Instructional Learning Versus Action Learning: A Grounded Theory Study of Vietnamese Students’ Perspective in an International Educational Program

Abstract

The theoretical stand about learning has evolved greatly over the last century from the belief that the learner is passive and only motivated to learn by rewards and punishments to the belief that the learner is a processor of information and thus the goal of education becomes to increase the amount of learner’s knowledge. Later, John Dewey introduced the concept of the “active learner” (Dewey 1911) where the learner is a constructor of knowledge with a process of selective acquisition of relevant knowledge that is coupled with interpreting this knowledge by relating it to previously existing knowledge. (Mayer 1992) Action learning is the preferred method of teaching in most exported programs from the global north to the global south and thus many scholars studied course design methods based on action learning but few researchers studied students’ perspective of this method. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory research in Vietnam studying students’ perceptions about active learning in an international Australian college in Vietnam. The results of analysis of the research findings in Vietnam show that students value participation and active learning more than passive traditional teaching methods and link this with their future career success. Comparing the results with other outcomes from similar researches in the same field confirm these findings and support the conclusion. The paper concludes by presenting recommendations to exporting educational institutes about how to better adapt course design of their programs to Vietnamese students’ needs and expectations.



Author Information
Sandra Safwat Youssef Fahmy, Aalborg University, Denmark

Paper Information
Conference: IICE2015
Stream: Student learning

This paper is part of the IICE2015 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon