In October of 2016, Jang Hyeong- shim, a Professor of the Department of Education at Hanyang University(HYU) has been chosen as HYU’s monthly researcher. Her research was about the importance of learning immersion with the healthy learning attitudes.

“Education experience gives a lot of possibilities to one’s life. I was especially curious about the various psychological phenomena in the situation of the education. Therefore, I naturally got interested in the study of education especially in the ‘Education Psychology’.” She said that she wanted to make a program and have a better understanding for the healthy learning process. For example, if the students are learning about ethics, many will feel bored even before the class, but if we approach ethics by a debate: “Ethical people are the evils of the society.”, the reactions of the students will be different. This type of approach is unusual to learn ethics in Korea where we study by memorization. Learned information through the debate will eventually become our own knowledge while memorized things are gone fast. This shows that although the same subject is taught, by differentiating the teaching methods, the efficiency perceived by the students varies. She wanted to find the most effective way to teach and apply it to the students.

She tried to clarify the relationship between the teacher and the student, and within the students, and how students are affected by the learning environment and their range of motivation to study. “My research is based on the environmental features for the healthy education and inner and external psychological features in the learning situation.” She added “Inner features mean ‘how the learners become the active subjects and become responsible for their learnings’. External features focus on the environment’s psychological factors that activate the learners’ potential autonomous motivations.”

She emphasized the importance of being the main agent in the learning process. The students should be more active and autonomous. The attitude: ‘If there’s no road, I’ll make one’ is necessary for the students. “When taking a class, sometimes, the students’ opinion on how they should learn may not accord with the professor’s teaching method. Then, the students should think about what they can learn through this class, rather than just complain about the situation and give up.” She also commented about the necessity to change the mindset of the students. Other-directed students cannot learn through the experience, so the students should try to become ‘active learners’ who try to recreate the education environment.  She added “If you try to think, behave, introspect, you will finally experience the true education. It would be great for Hanyangians to have both refulgent wisdom and gentle personality.”