Transfer of Learning and the Cultural Matrix: Culture, Beliefs and Learning in Thailand Higher Education

This book reports on a fascinating study, conducted in an international college in Thailand, that aimed to understand the transfer of learning from an undergraduate academic literacy programme to the disciplines.

The study adopted a cultural matrix to investigate the interrelationship among students' perceptions of transfer of learning, their personal beliefs about knowledge, knowing and learning, and their secondary school backgrounds. 

A three-part questionnaire, supplemented by purposive semi-structured interviews, was used to collect data from all consenting students from the final course in a four-trimester programme.  The first part of the questionnaire employed the Epistemic Beliefs Inventory (EBI) in gauging students' beliefs about knowing and learning, the second part comprised the Measure of Academic Literacy Transfer (MALT), which measured students' perceptions of transfer of learning from the academic literacy programme to the disciplines, and the third part of the questionnaire surveyed students' demographic details, specifically with regard to their secondary school context.  Data were then analysed to establish the interrelationship between these data sets. 

Qualitative analysis of open-ended questions from the MALT and the interviews contributed to a rich in-depth understanding of the findings from the questionnaire.
 
Initial, factorial analysis of the EBI indicated a factor structure that differed from that which had emerged from similar studies conducted in the US context--and from the original US-based development of the instrument.  This finding suggests that beliefs about knowing, knowledge and learning are culturally relative.  Furthermore,  analysis indicated a significant low-moderate relationship between students' beliefs about knowledge and learning, and the transfer of learning.  Combined, these findings suggest that students' transfer behaviour may differ across cultures.

Surprisingly, no association was detected between the beliefs and students' secondary school backgrounds.  However, the students' multicultural backgrounds may provide a plausible explanation for this: interviewees' individual responses indicated coexisting and sometimes conflicting beliefs systems related, respectively, to international schooling and traditional home environments.  In students whose formative educational experiences had not been homogeneous, these multivalent beliefs would confound a simple relationship between secondary school background and beliefs.

The findings, thus, give partial support for the application of the cultural matrix to transfer of learning, while revealing also an intriguing complexity to the beliefs systems of students who had been exposed to international education. To borrow from linguistics parlance, these multicultural students may code-switch between beliefs systems in much the same manner as multilinguals between languages.

The study makes an original contribution by applying the cultural matrix to learning in a previously unexplored way.  In so doing, it aims to generate a general theory of transfer of learning while fostering a culturally pluralistic understanding of learners' beliefs about knowledge and learning and the implications for such transfer.  It also advocates an approach that supplements existing classroom-specific pedagogical methods with school-wide cultural management initiatives in order to better effect transfer of learning.