The Learner > Background

Introduction

The phrase “Chinese learner” enjoys much more currency than any similar such conjunction we might construct (“British learner”, “Russian learner”, “African learner”, and so on).  Indeed it is sufficiently natural to speak of “the Chinese learner” that books can be written with that title (Watkins and Biggs, 1996), an international conference series can be supported by it (Portsmouth University) and 14,000 hits will arise (at the time of writing) when the phrase is searched in Google. 

The aim of this essay is not to furnish a fully comprehensive review of the research and practitioner literature associated with this idea.  Certainly, enough literature will be cited such that any reader should acquire a firm set of pointers towards further and fuller study.  However, what we are more interested in doing here is something more general, something more preparatory to such fuller investigation.  We simply wish to identify and map a certain landscape of debate and controversy.  This is necessary because the nature and consequences of proposing a Chinese learning “style” certainly involves a contested set of issues.  Moreover, a lot of practical matters may hinge upon what is and is not credible within this debate.  In particular, we suggest that those who are engaged in developing new educational relationships with Chinese colleagues and institutions need to recognise the dimensions of this debate; they need to recognise the terms of the controversy.  It is in this spirit that we wish to map a certain intellectual landscape.

By way of orientation to what will follow in later sections, it may help, to identify the central concerns of the debate around the “Chinese learner” and, then, to note the dimensions of controversy that are typically stimulated within this debate.  We address the “controversy” part of this issue more in the next section.  First, we suggest below three broad terms of reference for the research base grounding the central debate.

(1) A perception of learner difference.  It is noticed (typically by Western observers) that what happens in Chinese classrooms corresponds to a distinctive style of teaching.  However, this claim is not the central one.  This is because it is less thoroughly documented than a parallel claim about how Chinese learners are observed to go about their studying.  As it happens, some of the commentary concerning what these learners do is very casual. It is based on the reflections of individual teachers who have chosen to document or diary their experience in a fairly personal style.  While such accounts may have been influential in shaping widely held views, there is other commentary that is less informal.  In particular, considerable comparative research has been designed around this topic.  This is possible because many Chinese learners study in educational settings outside of China.  This situation encourages a tradition of research whereby Chinese students’ patterns of studying are compared with those from other cultural traditions.  From work of this kind we derive a more robust set of claims about what it is that characterises a certain approach to learning, a certain pattern of study.  Therefore, some research is simply concerned with documenting and theorising the dimensions of an apparent difference in what a group of learners do.

(2) An awareness of effective outcomes from Chinese education.  On many measures of academic achievement, it is fair to conclude that students educated in China often perform better than their peers from other parts of the world.  This would be an unexceptional observation were it not for a simple tension that follows from this observation.  The tension occurs in trying to reconcile such academic success with the nature of the learning differences alluded to above.  The problem is that accounts of the learning difference tend to come with a value judgment attached.  The formats for Chinese teaching and learning that are widely documented do not seem to conform to Western conceptions of what makes for a powerful educational experience.  In the academic literature, this has given rise to another compelling phrase: namely, the Chinese “learning paradox”.  How can an apparently unfavourable form of learning lead to an apparently successful educational outcome?  Therefore, other research in this area is concerned with unpicking the terms of this paradox.  This will involve questioning certain of the assumptions upon which the paradox is built.  Effort of this kind might be expected to have wider theoretical and practical reach.  Either it questions our ability to see the nature of learning accurately or it questions our process theories of how achievement arises out of particular educational experiences.

(3) Grounding the perceived learner differences.  Resolving the learning paradox could leave the basic claims about learner difference unchallenged in which case there is evidently an open invitation to discover where such differences come from.  There are four research traditions built around pursuing this concern. 

  1. Articulating the philosophical heritage.  Chinese philosophical traditions are observed to have characteristics that are resonant with claimed characteristics of the Chinese learner.  This resonance can be defined and explored on an historical basis.
  2. Mapping psychological differences.  The Chinese psychological profile is characterised in social, motivational and cognitive terms.  Such research involves comparing the responses of Chinese participants to Western peers when taking various standard psychological tests or when performing within various interpersonal scenarios scripted by psychologists.
  3. Characterising socialisation practices.  Cultural practices associated with parenting and child-rearing are analysed in terms of their likely influence on learner dispositions within educational settings.
  4. Constructing classroom ethnographies.  What the Chinese learner does is here understood in terms of the ecology of the classroom.  The design of educational spaces, the structure of the curriculum and its resources, and the style of Chinese teaching is related to claimed characteristics of Chinese learners.

As stated at the outset, our aim here is to introduce and map the terms of an ongoing debate.  Hopefully, this will support those embarking on professional collaborations with Chinese colleagues and students.  Hopefully, it will also allow them to navigate the space of this controversial debate more confidently.  Then, in the end, it may allow such collaborators confidently to recognise and interpret what may be a distinctive cultural landscape of educational practice.

In the paragraphs above, we have identified the main nodes around which research in this area has become organised.  More will be said about each of these later in this essay.  In the next section, we offer both warnings and reassurances regarding tensions and controversies that arise within the debate that this research stimulates.

Reference

Watkins, D. A., & Biggs, J. (1996). The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and textual influences. Hong Kong and Melbourne: CERC and ACER.