The 1st Asia's Educational Miracle Congress
Child Development in Family, School and Cultural Context
October 28-29 2006 - Inha University, Incheon, South Korea
1) Exploring the learning effectiveness and process of Chinese learner in the higher education and workplace environment*
Hora TJITRA, Huiqi WANG, Yunyi DUAN
(Oral Presentation) Recent studies
found consistent differences between Western and
Asian learning behaviors as well as the
particularities of the Chinese learner (Chan, 1999;
Dahlin & Watkins, 2000). However the majority of
them was mostly based on the schools and
universities sample, and didn’t consider the
effectiveness sufficiently. Research objective was
to explore the distinctiveness of the Chinese
learner and its effectiveness and process in the
higher education and workplace environment. The
focus group discussion was used to obtain the
learner’s perspective of the Chinese concerning the
learning methods, process and expected
instructor-directed situation. The participants were
75 postgraduate students and 72 employees from
multinational companies in Chengdu, Dalian, Hangzhou
and Shanghai. The whole discussions were video
recorded, fully transcribed and then analyzed using
content analysis with the help of atlas.ti software.
The results showed that Chinese learner emphasized
their preference of modern western ways of learning
and teaching with some fine and significant
differences concerning the conception and execution
of the context, methods and process.
2) Effective Learning and Course Instruction in Corporate Training and Development: Qualitative In-depth Interview in the Chinese Cultural Context*
Hora TJITRA, Quan HE, Thomas JENEWEIN**
(Oral Presentation) Different
cultures have their own exclusive practices toward
effective learning and appropriate instructor
behaviors. This study aimed to identify the
important factors of the effective learning process
and to explore the cultural impacts on training and
learning behaviors by comparing the corporate
practices in China and other countries. Sixty
qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted in
different cities in China and Germany. Participants
were experienced professionals in Training and
Development from China, Germany and other
nationalities working in Chinese and multinational
companies. Interview data was fully transcribed and
then analyzed using grounded theory and emic
approach with the help of atlas.ti software. Results
showed there were several significant factors in the
Chinese cultural context that influenced learning
and training significantly such as trainer’s status,
external motivation of the learner, interaction and
relationship between trainer and learner, the
utilize of test and the process of group work.
Finally, the possible applications of the results
will be discussed.
3) Examining Chinese Learning styles, preferences and experiences in using different learning technologies and media*
Hora TJITRA, Thomas JENEWEIN**, Yang ZHANG***
(Oral Presentation) The
effectiveness of learning is determined by many
factors within and without the learner. Our research
examines the relationships among four key factors:
culture, learning styles, instructional method, and
instructional media. Specifically, using self-report
data from more than 300 college-level students and
employees at multinational corporations in Chengdu,
Dalian, Hangzhou and Shanghai, we expect to find
that, consistent with the characteristics of the
Chinese culture, Chinese people will predominantly
display the Diverging and secondly Assimilating
learning styles in Kolb's (1984, 2005) model on
learning styles. Moreover, we expect to find
consistent patterns in preferences for and
frequencies of using certain types of instructional
methods and instructional media, and these patterns
will show significant relationships with Chinese
people's learning styles and Chinese cultural
characteristics. Some differences will emerge
between employee and student samples, presumably as
a result of differences in their learning
experiences. Theoretical and practical implications
of our research will be discussed.
*This research project is supported financially by SAP AG, Germany
** SAP AG, Germany
***Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, US
