Abstraction” and “Concreteness”: A Theoretical Framework

Jowati binti Juhary

[presented at IKRAK  - ISLM 2001 organised by Universiti Utara Malaysia, October]

 Abstract

To really understand learning styles and motivation, it is pertinent to comprehend the background and inspiration of students. This paper attempts to introduce a cultural framework that can help educators, academics and scholars interested in finding the best way to motivate and introduce effective learning styles. The framework revolves on two concepts of abstraction and concreteness of society on a cultural continuum. Understanding of this framework can lead to better comprehension of students’ mood, learning styles as well as their motivation. As this study uses text analysis approach, data derived from books, magazines, journals, newspaper cuttings and Internet. Findings show that the abstraction and concreteness of culture on a continuum enables people to understand each other better because it provides platform for sound comparison and justification. It is hoped that this study can contribute to the understanding of students’ performance in their academic capacity. Also, as Malaysians are reaching to be in the globalised world, this framework could help produce better citizens of the nation.