Comparing students with extreme schematic beliefs in learning mathematics across two cultures

This paper extended the analyses of Ng (2005) and explored the differences between students with polarized schematic views in learning mathematics. Two groups of high school students from Hong Kong and Australia completed a questionnaire tapping their views on their cognitions of the self or academic self-schemas, achievement goals, learning approaches and anticipated performance. Ng (2005) located two groups of schematic students across both cultures demonstrating consistent characteristics in motivational and learning processes. The current investigation explored the differences between corresponding schematic groups found in this previous study. It was found that positive schematic students in Hong Kong are less schematicised than Australian students. In contrast, negative schematic students in Hong Kong were more schematicized than their Australian counterparts. These differences in the development of schematicised selves among students in two different cultures could be attributed to the difference in evaluation practice in two different educational systems. The results draw our attention to teaching and learning processes in schools and call for more reformative effort in Mathematics learning in order to prevent premature dropping of the subject due to the development of a negative self.