The Impact of National Culture on Distance Learning Effectiveness

Resumen

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the current knowledge about the impact of national culture on distance learning (DL) effectiveness.  We brought together our previous studies as well as the results of a prior extensive review of the literature.  In addition, we carried out data analysis of an existing data set to uncover potential relationships not discussed in the literature.  We discovered that the impact of national culture on DL effectiveness is mediated by cultural practices and learning models and that the current DL applications rarely take into account cultural variations and rely on a limited number of learning models.  DL can be an effective agent of knowledge globalization but only if practitioners fully leverage the flexibility the DL technology. Keywords: distance learning effectiveness, Hofstede?s culture theory, cultural dimensions