_________ _________ Costos y gastos
23. Administración de riesgos financieros
Learning is a multilayered concept after all. The analysis of the data showed three dimensions existing in the participants‘ conceptions of learning: What-dimension, How-dimension, and Why-dimension. These three aspects are integrated and constitute the system of Chinese students‘ conceptions of learning.
The emphasis on knowledge accumulation and transmission is deep rooted in the participants‘ conceptions of learning. In their mind, knowledge, especially subject knowledge, is a systematic structure, like a pyramid, made up of discrete entities, and the student is supposed to be guided by the teacher to climb up, step by step, to scale the heights. Apart from accumulating knowledge, to master skills, both professional and social, and to develop abilities and competences are deemed equally important. To the participants, learning also means to engage one‘s mind as well as one‘s heart and to be prepared to invest time and effort and endure pains and hardships. All the participants share the dialectical and interactive view of ability and efforts, with the latter as an essential factor in academic success. This emphasis on personal effort is rooted in their belief in human malleability and improvability. Consistent with the cultural values on modesty, learning implies the spirit of intellectual humility and respectfulness. Effortful learning and respectful learning are taken as the defining features of a student who is worth teaching. It seems a paradox that the participants are very teacher-dependent in their conceptions of relationship between teaching and learning, but they tend to attribute their academic failure to no other external factors than themselves. On the whole, the participants attached great emphasis to ‗learning virtues‘ (Li, 2006: 485), the desirable internal qualities (not intellectual or cognitive abilities) of a learner, and thought highly of a sense of agency and achievement in
164
learning.
Though the instrumental orientation of learning is explicitly expressed, it is only taken as a means to a moral end. The participants believe that learning brings about mobility of social status outward and, simultaneously, self-improvement inward. The Confucian ultimate learning outcome ‗sagehood within and king outside‘, though sound old-fashioned, is generally endorsed, but formulated in varied ways among the participants. Generally speaking, their purpose or goals of learning were more personally-oriented than socially-oriented.
In the following part of this section, I shall discuss these findings via comparing with those from existing research on Chinese culture of learning and argue for the emic approach to cultures of learning which were introduced in Chapter 4.
The conclusion drawn from the phenmenographic studies about the cultural influences on learning conceptions of non-Western learners is ‗the conceptions of learning described originally for Western countries are recognizable elsewhere‘ (Mugler & Landbeck, 1997: 230). In this study, all the constructs in Marton et al.‘s (1993a), except Conception D, ‗see things in a different way‘, have appeared in the first round of data set, but the meanings and values attached to these constructs are not the same. In other words, the differences may not be just in degree, but also in kind. For instance, ‗memorization‘ is used by the participants to refer to both the action of ‗committing to memory‘ and the product of this action, i.e. retention of knowledge. In fact, however important memorization is in the process of learning, Chinese students do not consider memorization alone as an independent or valid conception of learning.
Marton et al.‘s (1993a) characterization of the conceptions of learning encompasses two main component parts: a way of seeing what is learned and a way of seeing how it is learned. But to Chinese learners, there is always a why dimension when they conceptualise their learning. This external horizon of learning has seldom been mentioned in the research conducted in the West.
165
In Marton et al.‘s (1993a) hierarchical structure of learning conceptions the first three make an unsophisticated group and the last three the sophisticated one. But to the participants in this study, these three constructs of conceptions are not hierarchically exclusive but coexist, with equal value, in their mind. In other words, both the lower level and the higher level of conceptions are present simultaneously in their conceptions for their own rights. In Marton et al.‘s framework, sophisticated conceptions of learning are taken as atypical among university students, but in this study, the transformative conceptions of learning, such as changes as a person, are common to Chinese students.
Comparing and contrasting with phenomenographic research results, the participants‘ learning conceptions in this study manifest the following distinct characteristics:
1. Knowledge is highly valued; accumulating knowledge is essential to learning and to self-perfection.
2. Memorization and understanding are not separate conceptions, but interlocked in dealing with knowledge.
3. Understanding is a multilayered word, including ‗mingbai‘明白, dong, 懂， and lijie 理解.
4. Learning is an orderly process, from surface to deep;
5. Learning entails proper attitudes and appropriate manners towards knowledge. 6. Learning and teaching are in unison; the student and the teacher are in an
interdependent relationship.
7. Learning entails changes in both inward (self-perfection) and outward conditions, i.e. social mobility.
8. Learning is not just a cognitive activity; it has a moral dimension.
This study supports Brownlee et al.‘s (2002) holistic conceptualization of epistemological beliefs—beliefs about knowing and beliefs about learning are inseparable. In the meanwhile, the semantic analysis of the key constructs cautions against the temptation to take them as equivalents in different languages and assign them universal values. The participants seemed to believe that knowledge is relatively certain, imparted from an omniscient authority, which demands respect or humility
166
from the learner. However, the high value accorded to the term ‗knowledge‘ by the Chinese students renders the connotation of this concept maybe not the same as the English word ‗knowledge‘. In the participants‘ mind, knowledge is not just an existing body of information, but a vehicle for self-worth, indispensible in one‘s life. In fact, in their belief of ‗knowledge changes one‘s fate‘, ‗knowledge‘ is metaphorically equal to education or learning itself. In addition, these Chinese students neither believe in quick learning nor the ability to learn is innate, therefore, they cannot be easily categorized as surface/unsophisticated or deep/sophisticated learners by the existing Western conceptual framework.
Apparently, the participants‘ conceptions in this study, unlike Marton et al.‘s cognitive-focused hierarchy, are much more comprehensive in dimensions and make it unrealistic and unjustifiable to delimit the conceptions of learning to the cognitive aspects only. Since conceptions of learning, as a tacit metaphysical system, are much influenced by the given sociocultural practices, with direct attention to certain aspects of the phenomenon at the expense of others, there must exist some cultural characteristics in students‘ conceptions of learning.
The study provides support for the distinction between Chinese ‗person orientation‘ or ‗virtue orientation‘24
and American ‗mind orientation‘ in terms of cultural models of conceptions of learning (Li, 2001, 2002, 2003). In Li‘s study, American students tend to emphasize internal learner characteristics including cognitive skill, intelligence, and abilities on the one hand, and thinking, communicating, and active engagement on the other. Motivational factors such as interest, curiosity, willingness, and commitment are also a part of the internal make-up of a person that serves to facilitate the learning process; whereas to Chinese, learning includes not only the externally existing body of knowledge but also tacit social and moral knowing. This means knowing the world is not the ultimate purpose. Moreover, the study also shows Chinese students‘
24
As a critique to Tweed and Lehman‘s (2002: 91) assertion that Confucius‘ purpose of learning was ‗pragmatic‘, Li reiterated that the terms ren 仁 (benevolence) and junzi 君子 (good gentleman) occur 111 and 104 times respectively across 55 pages of Confucius Analects (2003: 146).
167
instrumental orientation in learning. The participants endorse utilitarian benefits as part of their motivation for learning, but, to them, learning purposes do not end there. This confirms the previous research results that Chinese learners seek learning to cultivate themselves as a whole person in the moral domain toward self-perfection (Lee, 1996; Li, 2001, 2002, 2003; Yu, 1996).
In summary, the cognitive-oriented constructs developed from the Western setting could not precisely or adequately describe Chinese students‘ comprehensive system of conceptions of learning. As a tacit metaphysical field, affective, behavioural and moral dimensions of conceptions of learning have not received due attention in earlier research. Moreover, the meanings of the same construct used in describing the students‘ conceptions of learning may be conceived and valued differently, which foregrounds the importance of an open and emic design to reveal the complexities about Chinese learners‘ beliefs system. In general, the findings of this study echo the previous research results on the Chinese learner and support the claim that there exist certain Chinese cultural inherited characteristics in the participants‘ conceptions of learning, and that the participants are more personally oriented and showed strong sense of agency in this specific domain.
168