Professionalism and Work Ethic among U. S. and Asian University Students in a Global Classroom: A Multi-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

Professionalism and work ethic, as reflected by selfregulation, has been and continues to be an important attribute of a competitive work force. This paper compared the academic self-regulation of U.S. vs. Asian students enrolled in a Global Classroom course at a large southeastern university. Students were asked to respond to 10 specific pro-academic behaviors in regard to what they were actually doing (actual engagement) and what they felt they should be doing (intended engagement) specific to achieving academic success. The results indicated that students from both the U.S. and Asia exhibited limited self-regulation in the pursuit of behaviors leading to academic success in comparison to what they reported they should be doing. There was not a significant difference between U.S. and Asian students in self-reported actual engagement in pro-academic behaviors. However, Asian students presented less of a discrepancy between actual and intended engagement in proacademic behaviors in comparison to their U.S. counterparts. This was based on Asian students' rating of intended behaviors lower than U.S. students. A notable difference was also found in that the Asian students self-regulated better than their U.S. counterparts in terms of pro-academic behaviors that were not directly observable. For Asian students there was not a discrepancy in self-reported engagement of observable vs. non-observable behaviors The U.S. students, however, appeared to be more amenable to external motivation (e.g. having the instructor be able to observe their behavior) and less likely to engage in non-observable behaviors leading to academic success.

Keywords

• Learning Behaviors
• self-regulation
• Global Classroom, Distance Learning
• Work Ethic
• Student
• Distance Learning
• Professionalism