Alexander, It reminds me of the controversy around Hall's and Hofstede's work on culture. Elusive concept, maybe poorly conceptualized, done on managers only, done 60 years ago, everybody applied acritically, mere common sense, etc etc. Can we trash the concept that at least some behaviours that people (managers or not) have, even now (not just 60 yrs ago), are influenced by their culture? Hardly. But some do, engaging in a destructive practice rather than in something that criticizes and improves the model. Yet, the reasons for it would be inappropriate to apply Tuckman to a group of online learners are as much as an assumption as it is to say Tuckman would be appropriate. Are the differences between therapy groups and groups of online learners proved? And in which ways? Furthermore, if differences do exists, are they relevant to the aspect(s) that is/are being studied? I won't even begin to comment on the CMC/group aspect. Most studies (except from Walther's) are deterministic, either sociologically, psychologically or technologically. Again, supposing every person to be sensitive to some kind of influences, usually without addressing whether culture impacts or not in his/her (the researcher's) perceptions, generalizing rat-lab group findings not just to spontaneous settings, but often to the whole mankind. It's an epistemological issue that dates back to the induction/deduction diatribe. There is none that is better than the other, it all depends on the context in which they are applied. So to get back to the issue, what specifically do you think is the problem in applying Tuckman to groups of online learners? Does it have something to do with the unconventional models they adopt at Fielding? What specifically do you think is the problem in framing group life in terms of cycles/stages? Have you ever thought that the discomfort with models of groups lies into the cultural bias we Westerners have against group and in favor of individualism? Rosanna Tarsiero