Combination of face-to-face and e-learning activities for cross-cultural entrepreneurial education

What is it about?

The present study provides initial evidence that it is possible to consider the quality of such a course as a whole, and it has several implications for practitioners. First, it indicates that a student's age, level and year of study, and plan to continue education have statistically positive correlations with course satisfaction. This study also clarifies that active learning and new roles and technological competences for teachers and students in a cross-cultural perspective are possible between a western (US) setting and east European countries, like Croatia. Further, students’ expectations before and their evaluations after the course had been completed indicate slight changes in their attitudes towards offered topics. The study indicates that teachers need to focus not only on the technical capacities and function of teaching materials and activities, but must also seek to understand their student’s expectations and perceptions. In that way they could more successfully support students across the whole course. In addition to the role of the instructor and interaction with peers, the overall course design and organization play primary roles in student satisfaction. Overall, a student’s satisfaction with this experimental course identified that (a) course structure, (b) student-teacher interaction and teacher preparation for each class, and (c) satisfaction with cross-cultural interaction were the most critical factors associated with the success of a cross-cultural entrepreneurial course.

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Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Internationalization of universities has dramatically expanded in volume, scope, and complexity over the past two decades and is of growing significance worldwide, influenced by global economic, political, and social changes. Study abroad programs allow students to learn about other cultures for cultivating their cross-cultural awareness and cross-cultural collaborative skills However, very few students are able to take advantage of such opportunities. Instructors who facilitate online collaboration among multicultural students need to be aware of cultural differences in the learners' online collaborative behaviours, and such differences need to be taken into account to foster online collaboration among culturally diverse learners. The need to educate more entrepreneurial students is more and more emphasized by many educational institutions. Entrepreneurial content can be embedded into technical courses or offered as a specialized course. Regardless of what option is used, it is important to create a content portfolio relevant to entrepreneurs and sufficient enough to introduce the positive change.

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