A Comparison of Chinese and European–American University Students’ Virtue and Mind Learning Beliefs and Academic Achievement in Global Cultural Exchange

Abstract

The world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, have fundamentally different cultural beliefs about learning. Thus, when examining Chinese learners, Western researchers were confused by the contrasting phenomenon between seemingly poor learning approaches and high academic achievement, i.e., the Paradox of Chinese Learners. In addressing this paradox, Jin Li offered a theoretical framework of the Chinese virtue model versus the European–American mind model to comprehensively understand the differences in students’ learning beliefs and academic achievement between the two cultures. However, Li does not pay attention to global cultural exchange or directly link learning beliefs to academic achievement. Therefore, this paper presents two empirical studies addressing these research gaps. Study 1 adopted both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the learning beliefs of Chinese and European–American university students, and revealed that deepening cultural exchange narrowed the gap between the two models (Study 1a), but the impact of the virtue model on European–American students was weaker than that of the mind model on Chinese students (Study 1b). Study 2 further revealed that both models were beneficial for Chinese students’ academic achievement, whereas only the virtue model benefited European–American students. These findings have important implications for addressing the Paradox of Chinese Learners.

Scientific epistemology beliefs and acceptance of Traditional Chinese Medicine: A multigroup analysis based on the UTAUT model in Southern China

“…Interestingly, attitudes towards TCM diverge between China and the West. In Western nations, where modern science originated [ 4 ], TCM is popularly embraced as a complementary or alternative medicine [ 5 ]. In contrast, Chinese people with a long history of using TCM seem conflicted—appreciating traditional remedies while also questioning TCM's benefits compared to scientifically tested modern medicine [ 6 ].…”