CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN MOTIVATION TO LEARN (Kulturalis kulonbsegek a tanulasi motivacioban)

As it was proven by a number of researches, learning motivations are cultural constructs. This article is reviewing some of the special cultural differences between the Euro-American and East-Asian culture in this field. East-Asian students have a less consistent self-concept and lower self-esteem than their Western peers have; however - despite the expectations based on Western constructs of motivation theory - their achievement is not influenced by these factors negatively. This fact shows that learning achievement and the previous factors are relatively independent in case of East-Asian students. In their achievement attribution East-Asian students tend to put a stronger stress on the importance of effort than on the importance of abilities; ability is rather a flexible entity according to their opinion. Furthermore, they connect their explanations on their achievement to their social context; their explanations are less individualistic then their Western peers' explanations. In case of East-Asian students, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are less separable than in case of the Euro-American students. Multiple goal theory has a better explanatory value in East-Asian students' case compared to the Western students. Without overcoming the traditional dichotomy of the Western notion of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, it is impossible to describe East-Asian students' motivational patterns. Also, social loafing as a typical response to group situations in the classroom is less evident among East-Asian students. All these examples prove that traditional Western approach to learning motivation is not sufficient to explain the East-Asian students' pattern in learning motivation, so it is seriously important to change on the ethnocentricism of the traditional Western approach in this field in time of globalization.