The cultural flavours of problem-based learning

摘要

Editor - Frambach and her colleagues1 reported interesting findings about how students' cultural backgrounds impact on problem-based learning (PBL) in Hong Kong, the Middle East and the Netherlands. Although some readers will tiiink it an over-simplification because culture is a complex dynamic issue that cannot be interpreted with one theory, it is interesting to consider these findings within the cultural domains identified by Hofstede.2 The results reported by Frambach et al.1 appear to resonate very well with this model, which suggests that it might be used to help further interpret their findings and build on their theoretical basis. Specifically, students' readiness for PBL in Asian, Arab and Dutch contexts can be interpreted in view of three cultural indices studied by Hofstede.2