The cultural factor in the production and use of education and training software
From adaptation of the product to adaptation of its use - Serge Pouts-Lajus (OTE) - July 1995
There is little point in analysing the cultural factor in the production and use of education and training software unless we first look at the basic concepts, i.e. culture and pedagogy. Like all teaching practices, training software is a form of cultural expression in which trying to separate out what is strictly cultural and what is strictly pedagogy cannot easily be achieved without losing the essence of the link which brings them together. This separation is nonetheless necessary when it comes to adaptation, for, as we shall see, adaptation of the cultural determinants and of the teaching determinants is not the same and does not raise the same problems.
Training content and environment
Multiculturalism and interculturalism
Translation of linguistic determinants
Translation of the non-linguistic cultural determinants
Modular and configurable products
The 'culturally neutral' solution
The concept of culture has to be defined as a function of the local conditions, therefore of the culture, in which this definition is established. Three distinct meanings are by tradition given to it in Europe. The French meaning stresses the idea of work and creation. It presupposes identification of what is considered to be cultural in terms of heritage and creation, of knowledge and wisdom. The German sense is close to the idea of civilisation. It is all the works and values, representations and symbols, heritage and memory, as shared by a community at a given moment in its history. The Anglosaxon meaning is more ethnological in that it refers to lifestyles, daily practices, history in the making, everyday patterns and knowledge, images and myths. Any European concept of culture would almost certainly have to be a distillation of all three of these meanings.
If cultural multiplicity is the rule, the definition of culture and the identification of products recognised as cultural in a specific socio-economic context remains and must remain a controversial issue.
The argument defended here is that training software is cultural software. First and foremost as material goods. A piece of software is a text, a work of the mind and therefore a cultural commodity. This identity is borne out by the legislation on copyright which everywhere in the world protects software using the same rules as protect other intellectual works, music, painting, literature. Training software is secondly a cultural product as material used to provide a service which is itself a cultural service. Since the 19th century, culture evokes the importance the individual attaches to his fulfilment. From this point of view, nothing is more cultural than education and training. As cultural goods intended to be used to provide a cultural service, education and training software are therefore cultural goods on both these counts.
The cultural identity of a social group can be ascertained using tangible or intangible signs which characterise the objects, landscapes, behavioural patterns of individuals and groups. The most important cultural determinants, particularly when it comes to cultural goods, are the linguistic determinants which include oral and written language components, including the usual images and metaphors. Cultural determinants other than linguistic include the tangible determinants of dress, habitat, landscape, personality, institutions, works, etc. and intangible determinants, both collective and individual, such as lifestyles, customs, values, beliefs.
The identity of a culture can be seen as the arrangement in space and time of all these determinants when adopted within a group.
The cultural, linguistic and non-linguistic determinants make up the backcloth against which cultural goods and services are prepared. In education and training they find a form of expression which is specific and which can be characterised using secondary determinants which could be qualified as pedagogic. Against this background, three main teaching determinants can be put forward:
Within the reality of these training actions these three determinants overlap within a relational system and an organisation of extreme complexity which cannot be described comprehensively.
A pedagogic style is determined by relational patterns woven between teachers and pupils during teaching. Its first expression appears in the mother-child relationship, and later at school, university, company.
Pedagogic styles are globally determined by the major cultural areas. In Europe, three teaching styles can be distinguished which dominate respectively Northern Europe and Western Europe, the Latin countries, and Central Europe.
The geographical areas associated with each of these teaching styles correspond to the traditional zones of influence of the major Christian religions. France and the Mediterranean countries bear the stamp of Catholicism while Protestantism in its Presbyterian or Lutheran form dominates the religious practices in the UK, much of Scandinavia and particularly Germany. This coincidence is by no means fortuitous; the Church was for several centuries responsible for education in Europe. The lay movement in education is comparatively recent and even today nearly 20% of young Europeans are educated in church-run teaching establishments.
Training content and environment
One of the greatest teaching constraints in education and training is undoubtedly the contents aspect. Training is first and foremost defined by its content. The education and training sector is highly segmented, not only because of the overall cultural influences, particularly those which the dominant teaching styles have on practice, but also at the local level of regions, business and industry, professions, training organisations. In the education sector in Europe, the segmentation of contents is more often than not national as in France, Italy or Portugal, or regional, as in Spain or Germany. In vocational training, it is found in business and industry, training organisations, trades.
The social, economic and political environment is the third determinant likely to have a profound effect on training arrangements. We will here look only at the environmental components which can have substantial influence on the use of teaching resources, particularly software: the matter of financial resources, training and information of trainers, the internal organisation of the institutions, businesses or administrations where training takes place.
The question of availability of funding for buying hardware and software is no trivial matter, such are the complexities of vocational training funding mechanisms. In France, for instance, the only European Union country where the declaration of vocational training expenditure is compulsory for the business sector, the recognition of expenditure linked with the purchase of software or distance training is now a reality and yet has taken long negotiations to achieve. Generally speaking, central government and business/industry are having to spend more and more on vocational training and, rightly or wrongly, technology is increasingly seen as a factor of cost increase rather than a factor of improved productivity.
Secondly, the training of trainers and their information on technical systems and products available, are certainly crucial factors in the use of training software. They do not, however, lead to deadlock. From this point of view, the conformism of trainers or the absence of catalogues of products available, often held up as the main obstacles to the dissemination of innovation, do not accurately reflect the actual situations. More often than not, the quality of the products available and their low level of suitability to requirements better explains trainers' reticence than the supposed resistance of the latter to innovation.
Lastly, there remain the factors linked to the internal organisation of the company or the training organisation. Experience and observations conducted under European R&D programmes show that, if we disregard the extremes - the UK which is exceptionally well disposed with regard to technology and open teaching, or Germany which maintains extreme reservations - vocational training operators on the whole in the European countries are adopting similar stances on these issues, made up of interest in theory and caution in practice.
The movement of cultural goods in areas considered as culturally distinct is a hoary issue. An issue which is traditionally approached by considering two instances. Either the product is new and has to be designed so as to be able to be appreciated in different cultural contexts or the product actually exists and has to be changed to make it appreciated in a cultural context different from that for which it was initially designed. In the first case, adaptation is achieved by taking account of specific cultural constraints upstream of design; in the second, adaptation is achieved at dissemination level by transforming an existing product as a function of the local conditions imposed by a new context of users.
Of the most severe constraints on the movement of cultural goods the language factor is the one which immediately springs to mind. Books have to be translated, films dubbed or subtitled, software translated and dubbed. Songs appreciated better in the original language are an exception. All this is obvious, but over and above this, the identification of the cultural obstacles likely to hinder or prevent the circulation of cultural goods and particularly training software, is becoming a formidable problem. Before addressing it, it may be useful to situate it in the more general context of cultural exchange. The circulation of cultural goods is conditioned by the recognition of cultural multiplicity.
The contemporary model of cultural multiplicity is based on two principles, the first that of the recognition of several cultures and thus of cultural differences, the second recognising the equivalence of existing cultures. It is thus possible to refute from the outset any attempt to classify or rank genealogically in line with a 'natural' theory of cultures.
The legitimacy of this model is to be sought first and foremost in individual experience. It is by recognising differences between individuals belonging to distinct cultural groups that the concept of culture emerges. Certain forms of foreignness encountered in individuals or objects manufactured would appear to be situated beyond the variations normally recognised and accepted within a specific cultural group. Two cultures which meet always begin by failing to understand one another. There are several ways of solving this incomprehension for people and, consequently, for groups. The most prosaic is violence via the familiar spiral of incomprehension-fear-hate. But there are more peaceful ways which are those of multiculturalism and interculturalism.
Multiculturalism and interculturalism
Words are very important when it comes to culture. Distinguishing between multicultural and intercultural is more than an experts' debate.
Multiculturalism is based on respect for difference and legitimisation of specific features. It merely ensures that cultures can coexist, but without seeking to establish any hierarchy or ranking, and provides for specific measures to protect and safeguard cultural minorities under threat. An example of this is the current form of the North-American multicultural society.
Interculturalism is based not on the respect of difference but on the respect of identity. Unlike the enhancement of differences which leads to distance vis-à-vis cultures and generates indifference, the enhancement of cultural identity involves an endeavour to win over, attract and translate, which leads to fulfilling exchanges between individuals, social groups and works of art. The European cultural project is manifestly a cross-cultural project.
While multicultural society limits itself to an inventory of specific features, the intercultural society elicits the expression, enhancement and the defence of cultural identities as the main driving force in social development.
Translation involves looking for equivalences, i.e. replacing the determinants of the source culture by others supposed to have a meaning which is similar in the target culture. The principle of non-equivalence of cultures makes every translation an approximation, a betrayal. It is true for linguistic determinants and even more so for non-linguistic determinants.
Translation of linguistic determinants
An item of training software cannot be used if it is not translated into the language of the user. Fortunately, language is the cultural determinant which is most studied and best known. In practice, and if necessary through the use of a pivot language, it is possible to translate any text in any European language into another, taking due account of the expressions, metaphors and usual images of the source language for which it is almost always possible to find an equivalent wording which respects the meaning in the target language. So far it has only been possible to automate a minute part of the translation process, and the possibility of substantial progress in the future remains a controversial issue. Owing to this restriction, the cost of translation often appears high, particularly to the producers of training software. On top of the usual expenditure for translating a text computerised multimedia products also involve the more specific costs of:
Furthermore, in the case of education and training, the sometimes high level of language and technical content makes it necessary to call on specialised translators, thus further increasing the costs. Multimedia training software can in extreme cases suffer from the linguistic adaptation problems both of technical publication and of cinema production.
The earlier the language constraints are incorporated into the production process, the less they cost. A principle exists for optimising the costs of language adaptation which is familiar to software engineers. It involves physically separating the data, particularly the language data and the logic code so that the translation affects only the data files, and has no impact on the logic processing functions.
In practice, producers' policy is strictly guided by their investment capacity and the size of the market they target. Training software producers without exception have limited investment capacity and target a limited market, more often than not in one language only. The matter of linguistic adaptation arises in few cases and when it does it is often too late.
Translation of the non-linguistic cultural determinants
Among these non-linguistic cultural determinants, the tangible determinants are the most easily identifiable if, for instance, they are graphically represented on a computer screen. The landscape, the style of house, the dress, reference to a painter, a writer, a sportsman, a business, an industrial activity, unambiguously point to the cultural context in which the software was designed. Intangible cultural determinants are per se more difficult to identify for they come out only through relationships which can be extremely subtle.
The very feasibility of translating non-linguistic cultural determinants, be they tangible or intangible, has to be called into question. We can but observe that these determinants are more often than not without acceptable equivalents from one culture to another. Simply replacing a landscape or a personality by another provides equivalence only at a very superficial level inasmuch as in a given context the relationships woven between objects and individuals are always profoundly context-bound. When applied to non-linguistic determinants, the concept of translation which presupposes the existence of equivalences which respect the meaning, is therefore ill-adapted and generally dropped in favour of adaptation.
In the opinion of Wolf Lepenies, the quest for linguistic equivalences makes translation a work of in-depth study of cultures which constitutes one of the foundations of interculturalism. Translation is the task of making a cultural product appreciable in a cultural context different from that which surrounded its creation, while respecting the original cultural identity of the product. Adaptation, i.e. the translation of non-linguistic determinants, pursues objectives which are quite the opposite. The point is not to seek out equivalents, because generally they do not exist, but to transform the product in order to make it both comprehensible and acceptable by the user for whom it is intended. Respecting the cultural identity of the product which is the subject of adaptation is not merely a constraint in terms of the adaptation but it is even contrary to its objective.
Adaptation is not a flawed translation. It is used instead of it when translation has proved impossible for want of equivalents. The radical distinction between translation and adaptation can be seen in their respective objectives. While the translator's main concern is to be the faithful interpreter of the original creator, that of the adapter is to serve the future user of the product adapted and cater for his needs.
Adaptation is much less common than translation. It is exceptional in the audiovisual, cinema and TV sector, and adaptation of non-linguistic determinants is rarely used in publishing. On the other hand, in the field of software and in particular training software, even if it is not widely used, adaptation of existing products and the production of products culturally adapted to cultural multiplicity, is often presented as an important issue. The reasons for this and the different ways of catering for it therefore warrant close consideration.
The variation of cultural and pedagogic determinants in the EU is the main reason for vast segmentation of the market in teaching resources for education and training. Although it remains fairly dynamic in basic learning processes (primary and secondary school), demand gradually dwindles in intensity and volume the higher up we move in terms of specialised training and as demand becomes fragmented. In the extreme case, the 'not invented here' syndrome rules out the use of any teaching resource produced by anyone other than those responsible for implementing it. The adaptation of resources is seen as a practical way of avoiding this stumbling block and overcoming the obstacles caused by market fragmentation.
Software is for instance successfully used for training Italian traders in accounting techniques. How could it be used for training Portuguese traders? Before assessing the difficulties of such a venture, we should first consider the advantages. In the main, these are economic advantages: the Portuguese market, like the Italian market, is a narrow one which is therefore not cost-effective for goods with high production costs. Depending on the case, adaptation can cost 3-5 times more than developing an original product. Theoretically, adaptation can cut costs significantly, improve cost effectiveness of products and open up markets.
Adaptation of training software involves seeking out equivalents for cultural, linguistic and non-linguistic determinants, and for the teaching determinants represented in these resources. For reasons already explained, replacing one tangible cultural determinant by another automatically weakens the meaning of the content and consequently the impact of the teaching benefit which can reasonably be expected. As to the intangible cultural determinants, the problem is the very feasibility of their unambiguous identification and their substitution.
The role of teaching determinants, particularly those involving contents, also raises formidable problems. Accounting techniques are undoubtedly not the same in Italy as in Portugal. Merely recognising major sources of incompatibility between the software contents and the training contents may be enough to prevent adaptation of the product given that the anticipated costs of modifying contents, data and procedures may be high. These practical difficulties are enough to explain the small number of training software products translated and adapted in contexts of real use and not only in laboratory situations.
The idea of adaptation nonetheless remains attractive. As is often the case in such circumstances, it is the repeated announcement of technical or theoretical solutions which are supposed to overcome problems which explains what could be taken as obstinacy or even failure to see the facts. In the event, the specialists favour two types of solutions. Both follow the same line, viz. to design products in such a way as to make adaptation easy or even unecessary. The first is a technical solution which consists of making software modular and configurable. The second is a more conceptual solution which consists of designing products on which cultural determinants have little or no impact.
Modular and configurable products
Modularity and configurability of resources are held up as technical solutions to the problem of fragmentation of vocational training requirements. A modular resource is made up of a conglomeration of teaching modules which can be isolated, selected and rearranged as a function of user requirements. A configurable resource can be adapted by the user himself thanks to the option he has, generally via a special programme, of changing certain of the data and functions in the software. This is also called 'open software'. Examination of these techniques has given rise to much research work which has seldom made it out of the laboratory door. In practice, the implementation of these techniques comes up against two types of obstacle. At production level modularity and configurability make it necessary to anticipate the full spectrum of potential user expectations and this can generate substantial technical problems owing to the proliferation of parameters. At user level, the preparation and input of personalised data often puts off teachers and trainers, for this adds a cumbersome and tedious procedure to the normal responsibilities of the teaching staff. Given these two constraints, there are very few instances indeed of genuinely modular and configurable software for vocational training.
The 'culturally neutral' solution
The second solution suggested to limit the problems of adaptation is to design products which are not sensitive to cultural determinants, those which are culturally neutral for which the problem of adaptation could disappear inasmuch as there would remain nothing to be adapted. So a piece of software without a text is a possible answer to the problem of adaptation of linguistic cultural determinants.
This solution on the face of it offers several practical advantages. It can be used for international co-production in which cultural and teaching features of the different populations and environments targeted could be taken into account at the design stage. Each partner in the co-production ensures that the cultural and teaching characteristics envisaged for the product are compatible with the conditions of its use in its own cultural area. In practice, such approaches lead to the elimination of determinants which are not shared or not interpretable directly by the whole of the target group, and consequently, to a form of cultural and pedagogic neutralisation of the product. However, the cultural neutrality solution would not appear to be the receipe for success on the cultural goods market.
The audio-visual sector is littered with instances of failed endeavours. The so-called European films produced by multi-cultural teams and supposed to suit the tastes and expectations of the whole of the European public inasmuch as they are not contradictory with the sum of European cultural determinants, fall generally short of the success rate hoped for. Another instance is Esperanto, the language whose many virtues fail to offset its only but capital defect, viz. the absence of an Esperantist cultural identity.
Few cultural products have succeeded in making a lasting impression on the market without having a genuine and strong cultural identity. This rule should therefore be applied to training software in the same way as it applies to any cultural product.
So does this mean that the adaptation of training software is a waste of time, a pipe dream? Before settling the issue, we need to examine the situations which are particularly conducive to adaptation, e.g. when most of the cultural and teaching determinants are stable and when the matter of adaptation then concerns only a limited number of them.
Let us take the case of the major multinational firms which use teaching software to train their employees or their clients. The training contents and the teaching environments in this instance are stable. Only the cultural determinants and the teaching styles are likely to vary across the different sites selected for their use. Moreover, the centralised production of resources enables designers to anticipate properly on these variations. But what do we see in practice in these circumstances? More often than not, the matter of adaptation does not arise. The same resources are used everywhere throughout the network. In certain cases, and only when the target populations are numerically big, the texts are translated. Elsewhere, adaptation to local constraints, particularly to teaching styles, is achieved pragmatically in the use of the resources; the trainers and the trainees adapt to the products rather than the other way round.
The evidence therefore suggests that even in the most favourable cases, adaptation of training software at the production stage never goes beyond the consideration of linguistic determinants.
It would be risky to state that the obstacles today encountered by adaptation cannot tomorrow be solved by scientific progress, research or resolve. Nevertheless, rather than relentlessly go up what often prove to be blind alleys or bang our heads against brick walls, there might be a case for going back to the drawing board.
The problem of adaptation of training resources must not only be addressed at the production stage. The user is a player who must be taken into consideration in the process of adaptation. It is the effort he makes to come to terms with the tool that enables the user to demonstrate his superiority over the tool and his autonomy vis-à-vis its designers. If adaptation is defined as the meeting between a manufactured object and a user, this meeting is always the result of a shared effort between the producer of the object and each of its users. The manufactured objects could theoretically be classified according to the proportion of co-production input they demand of their users. Everything would seem to indicate that in this hierarchy, cultural products should be close to the top. They elicit from the user a level of participation which goes far beyond the mere consideration of the objective characteristics of the manufactured object. The use of a cultural product is effective only as part of a productive involvement of the user alongside the creator, a sort of co-creation of the product. This is why certain economists think that the cultural products industry should be considered part of the services sector.
Axiomatic as it may sound, the old adage “it is up to the product to adapt to man and not the other way round” is merely a promotional argument of limited scope and must not be taken as an absolute truth. By questioning it, we uncover a vast area of solutions for adapting to use. Behind the aspiration of producers to monopolise the question of adaptation lies a secret desire to alienate the user.
Reducing the learner's effort in education and training is by no means a teaching panacea. Far from it. The move to renovate teaching practices emphasises increased input by the pupil to the teaching act. The switch is from a teaching-driven system to a learning-driven system. The quality and effectiveness of training are no longer identified with those of the teachers, of the way the subject matter is handled, the “teaching” presentation of the “knowledge” nor the quality of the resources or their suitability to student requirements. The quality and effectiveness of training are less a function of the excellence of the teaching staff and resources available than the features of the environment proposed to the pupil and which must enable him to build up his knowledge and acquire skills.
Before acting on the non-linguistic and teaching cultural determinants of the product at the production stage, it is necessary to examine the teaching benefit which might accrue from using the product as it is. While using teaching resources which retain some extent of incompatibility between the cultural and teaching determinants which were part of its design and those which dominate the user context envisaged, might prove effective from the teaching point of view, it is the principle of adaptation at the production stage which is found wanting.
Two of the arguments in support of this analysis have already been given: the respect for cultural identity of a product is a positive factor for its dissemination; in addition, the extra effort needed to use a product reputed to be ill-adapted must not be considered as non-productive unless it goes against the teaching objectives set for the training. But there is a third more fundamental teaching argument.
While learning focuses on an object which constitutes the content of the training, it at the same time implies an input in terms of reflection, work on the learning process itself. Learning is simultaneously to learn something and to learn to learn. The reflective dimension emerges when the object of learning refuses to comply and seems to evade grasp. The learner must then focus his efforts on what within him prevents him from learning and understanding. So in certain circumstances resources whose cultural or teaching determinants do not conform to the conditions of use, can nevertheless be the source of substantial teaching productivity because they call for a specific effort in getting the right distance between the learner and the object of the learning, and this results in getting him into a position conducive to reflective teaching work.
Three examples of real experiences are given below to illustrate the actual conditions for implementing teaching engineering which could be described as adaptation through use.
The first example is not directly concerned by the use of multimedia resources, but perfectly illustrates the nature of the teaching advantages which can be derived from adaptation through use. Under the European SESAM programme, young apprentices undertake a period of training in another country. For the future bakers or hairdressers, the first shock of this relocation is primarily linguistic and cultural. It becomes an occupational shock when differences appear in methods and techniques. Bread is not baked and hair not cut in the same way on either side of the Rhine. The training period brings out the gap between the technique learned and the technique put into practice. The SESAM programme is entirely based on the exploitation in teaching of this gap. This experience which goes back to the tradition of work shadowing meets with substantial success. “Understanding how products are made elsewhere makes it possible to improve one's product and service but also opens up the mind”.
The second example concerns the use of a grammar checker in a French lesson in French secondary schools. The teacher bases part of his lesson on the weaknesses and shortcomings of the tool. Thus the checker appropriately locates the error of agreement in the sentence: “Je vous envoie les documents que vous m'avez demandé”. The software is itself capable of indicating the rule of grammar which has not been respected, in this instance, that of the agreement of the past participle with its direct object. On the other hand, taking the same rule of grammar, the tool proposes the same diagnosis, this time wrongly, for the sentence: “Je vous envoie les documents que vous m'avez demandé de vous envoyer”. The question discussed with the pupils no longer relates solely to the rule itself but on the implementation of the rule by a machine: how do we explain that the checker gets the second example wrong but not the first? It is this distance vis-à-vis the rule which provides real teaching potential. In this instance, a foolproof tool would have much less point in teaching.
The third example is to be found in vocational training. A videodisk on pruning techniques for fruit trees, targeting growers in the Bologna region has been translated into French in order to try it out on growers in the Languedoc region of France. One of the teaching determinants in the content of the videodisk proves ill-adapted: the shape given to the tree after cutting is not the same in Languedoc as in Emilia Romagna. Nevertheless, a decision is taken to go ahead with the experiment. The question which then springs to the minds of the trainees is: why are trees pruned differently in Bologna and in Montpellier? Once again it is the distance of the learner in relation to the object of his learning which will prove advantageous from the teaching point of view. The illappropriateness of the teaching resource prompts trainees to consider two different techniques and examine closely the rational justifications of the method used in Languedoc, to better understand it and thus better master it. In this example, once again it is the effort accomplished to take advantage of a resource which is in part not in conformity which provides the source of unexpected teaching productivity.
In these three examples, teachers and trainers were able to take advantage of a teaching resource despite and - even better - because of its flaws and its distance in relation to what would be the ideal conditions. It would be a mistake to consider such practices as make-do solutions which use these products 'for want of better'.
The examples presented are not enough to provide the basis of a teaching engineering which would be specific to the strategies of adaptation through use. They nevertheless show that the problem of adaptation can in certain cases be solved simply in real use circumstances, whereas no solution of this kind exists generally at the production stage. There is lastly some comfort in the fact that a problem whose nature is profoundly pedagogic and cultural can be satisfactorily solved not in technological engineering but in a form of engineering which is itself of a pedagogical and cultural nature.
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My grateful thanks to Marielle Riché-Magnier for her
creative reading of this text.