Investigating the effect of language and culture on student interaction with and in WebC

Students studying in Higher Education establishments around the world are increasingly required to interact with Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) for their education, yet it is not widely understood whether or not factors such as language and culture affect the interaction and even perhaps place some students at a disadvantage to others. This study sought to elicit from students from various educational, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, their experiences and attitudes towards working within this medium. The results showed that language and culture do impact upon a person’s interaction with online materials and the primary research largely supported the work uncovered in the literature survey.