OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

This study has revealed various conceptions of learning held by this group of children. The study has offered valuable insights into the children’s experiences of learning, and has raised some significant issues. For further research, possible points that may provoke future studies include:

Memorisation: With or without understanding?

Listening: Active or passive listening?

Conceptions of learning held by children in non‐government (international) schools in Brunei

Conceptions of learning held by primary school teachers in Brunei

Memorisation: With or without understanding? The study has identified the need to explore the relationship between memorising

and understanding. The children in the study described remembering or memorisation as significant in order to do well in examinations. Previous research revealed that there are different types of memorising, namely: rote memorisation and meaningful memorisation (see for example, Entwistle & Entwistle, 2003; Kember, 1996; Marton et al., 2005; Mugler & Lanbeck, 2000). Further research into the type of memorisation practised by children in Brunei would therefore, be most illuminating.

Children in Brunei share similar ways of studying with Chinese students from neighbouring countries. These students are found to be mainly rote learners. However, Watkins and Biggs (1996) have written about the Paradox of Chinese Learners, in which CHC learners, although known as rote learners, perform academically well compared with their Western counterparts. Research found that the Chinese students have different approaches to learning and they used memorising in order to develop understanding. Watkins (2000) noted that ‘the mistake that many Western teachers make when they see a Chinese student memorising is to assume that they are rote learning’ (p. 165). His research,

Repetition plays a very important role amongst children in this study. Many of them emphasised that reading repeatedly is a way to remember or memorise information for the purpose of examination. In other studies such as Dahlin and Watkins (2000), repetition plays an important role in building understanding (Watkins, 2000, p. 165). Watkins (2000) stated that, ‘through in‐depth interviews with Western International school and Chinese system secondary school students in Hong Kong, they were able to show that Chinese students, unlike students in the Western countries, used repetition for two different purposes: first, to create a ‘deep impression’ and therefore with memorization, and second, repetition was used to deepen or develop new understanding by discovering new meaning’ (Watkins, 2000, p. 166). Western students tend to use repetition to check whether they had really remembered something (Watkins, 2000). These studies highlight the significance of memorisation in building understanding. Whether or not

Listening: Active or passive listening? The children in this study stressed the importance of listening in order to acquire

information. However, listening can be active and / or passive. Active listening or active listeners, according to Jacobs (1990), get involved with what they hear, which means that the information that they hear is comprehended and assimilated. Passive listeners, on the contrary, merely hear information without necessarily understanding information. Further research needs to examine whether the children in Brunei practice active or passive listening because the former has been found to have valuable impact on learning (Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Fung, 2001). Moreover, when a child engages in active listening, his or her learning experience becomes more meaningful.

Conceptions of learning held by children in non‐government schools in Brunei This time of crucial change in the provision of educational services in Brunei offers a

unique opportunity for further phenomenographic research into children’s conceptions of learning. A comparison between children’s conceptions of learning in government and non‐government (international) schools, for example, would provide a better understanding of learning in Brunei. Such study would provide an overall view of the children’s experiences of learning in two different contexts and strengthen the significance of the current study.

Conceptions of learning held by primary schools teachers in Brunei There is a significant need to investigate how primary school teachers in Brunei

experience learning as previous studies have found strong links between teachers’ conceptions of learning and approaches to teaching (see for example, Campbell et al., 2000; Dart et al., 1999, 2000). This type of research would shed light on what learning means to these teachers and how their conceptions relate to the ways in which they approach teaching. Teachers’ own views about learning affect the ways in which they teach, which, in turn, has an effect on student learning. This link between teachers’ views or conceptions of learning, their approaches to teaching and student learning is very important given that the quality of student learning experiences is the ultimate goal of education (Biggs, 1999; 2003). In addition, factors that may influence teachers’ choices in using teacher‐centred approach to teaching could be explored further through studies that investigate teachers’ conceptions of learning and teaching. It is anticipated that results from such study would provide ideas for how to incorporate teacher‐centred and child‐centred teaching methods in government schools in Brunei to encourage qualitative conceptions of learning and deep approaches to learning without jeopardising the society’s culture and tradition.