet as a teaching tool, Webster found that
Korean students reacted very well to online texts, moderately
well to online class bulletin boards for posting questions and
assignments, and poorly for online project collaboration.
For example, the course Web sites aided student understanding
by containing the lecture outlines that allowed students to take
fewer notes and to study before as well as after the lectures.
"Korean students are very willing and able to use the Internet
to receive information. They are more hesitant to use it as a
means of individual expression or group decision-making,"
she explains.
Webster realized that Korean students work very well in teams.
Internet activities that physically isolate them are at odds with
their high desire for "skinship" (physical social contact)
and their extremely high degree of electronic voice connectivity.
The use of hand phones is so pervasive and effective that students
rely on them for team communication rather than the Internet.
In the future, Webster believes that these issues of individualism
versus collectivism are very important to take into consideration
for future research on international collaboration in course work
using the Internet with Korean university students.
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