Factores que afectan el flujo de un fluido a través de una tubería

It has been identified that teachers’ responses or lack of responses to students’ cultural backgrounds contribute to varied learning performance for tertiary students in multicultural contexts. Thus understanding the cultural differences would help provide teachers with effective teaching methods. Many scholars (e.g., Den-Brok, Levy, Wubbels, & Rodriguez, 2003; Bulut, 2010; Jarvis, Holford, & Griffin, 1998) claim that what and how students learn is strongly influenced by their culture. This section reviews the related studies, including two qualitative studies (Digreorio, Farrington, & Page, 2000; Sonn, Bishop, & Humphries, 2000), three quantitative studies (An, 2002; Cox, Lobel & McLeod, 1991; Donald & Jackling, 2007), and one mixed-methods study (Grainger, 2012). Three of the studies matched the cultural factors with Confucianism and found that Asian students’ learning was affected by Confucianism (An, 2002; Donald & Jackling, 2007, Grainger, 2012). The impacts of collectivist and individualist societies were mentioned (Cox, Lobel, & McLeod, 1991). Details from these studies that are particularly relevant to the present study are discussed as follows.

30 Students’ cultures and learning strategies have been investigated to be associated with each other. Grainger (2012) conducted a mixed-methods study on the language learning strategies of learners of Japanese in a foreign language learning environment, which focused on the spoken communication strategies and the impact of cultural background on the choice of strategies. Data collection methods were interviews and an online questionnaire. Interview participants were 19 undergraduate students from different universities in Australia. They were native Australian English speakers. Questionnaire participants were 156 students from five tertiary institutions in Australia. These students were of various nationalities, including 116 Australian and 40 Asian. Findings showed that cultural background significantly affected the Japanese language learning strategy choices of students. For example, Asian students (non- native speakers of English) recalled memorized chunks of language, which is similar to rote learning, more often than Australians, while Australians decided to try to think in Japanese more than Asians.

In a similar vein, Donald and Jackling (2007) explored the learning strategies of Chinese and Australian students in a first-year undergraduate accounting programme at a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. Findings from a questionnaire of 550 students indicated that there were no significant differences in the use of surface and deep learning strategies but there were significant differences in the learning motivation of the two groups. Australian students had more motivation to study to meet minimum study requirements while not working harder than necessary, and they had the intention to achieve the best marks with the minimum amount of effort. The Chinese students were found to be more fundamentally interested in what they were studying and in developing their competence in the subject than the Australian students. The Chinese students seemed to have a culturally induced bias towards seeking understanding, a viewpoint according with Confucian educational values that exhorts students to absorb and to truly understand the knowledge taught to them. Another study conducted by An (2002) explored the connection between Confucian culture and English language teaching and learning in Vietnam. The first survey was to

31 test the hypothesis that because of the effects of Confucianism, Vietnamese learners were passive and dependent on their teachers and that their attitudes toward communicative language teaching were negative. A questionnaire was delivered to 230 different-level learners studying at language centres, high schools, and universities in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. A second survey was conducted with 128 teachers in the city at the same time but on a smaller scale, with the aim of learning about cultural effects on their teaching. The results from both surveys showed that the Vietnamese contexts (such as in Ho Chi Minh city) were not a hospitable environment for communicative language teaching. Both students and teachers were interested in the grammar translation method, because grammar rules were easy to memorise and teachers were expected to know all the answers. This feature matches with Hofstede’s (1997) dimension of uncertainty avoidance. Students’ shyness hindered their learning process, and they wanted to avoid making themselves conspicuous, indicators of Hofstede’s collectivist feature.

Digregorio et al. (2000) and Sonn et al. (2000) conducted qualitative studies exploring the challenges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australia had to face in learning. The first study (Digregorio et al., 2000) involved 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student participants who were enrolled in a Diploma of Health Sciences (Aboriginal Health and Community Development). The data collected from semi-structured interviews indicated that factors influencing their learning included: the cumulative effects of individual stressors; the vulnerability of students’ determination to succeed (as they were discouraged by negative learning experiences, which made them doubt their own ability to succeed); and cultural matters. For example, students noted having greater confidence to speak in classes when they were surrounded by their ‘own people’ and they would be scared to speak up if the class was mixed. It was reported that there was a strong objection to staff who did not have an awareness of their native culture, because this affected the community and learners as well. Focusing on similar subjects, Sonn et al. (2000) investigated factors that influenced the students’ retention and successful participation at Curtin University, Australia. The interview data were gathered from 34 participants, including

32 those who had successfully completed programmes at Curtin University of Technology, those who had not completed the courses, and those who were participating in bridging courses at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies (CAS). The qualitative analyses showed that subtle and overt forms of racism impacted on students’ experiences in mainstream education. Key problems that were experienced included the challenges of relocation, cultural identity, and cultural insensitivity, which were factors that influenced indigenous student experiences and participation in higher education. Ethnic group differences have been found to affect some aspects of behaviour in task groups in learning. Cox et al. (1991) conducted an experimental study in the US on the effects of ethnic group cultural differences on cooperative and competitive behaviour in a group task. The researchers examined the hypothesis that differences in the cultural norms of Anglo-Americans and three other ethnic groups – Asians, Hispanic, and Black Americans – would result in different behaviours on a group task. One hundred and thirty-six graduate and undergraduate students from several academic majors of a large public university in the Midwestern US were assigned to ethnically diverse or all Anglo groups. Individual and group responses were measured using a Prisoner’s Dilemma task in which participants could choose to compete or cooperate with another party. Results confirmed that groups of people from collectivist cultural traditions displayed more cooperative behaviours than groups of people from individualistic cultural traditions.

Taken together, these studies provide evidence that cultural backgrounds have different impacts on students’ learning. It is recognized that the learning process of students from Asian backgrounds tends to be influenced by Confucian culture. One more issue which emerged from these studies is, as Sonn et al. (2000) reveal, “students from minority and non-dominant backgrounds often have negative experiences when dealing with higher education systems” (p. 128). These studies support the notion that culture determines “how we think, believe, and behave, and these, in turn, affect how we teach and learn” (Gay, 2010, p. 9). It is therefore crucial to make explicit those cultural values that are most often implicit and intensely affect

33 students in the classroom (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009), especially in Vietnam, where “there are fifty-four recognized distinct ethnic groups with unique religious, linguistic and cultural characteristics and identities” (McDougall, 2010, para. 5). However not all of these fifty-four groups in Vietnam have been traditionally influenced by Confucianism. Hence, having knowledge of students’ culture will help teachers identify the appropriate teaching methodology. Sheets and Gay (1996) advocate that:

Teachers need to understand the cultural heritages of different ethnic groups, how they sanction behaviour and celebrate accomplishments, and their rules of decorum, deference, and etiquette. They need to understand the value orientations, standards for achievements, social taboos, relational patterns, communication styles, motivational systems, and learning styles of different ethnic groups. These should then be employed in managing the behaviour of students, as well as teaching them. (p. 92)

Any teaching approaches used with students of different ethnic groups need to be applied with careful consideration of the cultural values of different ethnic minorities in Vietnam in order for them to be able to achieve academic goals. For this purpose, teaching that is culturally responsive has been investigated in different educational contexts. The next section will examine theory and empirical studies relating to this area.