“美德—心智”视阈下我国学生学习概念的发展——基于字词联想测验的实证研究

Students’ learning concepts, i.e., epistemological beliefs about learning from emic perspective, have resulted from their intuition about learning phenomena and the experience. In the late 20th century, Chinese American Professor Jin Li conducted systematic research on structural differences between Western and East Asian learning concept models, using adult college students as subjects and Word Association Tests. She concluded that Western way of learning emphasizes on “Mind Orientation” while Chinese or Asian learning model focuses on “Virtue Orientation”. We examined the development of learning concepts among Chinese students ranging from first graders of primary school to college juniors, with some amendments to Li’s methods. The result shows that Chinese learning concepts evolve with age from “Virtue Only Model” to “Virtue and Mind Model”. This is because virtue-oriented learning tradition is deeply rooted in today’s Chinese students, but global cultural integration and modern education system have also