UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
This seminar explored how students from different cultures view the concept of knowledge, and the implications this has for teaching and learning.
Guest speaker Dr Márta Fülöp described recent research carried out in Japan, and presented at 8th European Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction. The following summary is by Tom Heath.
"Western thought traditionally views knowledge and learning as the result of experience within a world that is objective and stable. The implication of this view is that knowledge and learning exist as entities independent of any social context. In contrast, a cultural perspective would suggest that basic cognitive processes are intrinsically related to interpersonal, societal and collective factors.
A study carried out in the nineties attempted to establish whether Japanese university students held any unique beliefs about the nature/origin of knowledge, and whether this could be related in any way to the Japanese cultural context.
The results revealed Japanese students to hold a 'situated cognitive' perspective, seeing knowledge as a social entity. This suggests that personal epistemology is heavily influenced by cultural context."
