East is East: Socratic classroom communication is linked to higher stress in students from confucian heritage cultures

Abstract

East Asian students are often educated in a more instructor-led and less interactive manner than their North American and European peers. Therefore, as international students at Western universities, they need to adapt to unfamiliar teaching practices that involve classroom communication emphasising critical thinking, debating, and challenging others' views. We explored the stress from such communication by assessing the relationships between East Asian students' perceived ease of engaging in Socratic communication and stress. 51 students from various majors completed the Ease of Socratic Communication scale and the Conceptions of Learning Inventory. One week later, students rated on the Perceived Stress Scale their levels of helplessness and self-efficacy. East Asian students found it less easy to engage in Socratic communication than their non-Asian peers,. The harder students found Socratic communication, the higher were their stress levels. On the other hand, higher Socratic communication ease was associated with higher self-efficacy. Moreover, the relationship between Socratic communication ease and stress was less pronounced the more students viewed learning as the development of personal competence. Complementing extant qualitative research, our findings suggest that Socratic communication may act as a stressor to East Asian international students. Reducing that stress might help improve international students’ learning experience and thus foster their academic integration.