An Investigating into cultural characteristics of e-education learners: A case study of virtual students of Payam Noor University of Khuzestan

The issue of culture is very important in the field of e-education. Accordingly, the purpose of present study was to investigate the learners’ cultural characteristics of e-education at PNU. The research method was descriptive and the instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire which was designed based on the four dimensions of Hofstede's cultural theory. These four dimensions investigated were power distance, uncertainty avoidance versus uncertainty acceptance, masculinity versus femininity, and collectivism versus individualism. Its content validity was determined by experts and its reliability was estimated using Cronbach alpha (83%). Participants were the students of PNU in Khuzestan province, who were studying in e-education courses in the academic year 2021-2022, and 897 participants responded to the online questionnaire using the available sampling method. Mean, standard deviation and one sample t-test were used for data analysis. The results compared with the test value of number three revealed: the mean of cultural characteristics of learners in PNU students in power distance are higher than that of the society mean, and the mean of the uncertainty avoidance factors is higher than the society mean and the mean of the factors of Uncertainty acceptance is lower than the society mean, in the dimension of masculinity verses femininity in both factors, the mean is higher than the society mean, in the dimension of collectivism verses individualism, mean of the factors related to collectivism is lower than the society mean and the mean of the factors related to Individualism was higher than the society mean. The research results provide guidelines for the design and implementation of e-learning courses.