Views of knowledge and attitudes towards truth reflected in the group interaction patterns of Malaysian and British students

Abstract

The paper analyzes the group interaction patterns of Malaysian and British students on a British undergraduate program in order to investigate how the way knowledge is constructed by the British and the Malaysian students in various group discussion tasks reflects the various philosophical and cultural views of knowledge into which they might have been socialized by their previous socio-cultural and educational experiences. The results show that the presence of the British students has an effect on the Malaysian students’ use of reactive framing. The Malaysian students in bi-national tasks do not react as much as they do when they are on their own. The interaction patterns in divergent tasks indicate that while the British students add and react alternately as individuals, the Malaysian students add together and react together as a group. Two different types of intolerance are also seen at play in convergent tasks: intolerance of accuracy (certainty about truth) vs. intolerance of task completion. While the British students have a higher degree of intolerance concerning the accuracy and certainty of knowledge than Malaysians, Malaysians have a higher degree of intolerance concerning the completion of the task.