Limitations
All of the eight designers interviewed for the study were working for corporate organizations,
and most were from the United States. Hence, generalizations of the findings to other
types of organizations will be limited, even though the participants came from a wide range
of design backgrounds, from large global corporate companies to independent contractors
and from designers working solely online to ones designing for a blended learning environment.
The small participant pool makes it unlikely that all views of instructional design
professionals have been captured.
Moreover, since the findings were based on data collected from participants’ personal perceptions
of cross-cultural analysis and design, the results may be biased. It is also important
to consider the proposed framework in regard to its applicability and feasibility, depending
on an organization’s customer base, training philosophy, distance learning approach, and
leadership style. The elements in the framework do not present an exhaustive list but offer
an initial set of variables that need attention to begin improving the effectiveness of crosscultural
learner analysis that ultimately supports culturally competent courseware.