Study processes of Malaysian students in Malaysia and in Australia

This paper reports on the first phase of an investigation of the study approaches of Malaysian students undertaking higher education programs on a Malaysian campus and the study approaches of Malaysian students undertaking higher education studies on an Australian campus. The rationale for this study is that investigation of Malaysian students’ approaches to study can productively inform approaches to Australian course design and delivery in both Malaysia and Australia. In the first phase of the study a questionnaire was applied to Malaysian students studying in higher education programs and preparatory programs on the Swinburne University campus, Kuching, Sarawak The present investigation employed a modified version of Zeegers' Revised Student Process Questionnaire (Zeegers, 2002). The questionnaire investigated the propensity of students to take a deep, a surface or an ‘achieving’ approach to study. As the instrument employed to distinguish student’s approaches to learning is a modified form of previously employed Study Process Questionnaires the results of the investigation do not lend themselves to comparison. In addition to investigating whether deep, surface and achieving approaches to study could be distinguished, the present study investigated student approaches to study by year of study to test the proposition of Biggs (Biggs et al., 2001) that students learn to adopt minimalist study strategies. The findings of the study do not indicate that study approaches of Malaysian students studying on a Malaysian campus differ significantly by year of study.