Culture Matters: Learners’ Expectations Towards Instructor-Support Thomas Richter University of Duisburg-Essen Information Systems for Production and Operations Management Germany thomas.richter@icb.uni-due.de Abstract: In the context of Internet-based e-Learning, including an international auditory is a logical conse- quence. However, due to uncertainty regarding the foreign learners, e-Learning programs often are limited to local or national participants. Understanding the different expectations of learners regarding instructor- support is one step in order to enable providers of educational services to tailor educational programs that fit the requirements of an international auditory. We asked university students in five countries regarding their expectations towards instructor-support and found major differences between the investigated countries. Introduction With the Internet as a central platform for education, learners from all over the world can easily be connected. What on the one hand is a great opportunity, e. g., to fostering international exchange and reaching a larger amount of customers, on the other hand must be understood as a tough challenge: Related Internet-based courses do not only need to be comprehensible and manageable for the learners from those different national contexts, but also, should meet their culture-specific understanding of what actually is motivating. Motivation is a critical condition for productive learning in general (Pintrich & Schunk 2002). However, for e-Learning, it is the most important factor influencing the learners’ success (Richter & Adelsberger 2011, p.1603). In the traditional face-to-face education, decreasing motivation can be recognized through observation and thus, appropriate counter-activities can be implemented at an early stage (Rothkranz et al. 2009, p.1). In e- Learning scenarios, in contrast, timely recognizing decreasing motivation is extremely difficult because the vis- ual indicators (mimics and gestures of the learners) are completely missing (Moore 1991). Thus, interventions can only follow if the learners explicitly communicate their satisfaction and/or frustration (Sandanayake & Ma- durapperuma 2011, p.72). Depending on their cultural background, learners may rather accept unmet expecta- tions than communicating their frustration: According to HOFSTEDE & HOFSTEDE (2005, p.53), some cultures understand criticism towards instructors (or programs) as an expression of lacking respect (which means an in- acceptable violation of general social rules) or at least as impoliteness. Our investigation was inspired from NILSEN’s (2009, p.546) central research question: ‘How can lec- turers maintain student’s initially high motivation?’ Even though any effort to increase the learners’ motivation surely is reasonable, their already existing, initial motivation first of all should be preserved or at least not ‘de- stroyed’ (Bowman 2007, p.81) by confronting them with unnecessary conflicts. While there is a high number of publications available which theoretically and experimentally investigate the questions what learners understand as being motivating and which activities raise motivation (e. g., Dörnyei 1994; Williams & Burden 1997), re- search of influences that lead to decreasing motivation is rare. NILSEN (2006) found that the main reasons for students’ dropping out were ineffective study strategies, a mismatch between expectations and content in the study-program, and a lack of motivation. According to BEKELE (2010, p.124-125), support services through in- structors always play a central role for the level of satisfaction of students in higher education. In his experiments, NILSEN (2009) implemented practical work elements and social activities in order to maintain the initial motivation by putting the program into a practical context and fostering social relation- ships between learners and educators. With those activities, he was able to significantly lower the dropout rate (p.555). However, he did not focus on finding out which (missing) activities may threaten the learners’ motiva- tion. In our study, we focused on national differences in the learners’ understanding towards which particular services an instructor should provide during the educational process. From BEKELE’S (2010) results, we as- sumed that the students’ motivation could directly be threatened by not meeting substantial expectations to- wards the support through their instructors (educators, lecturers). PAECHTER ET AL. (2010) confirm our assump- tion: They found that ‘students experience the instructor’s support and expertise as especially important for the