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A Critique Of Learning Conceptions

While I was reading the article (read: study) written by Hung-Ming Lin and Chin-Chung Tsai from Taiwan, I really tried lookingfor the objectives and hypothesis of the research. I finally identified the purpose of the study and a statement that I’m not really sure if it’s the hypothesis. The main purpose of the study is “to explore students’ conceptions of learning management in particular,” and the other purpose is “an attempt to clarify and propose an appropriate method to illustrate the multiple conceptions of learning” (Lin and Tsai, 2008). Based on the stated purpose of study, it’s quite vague and ambiguous how the researcher is going to proceed with the research. The researchers even mentioned the words explore and attemptwhich are not considered specific words to indicate the purpose or objective. The study began with a wrong notion of what an objective/purpose is. The researchers should have opted to use action words like identify, describe, determine, etc. Another flaw in the study is the hypothesis. The researchers mentioned that “this study suggests that dominant and minor categories coexisting simultaneously may provide potential indications toward the conceptions of learning.” The hypothesis is hinged on a research problem that is quite broad and too encompassing to really limit to a specific field or area. According to our research handout in EDRE201, “A good research question is: feasible, clear, significant, ethical, interesting, timely and relevant.” I don’t believe that the question/problem in this study satisfies the qualities of a good research question.
I truly believe that representation is crucial in the outcome of this study. To begin with, the researchers decided to focus only on 31 undergraduate students who are business administration majors. They didn’t even further categorize these students – if the students are freshmen, sophomores, etc. It’s quite obvious that freshmen college students have a different outlook when it comes to...