Culture and learner beliefs: a study of three Malay postgraduate students / Faizah A Majid

Culture influences how people experience. Although there is
literature on how culture can influence adult learners’ orientation to learning, there is little on how culture influences the nature of successful learning amongst adults (Merriam and Mohamad, 2000). The purpose of this paper is to examine how cultural values influence a selected group of successful adult learners’ views on learning in the Malaysian education context. A qualitative research design was
adopted to explore this question. Three postgraduates who had
completed their studies on time were interviewed. Using the constant
comparative method of data analysis (Wellington, 2000), five cultural
values as identified by Abdullah (1996) and Hofstede (1991);
collectivistic, religious, relationship-oriented, hierarchical, and face
conscious were used to serve as the main themes in the analysis. In
analysing the data, three cultural values emerged; religious,
relationship-oriented and, collectivistic. These findings have
implications for understanding how cultural values may influence
adult Malay students’ views on learning.