Does culture influence learning styles in higher education?

Abstract

This paper develops a framework for understanding the relationships between approaches to learning adopted by students in the context of higher education and the culture of the country they were brought up in. The paper, after examining the more widely used Kolb’s learning styles, opts for another categorisation, namely the so called learning approaches developed by Entwistle and others (for example, Entwistle and Ramsden, 1983; Biggs, 1987; Entwistle, 1992; Tait, Entwistle and McCune, 1998; Biggs, Kember and Leung, 2001). Each of the main categories of learning approaches identified by his school, namely, deep, surface apathetic, and strategic are related to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, namely, power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, long vs. short time orientation and masculinity vs. femininity and a series of hypotheses developed that could be tested in cross cultural samples. This study would give practical hints on students moving out to study in different cultures (e.g. for higher education) and for teachers dealing with students from multiple cultures.