Cultural Factors in the Structure and Context of European Engineering Studies

Bilateral, trilateral and even quadrilateral exchange programmes are becoming increasingly common in European undergraduate and postgraduate engineering curricula. Such programmes provide students with opportunities to enrich their scientific, linguistic and cultural profiles. This paper examines and compares the cross-cultural differences within the teaching and learning contexts (not contents) of different engineering study programmes in France, Britain and Germany. The authors relate variations in key variables such as evaluation, teacher-student relationships, student autonomy, the scope of studies and motivation to Geert Hofstede‘s four dimensions of national culture’—Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism and Masculinity. The authors conclude that Hofstede's four dimensions do appear to have explanatory power, and suggest further directions for future research. It is the authors' intention that their research project ultimately be of benefit to engineering students taking part in exchange study programmes. The authors welcome any readers who wish to cooperate and collaborate with them in further research and development work.