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Collaboration in a Multicultural Learning Environment:  

Asynchronous vs. Synchronous Platforms 

Maria O. Villarreal-Solano 

Universidad de Monterrey, Mexico 

Nadezhda S. Rudenko 

Gymnasium # 104 “Classical Gymnasium”, Russia 

Anneli Schaufeli 

HAN University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands 

Eleanor Kane 

The University of Shimane, Japan 

Christopher Brighton 

Krosno State College, Poland 

 

Author Note 

Maria Olivia Villarreal-Solano, Humanities Department, Universidad de Monterrey. 

Nadezhda Sergeevna Rudenko, Gymnasium # 104 “Classical Gymnasium”. 

Anneli Schaufeli, Faculty of Education, HAN University of Applied Sciences. 

Eleanor Kane, Faculty of Policy Studies, University of Shimane. 

Christopher Brighton, Department of English Philology, Krosno State College. 

  Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maria Olivia Villarreal-

Solano, Humanities Department, Universidad de Monterrey, Avenida Ignacio Morones Prieto 

4500 Pte., Jesus M. Garza, San Pedro Garza Garcia, N.L. Mexico, 66238. 

Contact: maria.villarreals@udem.edu 

mailto:maria.villarreals@udem.edu


 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                85 

Abstract 

While video linking through the Global Understanding Programme is an effective way to reduce 

prejudice and increase interest in other cultures, the number of students who can participate 

synchronously is limited both by physical classroom space and time differences.  During the 9th 

GPE Conference, five instructors committed to implement an asynchronous model of Global 

Understanding (GU) using the SOLE SOCIAL platform.  Students created video clips about 

themselves and the GU topics (e.g., College Life, Family and Cultural Traditions, etc.)  and 

completed a collaborative project. At the end of the interaction, the majority of video clips were 

posted and collaborative projects were completed. However, there was little discussion about the 

GU topics.  The amount of interaction in each group varied according to the students’ 

personalities and commitment to the class.  Although many students were comfortable using 

other social media platforms, they were discouraged from participating more actively in the 

SOLE discussion due to problems with logging in and the fact that the platform lacks notification 

services. Nevertheless, the project resulted in several development opportunities for the future of 

asynchronous work in the traditional GU programme. Firstly, sharing videos to illustrate GU 

topics opened a new avenue of opportunity to broaden the current discussion topics from 

conversations to interactive explorations. Secondly, allowing students access to asynchronous 

timing encouraged the development of student self-learning skills and investment in their own 

education. Finally, the asynchronous project illustrated the benefits of platforms to increase out-

of-class interaction in the coming year. 

 Keywords: asynchronous online collaboration, multicultural learning environment, 

intercultural interaction, global citizenship, higher education  

 



 

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Collaboration in a Multicultural Learning Environment:  

Asynchronous vs. Synchronous Platforms 

Global social and economic changes at the turn of the 21st century including those ones 

in migration policy, opened up new opportunities for expanding cultural dialogue among 

different countries in a number of spheres. During the past several decades, international 

cooperation in education has witnessed establishment of governmental and non-governmental 

international organizations promoting student cultural and academic exchange programmes. 

Such collaboration in education has made it possible for universities and colleges worldwide to 

share best practices and contribute to the efficacy and quality of education around the globe. 

Transformative educational learning theories (Mezirow, 1978) promote deeper 

understanding involving information exchange and independent learning. Consequently, this 

leads to contemporary methodological approaches that are characterized by sustained and 

focused attention to the problem of training interculturally competent graduates capable of 

effective teamwork in a multicultural collaboration setting (Kitchenham, 2008). Intercultural 

communication alongside multilingualism has been considered one of the key requirements for 

quality higher education as an integral part of all higher education systems (UNESCO, 1998). 

Upcoming graduates are expected to be able to successfully work with people from other 

cultures and be proficient in a foreign language (i.e., primarily English) in personal and 

professional intercultural interaction. 

         Such emphasis on intercultural interaction in education might be accounted for by its 

didactic potential in training globally competent employees. Interaction across borders might 

have a positive influence on one’s personality holistically, as well as resulting in cognitive 

changes when purposefully organized in a learning setting (Boyer, Maher, & Kirkham, 2006). 



 

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Personality transformation might first and foremost include development of one’s global 

worldview and enhancement of one’s intercultural tolerance. This happens due to the elimination 

of stereotypes and prejudices resulting from immediate intercultural contacts (Spreckels & 

Kotthoff, 2007). It also might involve the development of one’s personal level of mobility (i.e., 

professional, geographic, intercultural) via acquiring experience of academic mobility. In this 

respect, mobility is viewed as one's willingness to be employed in the global labour market; to 

become a member of a new culturally-diverse staff; and to change one’s place of residence to 

obtain new professional and self-realization opportunities. Cognitive changes are associated with 

the overcoming of one’s cultural egocentrism as a result of adopting the system of meanings and 

values of the other culture.  These changes make it possible to more objectively approach 

anticipating and solving global problems. 

         Information and communication technology immensely influenced the availability and 

affordability of immediate intercultural interaction in education due to the introduction of a new 

generation of computer-based educational systems such as virtual learning environments. A 

virtual learning environment, being a designed information and social space (Dillenbourg, 2000), 

includes multiple tools for content management, provides opportunities for both synchronous and 

asynchronous communication, as well as offers different models of interaction in terms of the 

number of communicants (i.e., one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many). It might also include 

options characteristic of social media such as posting, sharing, and commenting.   

It should be noted that virtual learning environments are not synonymous with virtual 

campuses arranged via conventional Learning Management Systems (LMS). The term “virtual 

learning environments” designates a broader notion since it does not restrict the curricula to any 

particular level of education, e.g. university course or diploma programme. What makes virtual 



 

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learning environments distinguish themselves among other constructivist environments is that 

students become not only active participants but also contributors to the social and information 

space (Dillenbourg, 2000). Overall, a virtual learning environment integrates such functions 

crucial for organizing successful intercultural interaction as information, learning, 

communication, collaboration, and management.  The “googlization” of e-learning 

(Vaidhyanathan, 2011) provides students with an array of tools to effectively take responsibility 

for their learning in online collaboration with others and, therefore, to substantially benefit from 

such collaboration. 

         Therefore, educational opportunities in the virtual learning environment are largely 

defined by the facilitation of social interactions among learners and between learners and tutors 

via collaboration. The importance of such interactions was first introduced in social 

constructivism (Trentin, 2010) and was further developed in a number of contemporary learning 

theories such as the connectivist, or network learning theory, proposed by Siemens (2004) and 

Downes (2006). Connectivism stresses the idea that knowledge exists within systems and is 

acquired by individuals who interact collaboratively to attain specific learning goals. 

         Collaboration allows students to develop cognitive and social skills in cooperation with 

others (Smith, 2005). Being involved in multiple social interactions, each participant has positive 

interrelations with other members and is aware of the responsibility for the result of joint 

activities. To address the issue of what collaborative learning is, Smith & MacGregor (1992) 

investigated a number of approaches and concluded that:  

‘Collaborative learning’ is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches 

involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together. Usually, 

students are working in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding, 



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                89 

solutions, or meanings, or creating a product. Collaborative learning activities vary 

widely, but most center on students’ exploration or application of the course material, not 

simply the teacher’s presentation or explication of it.  (p. 11) 

When applied in virtual learning environments, collaboration contributes to building 

virtual communities that enhance education. Theoretical research and comparative experiments 

have proved that collaborative learning has an advantage over studying in individual situations in 

terms of the learning outcomes obtained by students (cf. Slavin, 1983; Bruffee, 1999; Kreijns & 

Kirschner, 2004). For example, Johnson, Johnson, and Stanne (2000) analyzed 158 reports on the 

effectiveness of cooperative learning methods used in schools and concluded that these methods 

have a significant positive impact on student achievement compared with individualistic 

learning. 

Besides, there are extensive empirical studies that focus on the collaboration process 

itself, conditions crucial for making collaborative learning effective for students as well as the 

analysis of types of interactions favourable for collaborative learning (cf.  Collazos et al., 2007; 

Jermann & Schneider, 1997). 

Therefore, the process of virtual intercultural collaborative learning both synchronous and 

asynchronous is not new in intercultural research and has been efficiently employed in 

intercultural training for many years. The current paper proceeds to investigate the affordances of 

asynchronous collaborative learning for university students and describes the best practices in 

relation to the Asynchronous Global Understanding course. 

Overview of the project  

The Global Understanding (GU) course is a synchronous virtual educational setting 

where students in universities around the world discuss topics that include college life, cultural 



 

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traditions, family, the meaning of life, religion, and stereotypes and prejudices. Each class 

session includes live discussion in both small video groups and one-to-one keyboard chat. 

Evidence shows that while synchronous communication fosters social contact and activity within 

participants, it also creates a sense of urgency in terms of the task or debate at hand (Oztok et al, 

2013).  In the GU course, video linking translates into an effective way to reduce prejudice and 

increase interest in other cultures (Epler, 2017). However, the number of students who can 

participate synchronously is limited both by physical classroom space, and time differences.  The 

video linking GU courses are limited to around 16 students per class and rely on each 

institution’s resources to provide the information and communication technologies (ICTs) 

required for videoconferencing and synchronous chat. On the other hand, synchronous 

interaction between universities with large time differences is very challenging (i.e. Japan cannot 

work synchronously with European or African countries during the class times for GU courses). 

With the purpose of expanding the GU course to more students and allowing exchange 

between countries which struggle to video link due to time differences, the authors of this paper 

proposed the implementation of an asynchronous GU course where students communicate using 

social media platforms outside of class. Asynchronous communication does not only allow for 

students in different time zones to interact, but it may present other benefits for EFL students in 

an intercultural environment that are not possible in synchronous communication. Asynchronous 

communication gives students extra time to internalize information or reflect on certain ideas of 

the other culture, while in synchronous communication they have to react immediately, with time 

for reflection restricted to after the interaction occurs. Although asynchronous text 

communication is considered to be lean media which adds little or no nonverbal cues to a verbal 

message, research has shown that mediated communication makes communicating easier (Adler, 



 

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Rosenfeld, & Proctor II, 2013). 

This type of remote and asynchronous personal communication is possible through social 

media, and higher education instructors all over the world have taken advantage of the students’ 

knowledge and skills using social media. Research shows that students prefer to use Facebook 

for some instructional activities like sharing multimedia or textual educational resources and 

interacting with other classmates in discussions and debates (Joinson, 2008 as cited in Espinosa, 

2015; Pennington, 2009 as cited in Espinosa, 2015). Although widely used, Facebook is not 

available everywhere. Since 2009, for example, China banned Facebook (Pham & Riley, 2017). 

That makes for almost one fifth of the world population with no access to this social network. In 

order to implement the asynchronous GU course, it was necessary to select a social media 

platform other than Facebook.  For this reason, a new educational platform that provides a 

Facebook-like platform, SOLE SOCIAL, was used for the asynchronous GU pilot (Brighton, 

2017; Brighton & Rudenko, 2016).  

Implementation 

Five universities in Asia, Europe, and North America including: Ural State Pedagogical 

University (USPU, Russia), HAN University of Applied Sciences (HAN, Netherlands), Krosno 

State College (KSC, Poland), Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM, Mexico), and The University 

of Shimane (USJ, Japan), agreed on a timetable to work with two or more partners during the fall 

(i.e., roughly September through December) of 2016.  Interaction with each partner lasted 3-4 

weeks which is the traditional linking time between partners in the synchronous Global 

Understanding class. One of the instructors created small groups in the SOLE SOCIAL platform 

for no more than 8 students from both countries. At the beginning of the interaction, students 

were given a weekly schedule of discussion topics (Figure 1) that included the five standard GU 



 

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discussion topics: College Life, Family and Cultural Traditions, Religion and the Meaning of 

Life, and Stereotypes and Prejudices.  The students were asked to produce a personal 

introduction as a video clip and video clips about each of these topics that would serve as a 

starting point for the group discussion. Early in the week, they were asked to post the weekly 

video clip(s) on the group's wall. Next, they were asked to react to the videos by commenting 

and asking questions to further explore each topic. As in the synchronous GU Course, students 

were assigned one or two partners to work on a one-to-one collaborative project. They were 

asked to contact their partners immediately after the link started to select a topic and engage with 

their partner to share information, opinions, values, attitudes and emotions. The project was to be 

posted at the end of the interaction on the group's wall and presented locally. Instructors 

monitored the SOLE SOCIAL groups and were in constant communication with their colleagues 

during the 3-4 week interaction. 

 Week 1 

Early in the week - Post personal introductions video clips and video on Introduction to 

Country / College Life in SOLE SOCIAL group wall 

By mid-week - Interaction in SOLE SOCIAL group wall (reaction to the video clips/ 

questions/ answers) 

Week 2 

Early in the week - Post video on Family and cultural traditions / Religion and the 

meaning of life in SOLE SOCIAL group wall 

By mid-week - Interaction in SOLE SOCIAL group wall  (reaction to the video clips/ 

questions/ answers) 

Week 3 

Early in the week - Post video on Stereotypes and prejudice  in SOLE SOCIAL group 

wall 

By mid-week - Interaction in SOLE SOCIAL group wall (reaction to the video clips/ 

questions/ answers) 

 Week 4 

Early in the week- Post Collaborative Project ppt and evidence of partner-to-partner 

interaction  in SOLE SOCIAL group wall /Present projects locally 

Figure 1. Weekly schedule example 

At the end of the semester the students were asked to complete a survey aimed at 



 

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assessing the asynchronous intercultural collaborative experience and the effectiveness of the 

SOLE SOCIAL platform as an educational social network. Altogether, there were 118 responses 

collected from HAN, UDEM, USJ, and USPU. Table 1 shows a summary of the student 

participation in the asynchronous GU course and in the survey by country, as well as their 

opinion about the overall asynchronous intercultural collaborative experience.  

Table 1 

 

Overview of student participation in and student opinion of the asynchronous GU course 

University/ 

Country 

Number of 

Student 

Participants 

Completed 

Survey 

Completed 

Collaborative 

Project 

Positive 

views about 

course 

Would 

Recommend 

Course 

UDEM/ 

Mexico 

 

40 

 

73% 

 

72% 

 

66% 

 

79% 

 

HAN/ 

Netherlands 

 

42 

 

81% 

 

21% 

 

32% 

 

79% 

 

KSC/  

Poland 

 

15 

 

0% 

Data not 

available 

Data not 

available 

Data not  

available 

 

USPU/ 

Russia 

 

10 

 

100% 

 

70% 

 

30% 

 

100% 

 

USJ/     

Japan 

 

48 

 

94% 

 

67% 

 

32% 

 

42% 

 

 

The View from Mexico 

  Altogether, forty UDEM undergraduate students participated in the pilot study. There 

was a different group of 8-12 students with each partner institution. All students were enrolled in 

a common and mandatory 6-credit course aimed at comparing global trends in Mexico and other 



 

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countries. At the beginning of the semester, students were informed about using SOLE SOCIAL, 

they were asked to form groups of four students and choose one of the four countries (Japan, 

Poland, Netherlands, or Russia) to research and interact with. Each student prepared a self-

introductory video clip and each group of four students prepared video clips on three topics  to 

be posted online using SOLE SOCIAL at a rate of one per week during the four-week interaction 

with their international partners.  

The main purpose of the video clips was to offer enough information about each topic to 

begin discussion with their partners. The students were given a set of discussion questions and 

were asked to answer them in a creative manner by video that would last no more than five 

minutes. Each group of four students discussed the questions among themselves in advance and 

decided how they wanted to explain their answers in video. The video clips were graded as a 

group assignment. By the time the interaction with each partner started, the video clips were 

ready to be posted according to the weekly schedule. Students were encouraged to actively 

participate in the SOLE SOCIAL groups. Posting and reacting to video clips and answering 

questions were individually graded.   

During the interaction in the SOLE SOCIAL groups, there were a number of issues with 

logging in to the platform, posting and viewing the video clips, and having to wait a long time 

for an answer or a question from international partners. In sum, students expected more 

interaction and they couldn’t tell whether the delayed response from the partners was due to a 

lack of interest, a low level of ITC skills, or cultural differences. In the students’ words: 

“The experience at the beginning was very difficult and challenging because between the 

two countries there are 7 hours of difference and by the time we went to sleep in Mexico 

they were waking up. We had never experienced difficulties like not being able to post 



 

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videos, view content or enter the platform. There was almost no interaction through the 

SOLE SOCIAL platform and we could not see their introduction video. It was a good 

idea to contact us via Facebook and email as an alternative social media.” 

“They have a different level of organization in terms of their projects and jobs. So 

agreeing to discuss the issues was sometimes complicated. Sometimes we felt that we 

were perceived as "stalkers" because we tried to get in touch with each other, and we did 

not know if this was considered "good" or "bad" manners or was only part of a project.” 

“We occasionally perceived them as disinterested in their work. But when they explained 

why they had not been able to get in touch, they showed a high level of commitment. We 

were satisfied because we fulfilled our part of the interaction to carry out this project, 

however, the interaction sometimes could not be made at all.” 

         At the end of the semester, 73% of the UDEM participant students completed the survey. 

Of which, 72% successfully completed the one-to-one collaborative projects with their partners. 

To complete this task, the Mexican students used social media such as email, Whatsapp and 

Facebook, as some of their partners could never log in to the educational platform and this was 

the only means to get the work done. They also found these social media easier than SOLE 

SOCIAL to cope with some of the challenges of the assignment, challenges related with time 

difference and communicating with other EFL students.  The students who completed the task 

reported having enjoyed knowing a person from a different country and his/her culture and 

lifestyle.  

All in all, 79% of the Mexican respondents would recommend the course to future 

students as they learnt that “people all over the world in fact can interact with you,” “cultures are 

really different one from another,” “it’s interesting the way students in each country use 



 

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technology,” and “that we have to agree to work as a team to find the best possible result.”  

The View from The Netherlands 

Forty-two HAN students participated in the pilot study. They were all third year primary 

teacher training college students who had also signed up to study abroad the following semester. 

The course was an obligatory part of their preparatory programme. Contributing to the SOLE 

SOCIAL platform and writing a reflective essay on their experiences was conditional for 

receiving credits for the preparatory programme. Students had the opportunity to express their 

preference for one of the four partners. Then they were divided into smaller groups and during 

the semester each group interacted with one of the other four partners, according to the timetable. 

Because of the differing number of students among partners, it was not always possible to 

provide students with their preference.   

At the beginning of the interaction, the students posted a video clip on the SOLE 

SOCIAL platform in which they introduced themselves and the university. The instructor 

encouraged them to make videos in the university building and at home, believing that ‘real life’ 

images would more easily elicit interaction between partners. The following weeks the students 

were supposed to post three video clips on three different GU topics.  

During the course of their interaction, the students at HAN noticed a large difference 

between the various partner institutions. Whereas the students at UDEM in Mexico had already 

prepared their video clips before and posted them immediately, the Japanese students at USJ 

suffered from technical problems with the platform and could not post their video clips right 

from the start. The Dutch students reacted correspondingly. The Dutch-Mexican group tried to 

keep up with the timetable for posts however, the Dutch-Japanese group appeared not to stick to 

the timetable at all.  



 

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An evaluation session with the various Dutch groups, each having communicated with a 

partner from a different country, appeared to be very valuable. Students could exchange their 

experiences. Comparing and reflecting on different experiences with different countries made it 

possible to touch upon possible cultural differences and to let the student become aware of their 

own role in the interaction, or the lack of interaction. 

 After having evaluated the programme together with the students, the instructor 

concluded that there had been very little interaction on the SOLE SOCIAL platform.  In 

exceptional cases, there had been communication outside the platform, through Skype or 

Whatsapp. This was mainly the case with the Mexican students. The vast majority of the group 

however, didn’t have any interaction outside the platform. Most students ‘blamed’ SOLE 

SOCIAL for not posting or interacting. They described it as very user-unfriendly. 

At the end of the course, 81% of the participating students completed the survey.  21% 

reported to have completed the collaborative project and they were all students who had 

collaborated with students at UDEM in Mexico.  The Dutch-Japanese group was not able to 

complete the collaborative project due to technical problems. Although only 32% of the 

respondents to the survey reported positive views about the overall course (score 4 or 5 out of 5), 

79% of the students would recommend the course to other students despite the technical 

problems encountered with USJ and despite their frustrations with using the SOLE SOCIAL 

platform. It may be concluded that they liked the overall concept and had successful interactions 

using other types of social media. 

The View from Poland 

 The piloting of the programme in Poland involved an evening group of fifteen mature 

students in the 26+ project, a programme for students over the age of 26 where most of the 



 

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classes are taught through the e-learning platform. Students meet their teachers two or three 

times a week for an evening class as well as for a class on Saturdays. Given the diverse 

experience and knowledge of computing skills of the student group the biggest student concern 

was individual access to and use of social media. One student had never used any form of social 

media prior to the pilot project and as such, was at a disadvantage. Other students’ experience 

ranged from competent, regular users of social media to infrequent but familiar users.  

Unlike other social media platforms, the students’ collective concern was connected to 

notifications of posts and constant interaction. The SOLE SOCIAL platform did not include an 

ability to receive email or text notifications of interaction on the posts and required more effort to 

regularly check the website for comments. Consequently, the students did find it difficult to 

manage the need for constant checking and interspersed commentary from their collaborators 

due to the lack of notification. The overall comment was that without notification it was easy to 

miss or forget about SOLE SOCIAL due to their work patterns and other commitments. Social 

media, in the student view, works best when it informs the user of updates and posts to keep the 

individual involved in discussions. 

 The use of videos and uploading of pictures brought a new dimension for the 

communication and collaboration. As the instructor of the GU group, it was possible to notice 

that the conversation topics were more lively and visually motivated. The students enjoyed the 

opportunity to make short videos of their college life and family as well as show pictures about 

Poland and the local region. It was the visual nature of the interaction that allowed the Polish 

students to think in detail about what was necessary to show and talk about. Rather than simply 

reacting and following a conversation online, the need to prepare and upload prior to facilitate 

the link encouraged consideration of many aspects of Polish culture and the students’ lifestyle. 



 

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The outcome of this activity is, from the teacher’s perspective, positive as it increased self-

awareness and student engagement. 

 The commentary by the students in the post-course evaluation highlighted their need for 

more face-to-face conversations. In Krosno State College, the GU course is considered to be a 

part of the Practical English and Intercultural Communication requirements of the college 

degree. Consequently, the students’ mentioned that they were anticipating more one-on-one 

conversations and group discussions. Although several students did use Skype to have 

conversations, the nature of the asynchronous project created difficulty in finding a convenient 

time for meetings due to work and family as well as time zone differences. Additionally, whereas 

the Polish students believed a synchronous element was necessary and essential, not all of their 

collaborative partners had similar motives and opportunities. 

Although the 26+ student group did enjoy the project and engaged as much as possible, 

the general feeling was that the project was unsuccessful overall. This was due to certain issues 

with the students’ use of technology and expectations of social media as well as the lack of 

online asynchronous communication. Despite the positive comments relating to video uploads, 

the students believed that in comparison to the synchronous GU, which two of the group chose 

as an elective course, the overall effect was not appealing and without some form of synchronous 

communication the course should not be offered again in the current form.  

The View from Russia 

Ten USPU undergraduate students participated in the pilot. They were all third year EFL 

teacher training college students who had not previously participated in multicultural 

collaboration experiences through a learning environment. Nor had any of these students had 

prior experience with study abroad.  The Virtual Global Understanding course was incorporated 



 

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in the regular curriculum as part of the English Communication course. Therefore, the Virtual 

Global Understanding course itself was not credit-bearing although it added points to the overall 

evaluation of the English Communication course. 

The pilot took place in the fall semester (September-December) only. At the beginning of 

the semester, students were informed about the activity. They were asked to subsequently 

collaborate with a partner/partners from Netherlands and Mexico.  Each student was instructed to 

prepare a self-introductory video clip of themselves as well as three video clips based on GU 

topics to be posted once per week during the four-week interaction with their partners. 

During the interaction, there were issues with logging into the platform, posting and 

viewing the video clips, it not being a user-unfriendly interface, and irregular rate of interaction 

with partners from other countries. Despite the challenges related to the SOLE SOCIAL, overall, 

the pilot proved to have positive outcomes which include a better awareness of a different culture 

and acquisition of learning strategies crucial for successful collaboration. For example, one 

student reported: 

“It's not so difficult to communicate with people from another country. It can be very 

interesting to chat with people, who have different cultures, different interests. You can 

learn a lot by speaking with them.” 

Another participant wrote: 

“I learnt that I need to answer messages quickly and mind time difference. I also learned 

to manage my time, watch the deadline. You should remind the partner about the 

project." 

At the end of the course, 100% of the participating students completed the survey. 70% 

reported to have completed the collaborative project. The success was achieved through constant 



 

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coordination of participants’ actions. The participants from USPU reported that it was them who 

took the lead during collaboration with their partners. They believe to have initiated and 

maintained the interaction throughout the course. Although only 30% of the respondents to the 

survey reported positive views about the course, 100% of the students would recommend it to 

other students. 

The View from Japan 

         Forty-eight USJ undergraduate students participated, with students from either HAN or 

UDEM, for about one month in the fall semester (October to December). Most students posted 

the required videos and interaction with partners was required. However, some students were 

frustrated by log-in difficulties and used alternative media such as Facebook and email. Due to 

the October start to the semester in Japan, students had no chance to prepare videos in advance of 

collaboration, and so they were shooting video and responding to partners in the same month. 

Students were required to interview their partners and make group presentations in class about 

Mexico or the Netherlands after the collaborative project was completed. 

At the end of the project, 94% of the participating students completed the survey. 67% of 

the Japanese respondents successfully completed the one-to-one collaborative projects with their 

partners, but only 42% would recommend this course to future students. The students mentioned 

“understanding other cultures,” “the way to introduce Japanese culture,” and “practicing 

English” among the three most important things they learnt from the course. ICT skills also 

improved. 

The students struggled greatly with the SOLE SOCIAL platform. They were asked to 

create accounts during class using their official university email addresses, which is their student 

number. The platform automatically treated applications from such similar addresses as an attack 



 

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and blocked all of their applications. Repeated emails from the instructor to the administrator 

cleared the problem for most students, but several were unable to log in to the site at all despite 

trying with multiple email addresses. This was very frustrating for students, and some of them 

seemed to give up due to the difficulty of accessing the platform. At the end of the semester, one 

student commented that ‘interaction with Dutch students was so difficult that I didn’t try very 

hard.’ 

The students also responded to a general survey administered for all USJ courses. Forty-

four of these students answered about the course in question, and 24 of them chose to comment 

on the asynchronous GU project. Fifteen students included complaints about using the platform, 

but eleven of those students were positive about working with overseas partners and wanted to 

try again using a different platform. Several students suggested that we try Facebook or email 

next time. The remaining nine comments were positive about the asynchronous GU course and 

these Japanese students had found it both enjoyable and meaningful. 

Summary of the Results 

According to the survey, 40% of all respondents were positive about the course, while 

31% were ambivalent, and 29% had negative views. Yet, 67% of all students would recommend 

it to future students. Positive opinions included learning about other cultures, practicing English, 

connecting with students from other countries, enjoying watching partners’ videos, and making 

friends. In addition to the typical “growing pains” of implementing any new form of a learning 

environment, there were negative opinions related to confusion about the instructions on the part 

of the students, lack of time to complete the tasks, overlap with exams (in specific instances), 

and problems with the SOLE SOCIAL platform.  

The many-to-many virtual learning environment (Dillenbourg, 2000) set for the students 



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                103 

in the SOLE SOCIAL platform included characteristic of social media such as posting, sharing 

and commenting objects. While 60% reported being frequent users of social media (Facebook, 

Twitter, etc.), only 30% of the respondents reported a frequent use of the SOLE SOCIAL 

platform (10% at least a few times a week, 20% once or twice a week). Although the use of 

SOLE SOCIAL was required in order for the instructors to monitor the group discussion and 

interaction, when students encountered problems logging in, they were encouraged by their 

instructors to solve the problem using other means of communication. And so they did, as 79% 

reported having used other social media for communication, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and 

Messenger. Still, only 15.3% of these reported having discussed the GU topics.  In these cases, it 

seems that students were not using social media as a productive means of discussing the course 

topics and although it is a valuable way to build friendships and enhance cultural understanding, 

this type of communication should be reserved for outside of the time for completing course 

requirements. Nevertheless, when the students managed to use the SOLE SOCIAL platform as 

intended, the discussion of the GU topics in the groups was very productive.  Figure 2 illustrates 

the kind of interaction expected in the educational platform. 

At the end of the interaction, 55% of all the respondents successfully completed the one-

to-one collaborative projects with a partner from the other country. For this collaboration, they 

used social networks such as Facebook and WhatsApp where they would get notifications and 

they could answer faster and sometimes synchronously. They also used Google drive to create 

and share PowerPoint presentations or word documents and worked on them synchronously or 

asynchronously as time allowed. Only a few negotiated a time for a Skype video call. They 

enjoyed the one-to-one interaction as they learned about their partner views, about the partner’s 

country, and also about their own country.  Therefore, for the purposes of working together on 



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                104 

the collaborative project, the use of social media was quite productive.  

 

Figure 2. Interaction between Dutch and Mexican students after a video about family and 

cultural traditions was posted by a Dutch student in the SOLE SOCIAL platform (Villarreal-

Solano, M.O., 2016).  

Moreover, respondents who completed the one-to-one collaborative project showed more 



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                105 

positive attitudes towards the course than those who did not complete the assignment which is 

not surprising overall. Figure 3 shows that 55% of the 65 respondents who completed the one-to-

one assignment had positive views about the course and 20% showed ambivalence. On the other 

hand, only 21% of the 53 students who did not complete the project had positive views about the 

course and 45% showed ambivalence.  Negative views decreased when respondents completed 

the assignment from 34% to 25%.   Overall, this indicates that completion of the collaborative 

project increased positive attitudes more than 30% justifying the value of having students 

complete this assignment. Negative views decreased when respondents completed the 

assignment. Furthermore, this suggests that the one-to-one model of interaction using 

asynchronous communication had a more positive effect than the many-to-many model implied 

in the virtual learning environment set for the students in in the educational platform.  

 

Figure 3. One-to-one collaborative project and attitudes toward the GU asynchronous 

course 

Future directions 

21%

55%

45%

20%

34%

25%

N O  ( N = 5 3 )

Y E S  ( N = 6 5 )

O
n
e-

to
-o

n
e 

co
ll

ab
o

ra
ti

v
e 

p
ro

je
ct

Positive Amvibalent Negative



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                106 

 This pilot project was originally motivated by the idea that the GU course should be 

made more accessible to students, especially those who live in countries that are not able to link 

together during the synchronous GU course (e.g., East Asian countries such as Japan with 

countries in Europe and Africa) due to the time differences.  The use of social media, which is 

commonly used by students outside of class, was the logical choice for setting up a platform for 

asynchronous communication. This platform would allow the necessary flexibility to facilitate 

communication between partner universities in this situation.   

The Asynchronous Global Understanding project has generated many comments by 

students participating in the pilot and outcomes not only for the future of the project but also for 

the GU course in general.  Overall, 67% of students would recommend this course because of 

what they learned about other cultures and how they connected with their peers in other 

countries.  Based on this response, the asynchronous experience appears to have been a success 

and lends support to continue offering this course.  However, based on student responses that 

indicated only 30% of students used SOLE SOCIAL on a frequent basis and 79% preferred to 

communicate with their partners using other forms of social media implies that use of SOLE 

SOCIAL has its drawbacks for offering the asynchronous GU course.  

Despite the technological issues which are a part of any virtual learning experience or 

online course, the outcome has shown that there are many elements which enhanced the student 

experience and increased collaboration between participants (e.g., a majority of students 

completing the collaborative project). As such, the authors believe that the following points are 

ways in which the Global Partners in Education can explore in the future: 

1. Sharing personal video clips created by students to illustrate GU topics and to broaden 

the current discussion topics from conversations to interactive explorations. 



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                107 

2. Allowing students access to asynchronous GU courses which can encourage the 

development of student self-learning skills and investment in their own education.  

3. Increasing out-of-class interaction through development of the GU core to include 

asynchronous platforms for GU as enhancement of the synchronous programme. 

With the above comments in mind, the authors and project directors are committed to 

continuing the project in 2017 for students and testing other available platforms to find a 

technology that encourages interaction and collaboration in an educational setting.  In addition, 

we will evaluate the various ways in which instructors would successfully motivate students to 

participate in the asynchronous GU course and which strategies were not as successful. 

Furthermore, despite the small-scale nature of the current project, there are many other partners 

who have expressed interest in joining and continuing the piloting of the concepts explored in the 

work so far and we hope to include them in the future as well. The authors hope that the work 

currently undertaken will expand and develop in the coming years to work alongside and to 

enhance the current offering of GU. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

COLLABORATION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING                108 

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