Learning and Motivation: An Asian Perspective

The paper examines the learning style and achievement orientation of Asian people focusing on the role of social and cultural factors including attitudes totuards learning and education. The strong collectivistic orientation of Asian people influences their achievement behaviour and success is defined in terms of recog nition and smooth social relationships. Asian students are socialised to value education and consider it a filial duty. The learning context in Asian countries is characterised as being highly authoritarian, teaching methods are expository and praise is seldom used. McClelland's achievement motivation approach was found to be ethnocentric, as it ignored situational and contextual factors. Studies are presented that reveal that the meaning of success is different for Asian people and is mediated by affiliative concerns. Achieuement attributions are different in that Asian students attribute both success and failure to more internal and controllable factors. The paper concludes that the attribution style of Asian students and cooperative reward structure encourages task orientation and a deep approach to learning.