non-Western Students Research Articles

Testing the involvement of low-level visual representations during spoken word processing with non-Western students and meditators practicing Sudarshan Kriya Yoga

Previous studies, using the Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS) paradigm, observed that (Western) university students are better able to detect otherwise invisible pictures of objects when they are presented with the corresponding spoken word shortly before the picture appears. Here we attempted to replicate this effect with non-Western university students in Goa (India). A second aim was to explore the performance of (non-Western) meditators practicing Sudarshan Kriya Yoga in Goa in the same task. Some previous literature suggests that meditators may excel in some tasks that tap visual attention, for example by exercising better endogenous and exogenous control of visual awareness than non-meditators. The present study replicated the finding that congruent spoken cue words lead to significantly higher detection sensitivity than incongruent cue words in non-Western university students. Our exploratory meditator group also showed this detection effect but both frequentist and Bayesian analyses suggest that the practice of meditation did not modulate it. Overall, our results provide further support for the notion that spoken words can activate low-level category-specific visual features that boost the basic capacity to detect the presence of a visual stimulus that has those features. Further research is required to conclusively test whether meditation can modulate visual detection abilities in CFS and similar tasks.

In-between the West and the other: Postcolonial contradictions in Korean students’ understandings of Islam

ABSTRACT This study investigated how Korean students understand Islam, Islamic cultures, and Muslims by conducting open-ended, task-based interviews with 29 participants. Findings indicate the students believed that Islamic customs and cultures stalled in premodern periods and that Islamic ideas could not harmonise with the values of present-day society and might even be dangerous. At the same time, students showed sympathy towards Muslims, recognising them as marginalised throughout the world, including in Korean society. These contradictory ideas are discussed in relation to the postcolonial context in South Korea: students’ perceptions of Islam are situated in a unique context involving colonial experiences of being oppressed intertwined with Westernised perspectives. By revealing the conflicting understandings of Islam among non-Western students, this study adds complexity to the previous literature on Islamophobic understandings of students in Western countries.

Towards decolonizing L2 writing pedagogy: translingual and transmodal resources

Abstract Scholarly conversations in writing pedagogy increasingly centre our roles in reproducing epistemic and structural biases, and consequently the need to decolonize our curriculum. These conversations can be especially informative for L2 writing instruction, given its focus on the academic socialization of ESL for non-Western students. This article argues for translingual and transmodal resources as a way towards decolonizing L2 writing pedagogy. Framing these approaches to writing instruction in terms of ‘border thinking’, I argue that they open the classroom space for L2 and L1 students during process-based writing instruction. They enable students to use the various semiotic and material resources to produce knowledge and learn authentically. I end by illustrating pedagogic activities I use in the classroom shaped by these paradigms in terms of their alignment with Indigenous and non-Western traditions, and how they position L2 writers in the academy as resourceful learners.

TEACHER AS NOMAD, TEACHER AS EMISSARY: PERIPATETICALLY NEGOTIATING TEMPORALITY, LOCALITY, AND CULTURE ACROSS TRANSNATIONAL KNOWLEDGE SPHERES

The international teacher—one who is teaching in a foreign land or teaching foreign students in his own country—is at a nexus of cultures, subject-specific knowledge, geopolitics, and economics. Globalisation of the higher education employment market, increases in overseas study rates, the advent of English as a dominant language of education and research, and the expansion of remote/distance learning have expanded opportunities for the sharing of information and ideas by educators and students. At the same time, these trends pose challenges that cannot be ignored by the physically, pedagogically, or virtually peripatetic teacher. This paper will consider the balancing act undertaken by teachers of Western origin (or educational provenance) who teach primarily or exclusively in English and who provide instruction to non-Western students either in Western or non-Western institutions, in-person or online. It will eschew contemporary neo-colonialist and neoliberal assumptions of knowledge transmission and development, reframing these experiences, obstacles, and opportunities within the historical narrative of the Indo-European knowledge exchange; the ancient tradition of itinerant preachers, mendicants, scholars, and schoolmasters; and the multi-polarisation of world power. Finally, teachers will be presented with a means of developing historically and culturally informed, robust, expedient, and sensitive didactic and discoursive techniques.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0222/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Reviewing Science Education Research in Socioculture Perspective

In order to ensure that our country is able to provide enough human capital in the future, Malaysia is striving hard to improve the quality of its science education system. Various strategies have been regulated but still, the percentage of students taking science stream keeps dropping each year. Thus, science education scholars need to focus their attention by examining the impact of socioculture factor on students' interest in science. This article reviews a few socioculture point of views which affect science education progress. It discusses the pros and contras that arise when modern science that originates from the west clashes with the culture, traditions and beliefs of non-western students. This study is important to ensure that the human capital produced by our education system is capable of competing at the global stage without sacrificing our identity, beliefs and cultural heritage.

Ideological becoming through study abroad: Multilingual Japanese students in Turkey

Against the background of the current interest in identity in study abroad scholarship in applied linguistics, we focus in this paper on the case of non-Western students enrolled in study abroad programs based in non-Western countries. Drawing on face-to-face interviews with 25 multilingual Japanese undergraduates who studied in Turkey for a year and returned home 3–4 years ago as advanced speakers of Turkish, we problematize the Bakhtinian concept of ideological becoming that students experience as a result of their sojourn. More specifically, we investigate how ideological becoming is constructed across the three languages in the students’ repertoires that are in play in their study abroad experiences: Japanese, Turkish, and English. Our findings demonstrate that ideological becoming in the case of study abroad students concerns multiple languages in which students take active roles drawing on various timescales of their sojourn experience.

Enabling Sustainable Development by Embedding Tongan Knowledge into University Science Curricula

Sustainable development requires the valuing of Indigenous knowledges. The complex and intertwined processes of coloniality and globalisation have contributed to spreading a dominant set of Western knowledge, values, and practices discrediting local Indigenous knowledges and wisdom (Thaman, 2003). Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, requires educators to recognise that non-Western students continuously negotiate the disconnect between their formal Western education and their cultures. Developing educational sustainability requires resetting this educational imbalance. Culturally sustaining pedagogy acknowledges and encourages cultural pluralism something often absent in the teaching of Western Modern Science. Here I describe the ‘Ulungaanga faka-Tonga Fonumodel, a response to Thaman’s directive that embedding Indigenous knowledges in higher education institutions’ formal curriculum enriches student experience by providing diverse understandings, perspectives, and wisdoms. This model demonstrates a way to engage with Tongan knowledge in formal teaching spaces.

Comparing German and Taiwanese secondary school students’ knowledge in solving mathematical modelling tasks requiring their assumptions

Mathematization is critical in providing students with challenges for solving modelling tasks. Inadequate assumptions in a modelling task lead to an inadequate situational model, and to an inadequate mathematical model for the problem situation. However, the role of assumptions in solving modelling problems has been investigated only rarely. In this study, we intentionally designed two types of assumptions in two modelling tasks, namely, one task that requires non-numerical assumptions only and another that requires both non-numerical and numerical assumptions. Moreover, conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge are also two factors influencing students’ modelling performance. However, current studies comparing modelling performance between Western and non-Western students do not consider the differences in students’ knowledge. This gap in research intrigued us and prompted us to investigate whether Taiwanese students can still perform better than German students if students’ mathematical knowledge in solving modelling tasks is differentiated. The results of our study showed that the Taiwanese students had significantly higher mathematical knowledge than did the German students with regard to either conceptual knowledge or procedural knowledge. However, if students of both countries were on the same level of mathematical knowledge, the German students were found to have higher modelling performance compared to the Taiwanese students in solving the same modelling tasks, whether such tasks required non-numerical assumptions only, or both non-numerical and numerical assumptions. This study provides evidence that making assumptions is a strength of German students compared to Taiwanese students. Our findings imply that Western mathematics education may be more effective in improving students’ ability to solve holistic modelling problems.

A Threshold Concept and Capability Approach to the Cross-Cultural Contextualization of Western Management Education

This article presents contextualization as a pedagogic response to the issues of cross-cultural relevance associated with Western management education in non-Western contexts, and with regard to the needs and expectations of non-Western students. Building on a synthesis of threshold concepts and threshold capabilities, this article demonstrates in principle how contextualization is a threshold concept that can help educators and students address the issue of relevance. Translation intelligence is introduced as a distinct threshold capability, which can enable the development of the knowledge handling skills necessary for students’ future management practice. This article posits that contextualization and translation intelligence are valuable to business schools and management educators because they address issues of cross-cultural relevance and by facilitating learning beyond content they equip students with skills which can be employed in their future management practice.

Contextualizing Toni Morrison in Nepalese Classroom of Diversity: A Pedagogic Approach for Students of M.A. in English

This article is based on my experience of teaching Nepalese students, who are from different socio-cultural backgrounds. The study proposes a pedagogy through participatory and interactive reading strategy (PAIRS) for Tribhuvan University’s 4th Semester Graduate class of English Literature on the course of ‘Single Author’ (ENG 582), by making them engaged in dialogues, both in oral and written form, in which they will share and exchange their ideas on literary texts of Toni Morrison by investigating on some specific implications of the author’s vision on the issues of differences, prevalent in America. The proposed pedagogy is intended for raising students’ critical consciousness of the contemporary world’s most pertinent issues of identity of minorities, which Nepalese students face in their day to day living experiences. Thus, it is hoped that an individual and collective engagement would be developed in students for dealing with what is both historical and immediate, and global and local. By practicing PAIRS, students would develop self reflection on their biases that would make them critical of their culturally imbedded ideas and that would gradually make them empathetic to differences. The proposed pedagogy is not for demonstrating a teacher’s knowledge on the author’s works by critical and theoretical tools, but contextualizing the author in Nepalese socio-cultural conditions through the platform of a classroom of diverse thoughts for the students’ better understanding of the world, enriched with ‘differences’. The study further contributes to new pedagogy of English Studies for Non-western students by widening the field of comparative cultural studies, and thus enhancing the scope of comparative literature.

The Quest for Critical Thinking Framework in ELT

Even though some authors argue that critical thinking (CT) is almost impossible to be taught to students in non-Western countries since Western and non-Western countries have different cultural background, several studies on CT conducted in Asia, Africa and predominantly Muslim countries have showed that it can be taught to non-Western students. CT has actually been fashionable in non-Western countries, and several non-Western countries have nowadays included it in their educational agenda. In spite of CT’s gaining popularity in non-Western countries, there is very little information as regards what kind of CT which is adopted in those non-Western countries’ education and what CT framework which can work in their teaching-learning processes, especially in the field of ELT. This article attempts to propose a critical thinking framework that can be used in ELT as well as other school subjects. The framework is the result of critically analyzing, examining and synthesizing 20 critical thinking taxonomies, strategies, programs and tests.

Research Ethics and Overseas Fieldwork: Are Ethics Committees Oblivious of Cultural Differences?

Research ethics committees have come under increasing criticisms either for been toothless or too fierce. This has mainly come about as a result of the gap in theoretical expectations of research ethics and the experienced realities during fieldwork. In particular, ethics committees incur the displeasure of international students who undertake studies in their own sociocultural contexts. This paper presents a personal account of my experience as an international student in obtaining ethical approval for my doctoral research from a UK university. In this study, I challenge the validity of strict adherence to Western ethical framework in conducting research in non-western societies. With the increasing presence of non-western students in western universities, the paper argues for more flexibility in the ethical approval process to accommodate cultural differences. This would help to avoid situations where international students tell ethics committees what the committee would like to hear but do what they want to do while on fieldwork in their home countries.

Motivation and academic performance of medical students from ethnic minorities and majority: a comparative study

BackgroundMedical students from ethnic minorities underperform in knowledge and skills assessments both in pre-clinical and clinical education compared to the ethnic majority group. Motivation, which influences learning and academic performance of medical students, might play an important role in explaining these differences, but is under-investigated. This study aimed to compare two types of motivation (autonomous and controlled) of ethnic minority (Western and non-Western) and majority (Dutch) students, and their association with academic performance.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study, all students of a Dutch medical school were invited to complete a survey including the Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire, measuring autonomous and controlled motivation, in the academic year 2015–2016. Motivation was compared using Kruskal-Wallis test and performance was compared using One-Way ANOVA. Linear regression analysis was used to determine the association between motivation and performance (grade point average; GPA).ResultsThe response rate was 38.6% (n = 947). Autonomous motivation (AM) of non-Western students was higher than that of Dutch students in pre-clinical and clinical education (p < 0.05). Controlled motivation was higher in Western students than in Dutch students (pre-clinical education; p < 0.05). AM was associated with a higher GPA for Dutch (pre-clinical education; β = 0.33, p < 0.05) and Western students (clinical education; β = 0.57, p < 0.05) only.ConclusionsOur results show significant differences in the type of motivation between the ethnic majority and minority groups. The association of motivation with performance also differs between ethnic groups. We found that AM has a positive influence on GPA. Further research is needed to uncover the underlying mechanisms.

Non-Western students’ causal reasoning about biologically adaptive changes in humans, other animals and plants: instructional and curricular implications

ABSTRACTSenior secondary school students (N = 360), 14- to 18-year-olds, from the Igbo culture of eastern Nigeria responded to a questionnaire requiring them to give causal explanations of biologically adaptive changes in humans, other animals and plants. A student subsample (n = 36) was, subsequently, selected for in-depth interviews. Significant differences were found between prompts within the prompt categories, suggesting item feature effects. However, the most coherent pattern was found within the plant category as patterns differed for the mechanistic proximate (MP) reasoning category only. Patterns also differed highly significantly between the prompt categories, with patterns for teleology, MP, mechanistic ultimate and don't know categories similar for plants and other animals but different for the human category. Both urban and rural students recognise commonalities in causality between the three prompt categories, in that their preferences for causal explanations were similar across four reasoning categories. The rural students, however, were more likely than their urban counterparts to give multiple causal explanations in the span of a single response and less likely to attribute causal agency to God. Two factors, religious belief and language, for all the students; and one factor, ecological closeness to nature, for rural students were suspected to have produced these patterns.

Understanding diversity: a Dutch case study on teachers\u2019 attitudes towards their diverse student population

BackgroundIn the Netherlands, there has been a strong increase in diversity among students in recent decades. Even though access for previously underrepresented groups based on economic status, ethnicity or culture has been realised to a certain extent, differences in student performance between groups persist. Research shows that teacher performance influences student achievement and that this influence is more pronounced for 'non-western students'. This creates a need for reflection on the way teachers cope with their increasingly diverse student population. This paper explores the attitudes of Dutch teachers in higher vocational education towards their diverse student population and the translation of these attitudes into teaching practice.MethodsTwenty-five teacher teams at two universities of applied sciences participated in this research. The teams came from a broad range of programmes that educate students for different future professions. A mixed method methodology was used to gather data, in which the qualitative method was most substantial. Focus group interviews on diversity and student achievement were held with each teacher team. Additionally, a questionnaire was distributed to all 274 participants, which was completed by 215 teachers. Data from the questionnaire were analysed using SPSS. In order to analyse the qualitative data we used AtlasTI. Because we applied a grounded approach, allowing teachers to form their own ideas on both diversity and student achievement, we used a similar approach in the first analytical phase. In a second phase, we compared the concepts arising from the grounded theory approach with concepts from the literature.Results and conclusionsAround 40% of the teachers repudiated the influence of diversity on student achievement and did not take student diversity into account in their teaching practice. Problems regarding the student achievement of students or groups thereof are considered as something that the students, the educational institution or society at large should cope with, not teachers themselves. Of the teachers, 60% recognised diversity among students, but mainly based on students’ shortcomings and perceived problems. A minority of this 60% not only recognised but also understood diversity’s effect on student achievement. Teachers do not always translate this understanding into their teaching practice. They feel they lack the skills, knowledge or time to do so. Teachers seemingly translate their understanding of diversity into their didactic and pedagogical approaches only when these conditions are met.

How might language affect critical thinking performance?

This study examined whether language structure or language proficiency might affect students’ critical thinking performance. Previous research has claimed that many non-Western students struggle with the demands of demonstrating critical thought. Two language-related causes have been suggested: one concerning structural limitations in the non-Western students’ first language, and the other concerning their second language proficiency. In Study 1 described here, reports written by 110 Japanese second year university students, who had received instruction in academic discourse for critical evaluation (which is one aspect of critical thinking), were analyzed for use of evaluative statements. No disadvantage was found for use of the Japanese language, which is considered as having a more indirect structure that may make critical evaluation more difficult. Measurements of language proficiency in English and Japanese, however, were found to correlate with production of evaluative statements in those respective languages suggesting that language proficiency could affect critical evaluation use. In Study 2, the same task was given to 43 first year students who had not yet received the same instruction. Analysis revealed similar patterns in their written work but at a lower level, suggesting that the second year students had benefitted from the skills instruction. Furthermore, unlike the second year students, the first year students evidenced no correlations between their language proficiency scores and their production of evaluative statements, suggesting that proficiency on its own is inadequate: students need instruction on the specific language forms and structures to use to demonstrate critical thinking in their written work.

Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Undergraduate Student Views of the Nature of Science

Past studies investigating university level students' views of nature of science (NOS) were relatively few and most of them were conducted in Western countries. This paper focuses upon comparing the quantitative patterns in Western (US Caucasian and African-American) and non-Western (Taiwanese) students' views of NOS (VNOS) by adopting a survey instrument. This analysis combined with qualitative data begin to uncover details of potential cultural differences in patterns specifically in the US educational context by comparing Caucasian and African-American student responses to a question from a commonly used assessment of VNOS. Results show different patterns of views along the four dimensions of NOS (social negotiation, invented/creative NOS, cultural impacts, and changing/tentative feature of science) according to student major, student gender, and student ethnicity. These differences and similarities have the potential to impact undergraduate education and underrepresentation of cultural minorities in science careers and call for further research into NOS views in the context of diverse student groups.

Negotiating knowledges abroad: non-Western students and the global mobility of knowledge

Taking the Institute for Housing Studies in Rotterdam as a case study, this paper aims to theorise the ways non-Western, international students construct and negotiate knowledges in Western institutions of higher education. It describes the types of knowledges these students identify as characteristic of their learning abroad, distinguishing between the curriculum, knowledge of cultural Others and ‘critical thinking’, and the strategies of incorporation, avoidance and resistance with which students negotiate these knowledges. These knowledges, if contested, are then theorised to facilitate these students’ entry into, and mobility within, globally dispersed epistemic communities.

Free School Choice and the Educational Achievement Gap

In the Netherlands, school choice is free and all schools are equally funded by the government. We measured distance from home to school as a proxy for the selectivity of choice and used characteristics of the nearest school to explain the choice of a school other than the nearest school. Almost 89% of all pupils in the 4 largest cities do not select the nearest school. Native Dutch pupils tend to prefer a school with lower percentages of nonwestern migrant students and a higher mean school SES and exam score. Immigrant students tend to choose a school with higher percentages of nonwestern migrant students.

The role of cultural dimensions of international and Dutch students on academic and social integration and academic performance in the Netherlands

A common belief among educators is that international students are insufficiently adjusted to higher education in their host country, both academically and socially. Furthermore, several groups of international students experience considerable amounts of stress while adapting to the culture of the host-institute, but limited research has addressed whether and how transitional issues influence academic performance. In a cross-institutional comparison among 1275 students at nine higher educational institutes in the Netherlands, differences in academic performance between Dutch and international students were identified by focussing on their levels of academic and social integration. Students’ academic integration was measured with the Students’ Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ), while students’ social integration was measured by the Social Integration Questionnaire. Afterwards, 757 international students from 52 countries were clustered into nine geographical clusters using Hofstede's cultural dimension scores.The results indicate that some groups of international students experience considerable personal–emotional and social adjustment issues, while other groups of international students adjust fairly straightforward. In particular, international students from Confucian Asia score substantially lower on academic integration than their Western peers, with moderate to strong effect sizes. The cultural dimensions of Hofstede significantly predicted academic adjustment and social adjustment, in particular power–distance (negative), masculinity and uncertainty avoidance (both positive). Follow-up multi-level analyses show that academic adjustment is the primary predictor for academic success. The results imply that higher educational institutes should focus on facilitating academic adjustment of (Bachelor) international students, in particular non-Western students.