We are delighted to welcome four diverse keynote speakers. Interestingly in the light of the major conference theme (style and cultural differences), these keynotes represent four different continents: Li-fang Zhang from Hong Kong, Velda McCune from the UK, Luciara Nardon from Brazil, and David Venter from South-Africa.
Li-fang Zhang
Li-fang Zhang
A native of Beijing, Dr Li-fang Zhang is associate professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. She mainly teaches on educational psychology, assessment in educational and career guidance, and student development. Dr Li-fang Zhang has published extensively in the field of intellectual styles and in related areas of study. She wrote about 80 refereed international journal articles, published in amongst others Personality and Individual Differences, Learning and Individual Differences, Higher Education, and Educational Psychology Review. She is also author (with Robert J. Sternberg) of The Nature of Intellectual Styles (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006) and co-editor of Perspectives on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Styles (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001). She is an editorial board member of Educational Psychology and of Educational Psychology Review.
The title of Li-fang’s talk is ‘Revisiting Style Malleability: What Can We Learn from Cross-cultural Investigations?’ This talk will revisit one of the long-standing controversial issues over the nature of intellectual styles—styles as traits (thus not changeable) versus styles as states (thus malleable). To achieve this objective, Li-fang Zhang presents research evidence suggesting that cross-cultural differences in styles are reflective of cultural values, and consequently in favor of the view that styles are malleable. However, what can be said about cross-cultural studies that found no significant differences in styles? Does it mean that styles are independent of culture? This talk will provide alternative explanations answering these questions.
Please find here a link to the handouts of this presentation: part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5
Velda McCune
Velda McCune
Dr Velda McCune is a Lecturer in the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment at The University of Edinburgh in the UK. For the last decade she has been researching student learning in Higher Education with a focus on understanding students’ own perspectives on their learning experiences and particularly the development of their ways of learning and studying. She has recently been involved in the large-scale Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses (ETL) Project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. As part of this project she has been working with professor Noel Entwistle and colleagues on developing inventories to measure students' approaches to learning and studying and to investigate the impact of university teaching on these approaches. Her most recent work has focused on how the interplay between students' identities and the contexts within which they are studying acts to influence the quality of their learning. Her research has been published in Higher Education and Educational Psychology Review.
The title of Velda’s talk is ‘Cultivating the disposition to understand in Higher Education’ This address will integrate research focusing on the deep approach to learning with recent work on thinking dispositions to provide a conceptual framework describing the disposition to understand. The presentation will also consider evidence that such dispositions are malleable and will provide suggestions as to how the disposition to understand may be cultivated within high quality teaching-learning environments in Higher Education.
Please find here a link to the handouts of this presentation.
Luciara Nardon
Luciara Nardon
Dr Luciara Nardon is a faculty member of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, where she teaches intercultural management to masters, MBAs and executives. She holds a B.A. from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), a Masters degree from Universidad de Ciencias Empresariales y Sociales (Argentina), an MBA from Claremont Graduate University (USA), and a PhD in International Management and Strategy from the University of Oregon (USA). Prior to her academic career, Dr Luciara Nardon worked as a director of control systems and strategic planning for companies in Brazil, Portugal, and the United States. Her recent research has been published in the Journal of World Business, Organizational Dynamics, and Advances in International Management. She is also a co-author (with Richard M. Steers) of a chapter in the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Culture, Organization, and Work and a new book Managing in the Global Economy (Sharpe, 2006). Her research interests are situated in the areas of cross-cultural/international management, in particular intercultural competences and cultural influences on technology adoption and use.
Dr Luciara Nardon will give an academic talk on ‘Culture and management: a review and new perspectives’. Her keynote talk will both contain a state of the field of cultural research and a look at the future, aiming at providing a clear overview of the culture literature to those interested in exploring the link between culture and learning styles and strategies.
Please find here a link to the handouts of this presentation.
David Venter
David Venter
Dr David Venter from South Africa is a visiting faculty member at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. After practicing psychology for fifteen years, he joined the public service. He was responsible for the design and establishment of the largest opinion polling operation ever in South Africa. The results of the polls he conducted between 1985 and 1994 were of crucial importance in convincing the government and its support base to accept a negotiated, peaceful transition to democracy. When the new government came to power in 1994, he was highly privileged to work alongside President Nelson Mandela and report directly to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, under who's astute political stewardship he continued to transform his department to an organisation representative of the South African population and fully attuned to the demands of a democracy. In 1997 he voluntarily vacated his position as Director-General to pursue a longstanding entrepreneurial dream to establish a specialist negotiation training, conflict dispute resolution, and mediation company.
Dr David Venter is an expert in negotiation, who has an interested in people’s cognitive profiles in the context of negotiations and its influence on people’s task and relationship performance in negotiations. He is currently collecting data to compare the cognitive profile of Africans with those of Europeans to investigate the extent to which styles are influenced by culture. Dr David Venter is a very inspiring speaker. The aim of his keynote address will be to juxtapose the leadership/cognitive style of Nelson Mandela with the style of another (South) African leader.
