Global, interrelated communities and members of complex social institutions, who need to engage in various collaborative social processes, are typical occurrences in the twenty-first century. Constant societal changes, new requirements for individual competencies, and educational paradigm shift orient education not only towards providing knowledge, but primarily to educating the holistic competence of a self-directed learner (Brummelhuis, 2005; Petty, 2006) as an efficient member of the knowledge society able to interact with the surrounding world.  This approach towards human lifelong learning conditions the educational paradigm shift (Branson, 1990) and emphasizes the future learning paradigm which prioritizes informal learning, especially learning from experience and through interaction. Thus, the aim of higher education institutions and their academic community is to empower the students to effectively operate in the future situations and to enable them to competently solve problems while working with others. One of the non-traditional interactive educational methods that helps to achieve the aforementioned goal is collaborative learning, which develops the skills and abilities necessary for the contemporary member of a society. The employers of the modern organizations consider an ability, willingness, and readiness to engage in teamwork as a core requirement for success (Gratton, Erickson, 2011). This is frequently a prerequisite for employment. 

However, collaborative foundation is conditioned by a specific context. Numerous phenomena become significant on the international level due to the globalization taking place in the world. Certain countries in the world follow the examples by attempting to implement the models that have already been tested and running in the other countries.

But can the same model be applied in different contexts? Historical developments towards a certain country‘s democratic status may impact some phenomenon. Hofstede (2001, 2002) noticed that organizational performance and business models may depend on cultural characteristics. If the phenomena collaborative learning in the democratically developing countries are understood and occur differently as compared to the democratically developed countries, would this mean that the use of collaborative learning in the university studies should be implemented differently in different contexts?

Thus, the research problem arises about the similarities and differences between collaboration and collaborative learning processes in the countries with strong democratic traditions and the countries in transition. In this study three contexts of different democratic levels are researched – Lithuania (Europe), the country that spent long time under authoritative regime (not only from the Governmental perspective, but also from the context that reflects the state in the mind of the people) and currently is developing its democratic state, and two countries with well-developed democratic traditions – the U.S. and France (Europe).

Therefore, this article seeks to answer the following research question: does collaborative learning depend on the country’s cultural context or the educator’s personal traits?

Research objectives:

1.             Theoretically substantiate the research rationale.

2.             Substantiate research methodology of the occurrence of collaborative learning in three different contexts (the U.S.A., France, and Lithuania).

3.             Determine and compare the impact of context on collaborative learning in the contexts of Lithuania, France, and the U.S.A.

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