Individual differences and academic performances of British and Chinese university students

Abstract

Students in Britain and China are culturally very different in their approaches to studying. This paper examines cognitive style and learning approaches in conjunction with academic performances of British and Chinese students. It was found that, in either group, wholists were superior to analytics, and that verbalisers performed better than imagers at examinations when 16-years-old. It is suggested that both wholist organisation and verbal representation of information are favoured by the nature of studying and examinations in the native language, mathematics, and science in two educational environments. Additionally, the British students preferred to choose the learning approaches that were consistent with their own cognitive style, and the Chinese students, in contrast, tended to choose the approaches that compensated for the limitations imposed by their own cognitive style.