Interacting in a culturally diverse classroom: Information Technology students' perceptions

Abstract or Summary

In the past few decades, there has been a steady influx of immigrants into New Zealand, both into the education sector as students, and into the work sector as skilled employees. To prepare our students for future work, we encourage them to actively interact with, learn from, and work with peers, as they would in a real-life workplace situation. With the increasing proportion of students of different cultural backgrounds in tertiary and higher education, educators consider the ability of students to function effectively and respectfully in a culturally diverse classroom. In this paper, we performed a mixed methods study at the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), New Zealand, which involved a survey and interviews of students specialising in Information Technology (IT). The aim was to analyse students’ perceptions on interacting with peers from different cultural backgrounds. We discuss the results of our study and factors that are likely to promote intercultural interaction and make suggestions for future research.