Having recently conducted a training course with 15 delegates, 14 of which were from the same country (and culture), I am looking for tips on how to encourage more participation from delegates.
The delegates were all from one Asian country, and whilst I don't like to stereotype, certain behaviours were very much in evidence:
- A real lack of interaction, questions and feedback to myself through the day
- In group feed back women deferred to the men on each occasion to stand up and feed back
- No questioning and challenges to the material delivered (apart from one instance)
- One challenge, which was well received by me, led to an apology from the delegate who challenged after the course
- No real debates or interaction on the subject delivered (funnily enough Diversity!)
I have tried the usual methods of ground rules, encouragement, creating different teams for group work and probing for answers. My fellow colleagues are facing the same issues. Any tips on how to encourage and gain more involvement/participation from delegates?
Robert Parker
4 Responses
Similar expreience
I recently did some work in Hong Kong. Although the groups were lively and talkative they would not answer questions in a group setting. We changed the layout of the room into several smaller tables, gave them the subjects to discuss in small groups and would join each group for a time. We asked them to present back – worked really well.
Cultural practice
I’m a bit nervous to make my input here for fear of being misconstrued – I seem to be developing a habit of getting into trouble on this forum 😉
However, I genuinely don’t mean to cause offence and I have some input that may be of help. Please feel free to ignore it if you consider it inappropriate.
My observations are based on two things:
– feedback from a friend who has worked extensively in adult ed in Pakistan
– the input of an Indian classmate on my current MA (in education) programme
The pedagogical approach in these countries tends to be strongly behaviourist – quite often using the call-and-response technique. It is seen as the teacher’s role to impart learning. The facilitated discussion groups, etc. that are common to a more constructivist approach may be seen as the teacher not doing his/her job properly – even if the learners are adults.
Even the assessment techniques are behaviourist – questions are posed in such a way that answers can be drawn directly from the text. Asking questions which require inference and deduction is considered unfair. Learners expect only to be assessed on what they have been taught.
It was my expectation that my Indian classmate would be won around to the more “modern” pedagogies, but I was wrong. She steadfastly maintained that behaviourism was a more reliable pedagogy and has returned home at the end of her programme unchanged by her exposure to constructivism. I had to realise that behaviourism was more suited to her culture. For me to try to persuade her that cognitivism/constructivism/connectivism were superior models was not unlike telling her that my culture was superior to hers. See my blogpost on it. (I hope I’ve created that little piece of html properly to generate the link – if not, I’ll make another comment to fix it).
The deference to men as the speakers in the group is also a cultural issue. Trying to force a different approach on them would fit as uncomfortably as us being forced to do the converse. What I suggest you do in that case would be to create single-sex groups – as politically incorrect as that may seem within our culture.
I hope that some of this may prive useful to you.
All the best with your programme.
Cultural diversity
This is an issue that goes way beyond a training context of course, which may be the reason one contributor has responded usefully but with some trepidation.
Sticking to the training context though, is this not just a case of identifying the predominant learning style of a cohort and acknowledging that others in the cohort may differ and need appropriate attention?
Why else do trainers often include learning styles as an important topic at induction?
cultural differences in l & d
I echo the viewpoints expressed by karyn romeis. Like it or not, there are some cultures where the concept of learning and development are fixed on the pedagogic approach. It feels uncomfortable for us – isn’t that what diversity is about?!! I belive that training and facilitation is about meeting people where they are at, then gently leading and influencing. If the didactic approach is where people are at, we need, as facilitators to adapt to that.