Hofstede, the doyen of intercultural studies, whose cultural dimension model has influenced much of the writing on internationalisation, localisation and globalisation in HCI studies, is also one of the most influential and frequently cited authors in the field of eLearning. He is one of the few authors to have paid particular attention to cultural differences in teaching and learning. In his article "Cultural Differences in Teaching and Learning" Hofstede draws on three sources of information:

• his earlier research on differences in work-related values in over 50 countries which led to his famous 4-Dimension Model of Cultural Differences,
• his and others’ personal experiences in teaching and learning in different cross-cultural situations and
• his experiences as a parent of school-age children attending local schools abroad.

His investigations and experiences lead him to identify four main problem areas:

• differences in the social positions of teachers and students,
• differences in the relevance of the training content,
• differences in cognitive ability profiles between the populations from which teacher and student are drawn and
• differences in expected patterns of teacher-student interaction.

Differences in student-teacher interaction are listed with reference to the four dimensions of Individualism versus Collectivism, large versus small Power Distance, strong versus weak Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity versus Femininity. The cultural dimension of "Time Orientation" was added at a later stage.

Hofstede concludes that the burden of adaptation in cross-cultural learning situations should be placed primarily on the trainer and advocates increasing awareness and sustained effort on both sides to cope with the perplexities which can arise as a result of cultural differences.

The author does not discuss online learning and teaching, which at the time of writing was non-existent or at least still in its infancy. Indirectly, however, Hofstede's ideas do have implications for computer-mediated learning and instruction, especially 'problem areas' 3 and 4, i.e. cognitive ability profiles and differences in mutual role expectations between teacher and student. These address the training process and issues of interaction rather than the content of training. Some of the studies discussed below have tried to translate the differences identified by Hofstede into the design and evaluation of eLearning programmes and environments.