Cultural Factors in Urgent Transition to Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic – Case Studies from Japan and China

Abstract

The Covid-19 Pandemic has greatly changed the world and world education. This paper reviews the forced urgent transition to complete online learning in two different scenarios during the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020. The two different scenarios are a Japanese university and a Chinese senior high school. Rather than simply listing actions of how online learning was conducted in these two schools, this research focuses on what role the cultural factors played in the transition. The authors primarily investigated the cultural differences in terms of institutional decision making, teachers’ online instructions, students’ online learning behaviors, and the involvement of students’ families between two schools in two different countries. Several interesting cultural differences reflected in the transition were found: as for decision and information delivery, email was the major communication tool in Japan, while social media group was most welcomed in China; as for online instructions, the Japanese university teachers were concessive, while the Chinese teachers were somewhat dominant; As for online learning recourses, Japanese students have less than their Chinese students; As for online learning behavior, Japanese students minded self-disclosure in virtual classes while Chinese students were open; As for family role, Chinese parents were much more heavily involved in their children’s online learning… As the transformation to technology-driven education is still continuing with and will continue after the Covid-19 Pandemic, the findings from this research will leave us in no doubt that educators who need to take part in online teaching in local, regional, national, and international contexts need to seriously consider impact of cultural factors.