Do culturally rooted self-construals affect students' conceptualization of control over learning?

Research findings on student learning, motivation, and self-regulation may not generalize to classrooms in different cultures. Most research findings are culture bound, mainly because researchers did not systematically investigate cultural differences in the way students and teachers think, feel, and behave. The vast majority of studies reviewed in this article draw attention to culturally rooted self-construals about technological devices and social conventions. An account is given of how these cultural differences in self-construals may operate in line with our present understanding of four key features of control over learning: perceived competency, contingency, autonomy, and responsibility. It is suggested that knowledge of cultural differences in the values attached to action programs and social scripts may reveal why so-called powerful learning environments work in one culture but not in another culture.