Cultural Differences in Learning Dispositions

Abstract

Cultural differences in learning-related dispositions are investigated amongst 7,300 first year students from 81 different nationalities, using the framework of Hofstede (Culture’s consequences: international differences in work-related values. Sage, Beverly Hills, 1980). Comparing levels and intercorrelations of implicit theories of intelligence, effort beliefs, academic motivation, achievement goals, learning styles and approaches, and subject attitudes learns that traditional dichotomies often postulated in learning theories, such as those of surface versus deep learning, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, self-regulation of learning versus external regulation, and mastery goals versus performance goals, do not manifest in different cultural clusters. In contrast, cluster profiles tend to be rather balanced. Cultural differences in intercorrelations are substantial and again indicate the difficulty of constructing culture-invariant learning theories. One of these differences regards the differentiation of several facets in performance goals and in different aspects of memorisation-based learning processes. Compared to students from other cultures, students of the Confucian culture appear to possess relative undifferentiated conceptions of performance goals and memorisation-based learning processes, what is at odds with contemporary theories of the Chinese learner.