Group Leader Election: Korean EFL University Students’ Attitudes and Rationales

Heretofore, South Korea has maintained quite traditional sociocultural norms such as military conscription, paternalism, an age-ranking system, and a masculine-dominant culture based on a core Confucian ideology. Nonetheless, from the last quarter of the twentieth century onward, Korea has adapted more Western education practices (Nguyen, Terlouw, & Pilot, 2006) and experienced a movement toward what Rozman (2002) describes as “de-Confucianization.” This paper focuses on students’ attitudes and rationales when choosing group leaders for collaborative, communicative critical thinking activities in several EFL university classes in South Korea. This study is based on previous research on sociocultural variables affecting EFL group dynamics in this country (Young Kyoung Kim & Ki Wan Sung, 2010; Love, 2012; Senior, 1997). The study analyzes deciding factors for choosing leaders using t-tests, descriptive statistics, and an analysis of variance on data from a 22-item Likert questionnaire. That survey included questions about gender, English proficiency, military service, and willingness to work with younger/older leaders. This study’s major findings include statistically significant differences amongst participants, including overwhelming majorities in rationales and attitudes relating to choosing group leaders. Some results do not line up with Korea’s traditional Confucian sociocultural norms. This paper provides educators with insights into the sociocultural implications of choosing group leaders in the first stage of group dynamics, specifically within critical thinking activities in Korean university EFL classes.