Emotion and culture in a collaborative learning environment for engineers

The extensive body of research on emotion and culture has identified both commonalities and variation in the expression and experience of emotion across cultures. In addition, social constructivist views of emotion suggest that some features of the expression and experience of emotion are defined by culture-specific rules of behavior. This suggests that individuals who interact with members of a culture different from their own may encounter misunderstandings or miscommunications due to differences in culture-specific rules that govern some aspects of emotion messages. A smaller subset of the research on emotion and culture has looked at emotion in the context of real-life interactions between members of different cultural groups. In particular, there is a small body of work that looks at emotion in culturally diverse work groups. The present study adds to this body of research by looking specifically at emotion in the context of a culturally diverse collaborative learning environment in an undergraduate engineering class. Collaborative work sessions were videotaped and a stimulated recall and narrative retelling methodology were used to interview student participants about their emotions during the work sessions and their feelings about collaborative learning. An instructor interview was also conducted. A grounded theory approach was used for data analysis. Results indicate that the problem-solving culture of the engineering students had a greater influence on the students’ emotional experiences during the collaborative work sessions and on their feelings about collaborative learning than did individual cultural differences among students. Implications for engineering education and teaching English as a Second Language are discussed.