Examining the Cultural Specificity of Approaches To Learning in Universities in Hong Kong and Sydney

Western research has characterized approaches to learning for specific learning tasks as discrete deep and surface approaches, distinguished by whether the intention is to understand or memorize. A more appropriate classification scheme for Hong Kong research is a continuum between deep and surface poles. In this article, the authors examine whether this characterization applies also to the West. University students in Australia ( n = 1,146) and...