Cross-Cultural Studies of Structural and Dynamic Features Of Learning Experiences among Russian and Chinese Teenagers

Author Name(s): Liliya R. Fachrutdinova*1, Timur N. Sabirov2
Author Email: liliarf@mail.ru

Abstract

The modern educational space is characterized by the tendency to unification, the bringing to uniform standards throughout the world, the spread throughout the world of a single type of training developed in the Western world countries. This study is aimed at adaptation learning to the globalization processes in the education system using the examples of Russia and China, which are great countries in terms of their cultural heritage and traditions, including the field of education. We will consider the ways the Chinese and Russian teenagers experience the learning process in the context of education globalization through the study of educational activity subjective plan peculiarities among schoolchildren.

The purpose of our study is to examine the features of the structural and dynamic organization of learning experience among the adolescents in Russia and China. The leading approaches to the study of the problem are cultural-historical, system-structural and subject-activity one developed by outstanding psychologists of Russia (L.S. Vygotsky, S.L. Rubinshtein, B.F. Lomov, etc.). The results of the study showed that the number and the strength of the interconnections between the characteristics of learning activity experience among Russian teenagers is much more qualitative than that of Chinese teenagers. The number and the strength of interconnections is much smaller and weaker among Chinese adolescents. For Russian students a school day is a single, holistic event on a subjective level where all subjects and lessons, regardless of content, are presented to them as the part of one educational process, and the taught subjects taught are related and reinforce each other (synergistic effect). Russian adolescents perceive a school day as a holistic phenomenon. Chinese teenagers regard a school day as something split into parts, and they do not see the interrelationships between lessons on a subjective level, and often lessons seem in the relations of antagonism.

Introduction

The research problem is related with the necessity to conduct cross-cultural studies of the internal, subjective aspect of educational activity in the conditions of the educational process of Russia and China. The structural-dynamic feature of the educational activity experience was studied among Russian and Chinese adolescents.

We have studied the space-time and information-energy characteristics of learning experience during a school day – Monday. These characteristics were studied at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the lesson, at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of a school day, that is, during the first, the third and the fifth lesson. Further, a comparative analysis of the structural and dynamic characteristics of learning activity experience was performed during a school day among Russian and Chinese students.

The main issue that has been solved in the study is about the features of the educational process subjective plan for adolescents in Russia and China, which will be manifested through the space-time and information-energy characteristics of learning activity experience.

We relied on the presentation by L.S. Vygotsky about the experiencing as an internal plan for the social situation of development. In our work, the situation of the educational process in the conditions of the school is presented as a social situation. According to L.S. Vygotsky, experience is an internal, subjective plan for the social situation of development. We examined the subjective plan for the educational activities of Russian and Chinese adolescents. The cultural and historical concept by L.S. Vygotsky allows us to consider the reality of the cultural and historical environment influence on the particularities of material learning during lessons (Vygotsky, 2000). The representations about the nature, the structure of experience were developed by us in the doctoral dissertation (Fakhrutdinova 2012). The structure of the experience includes energy, space, time and information characteristics (Fakhrutdinova, 2009, 2010, 2012). Through these characteristics, we study the phenomenon of adolescent experiencing in the learning process.

The purpose of the study: the study of the structural and dynamic organization features concerning the experience of educational activities by the adolescents in Russia and China.

Objectives of the study:

  1. To conduct the theoretical analysis of the research problem.
  2. To select psychological research tools and to organize research in Russian and Chinese schools.
  3. To study the space-time and information-energy characteristics of learning activity experience at the beginning, middle and the end of a lesson at the first, the third and the fifth lessons during the school day (Monday).
  4. To conduct the comparative analysis of the obtained results.

In order to conduct the study, we applied the questionnaire by L.R. Fahrutdinova “Degree of experience”, which allows you to study the spatial, temporal, energy and information characteristics of experience in classroom lessons at schools easily and quickly.

The obtained results will allow developing the theory of experience created by L.R. Fakhrutdinova (2012), the ideas by L.S. Vygotsky on the cultural and historical concept of a person’s psyche development (2000), the cross-cultural psychology to identify interethnic differences of people, pedagogical psychology – the psychology of learning, the age psychology of adolescents. Earlier, we studied the features of the experience during the listening to a melody, as well as the experience of educational activities of students at pedagogical universities of Russia and China. The differences in the indices of space-time and information-energy characteristics of Russian and Chinese adolescent experience were studied. The cross-cultural studies of the structural and dynamic characteristics of the educational activity experience among the adolescents in Russia and China were conducted for the first time. Previously, the structural and dynamic features of Russian schoolchildren experience from the second to the eleventh grade were studied and the cycles of learning experience were revealed (Fakhrutdinova L.R. 2012). In this paper other statistical methods of data processing were applied and for the first time the structural and the dynamic organization of Russian and Chinese pupil experience was compared.

Conclusions

  1. The theoretical analysis of the problem was carried out, which showed that the cross-cultural study of the structural and dynamic features of Chinese and Russian adolescents was conducted for the first time and is relevant for the study of globalization processes in education.
  2. The results of the study showed the structural and dynamic features of the educational activities of adolescents in Russia and China. Qualitative and quantitative differences in the structural relationships between the components of the learning experiences of adolescents were revealed.
  3. The number and the strength of the links between the characteristics of the educational process during the school day among Russian teenagers exceeded the corresponding links among Chinese teenagers by an order.

Summary

Thus, the study showed that for Russian schoolchildren the learning process during the school day represents a single, holistic phenomenon of a teenager’s subjective life, all the subject lessons are presented as the part of a single educational space, while among Chinese teenagers the existence of interrelations between the subjects for their subjective perception of education at school is much weaker. These studies showed that Russian school is endowed with a high ability to use the power of some subjects to acquire the knowledge of other subjects and Russian schoolchildren consider the school as a single educational space.

Acknowledgements

  • The work is performed according to the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.
  • The article is prepared under the financial support of RFFI.
  • Project 17-29-02092 ofi_m
  • The complex model of risk evaluation in social-cultural environment of school.

References                                                

  1. Vygotsky, L.S. Psychology / L.S. Vygotsky. (2000). − M.: April news: Eksmo-Press.
  2. Rubinstein S. L. Fundamentals of General psychology. So-2. (1989). − M.: Pedagogy
  3. Fakhrutdinova L.R., Sabirov T.N. Experience of educational activity and intellectual abilities of junior schoolchildren of the People’s Republic of China / / Natural-scientific approach in modern psychology / Ed. in charge V.A. The drummers. Moscow: Publishing house “Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences”. – 2014. – pp. 796-800.
  4. Sabirov T.N., Fakhrutdinova L.R. Mental state and experience of educational activity of senior pupils // Procedures and methods of experimental psychological research / Ed. in charge V.A. The drummers. Moscow: The publishing house “Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences”, 2016. – 950 p. – pp. 887-892.
  5. Fachrutdinova L.R., Sabirov T.N. Mental states and experiences of educational activity of senior/Psychology of psychological state. – Issue 11. –  Kazan, 2017. – pp. 221-226.

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