ONE SIZE FITS ALL? – CULTURAL DIVERSITY REFLECTED IN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN MODELS
Authors: Hartescu Ioana 
Published: February 2023

Online learning programs have become more accessible to a wide range of learners all over the world. This raises the question whether differences between various groups are taken into consideration in the design of these programs. While new devices and technologies make learning more readily available, ignoring cultural issues can lead to a total breakdown of communication. This study aims to investigate how issues of culture should influence instructional design of online courses.
Globalization of education led to a need to consider cultural diversity as an important factor in the adoption and effectiveness of learning. This is enhanced by the fact that e-learning breaks time and space barriers, being available to students from any geographical area, interacting outside the boundaries of a common context. Learners have the opportunity to study anytime, anywhere. Universities are becoming more open to international students; some are setting branch campuses in different parts of the world. Multinational organizations have offices in different countries, staffed with local employees, who need to work in a similar way with their colleagues all over the world. Interdisciplinary teams are required to work together and find a common language. In all cases, instructional designers are creating courses for people from a different culture than their own, and often for heterogeneous audiences coming from a multitude of cultures, each student needing to transfer what they learn into their own context.
The paper defines culture, starting from Hofstede’s five dimensions characterizing national cultures (Hofstede, 1996), and argues that in the context of online learning the notion of culture should be extended to include other cultural models, apart from the national one, such as organizational culture and professional groups culture (Schein, 1990). Acknowledging that culture means more than nationality, and individuals often belong to more than one culture (Collis, 1999) helps paint a complex situation which the instructional designer must deal with.
Given the complexity of the context presented above, the present study investigates how do models of instructional design take into account cultural diversity, by answering the following research questions:
• Should instructional design take into account cultural aspects at all?
• Should instructional design strive for a culture-free product?
• How can the instructional design model incorporate awareness of cultural issues?
• What are the implications for instructional designers and their professional development?
A fairly wide range of responses and models are suggested by the literature (and are detailed in the full paper), but the responsibility of choosing and applying them lies with the instructional designer. Since culture is a relatively new concern in the field of instructional design, few of these models were applied in contexts significant enough in order to generate solid recommendations or to indicate an obvious choice. This situation makes the decision of instructional designers even more difficult. The voices of instructional designers are also presented, combining the results of the study did by Rogers, Graham and Mayes (2007) into instructional designers creating courses for students from various national cultures, with the results of a case study research conducted by the author regarding instructional designers working for learners from various organizational and professional cultures. Recommendations into further research connected to the issues identified conclude the paper.