The effects of learning strategies´ use in computer assisted instruction (C.A.I.) environment, by students who have different cognitive styles on their academic achievement

ivABSTRACTIn this study, the effects of cognitive-rational and emotional-motivationallearning strategies? use in computer assisted instruction (C.A.I.) environment, bystudents who have different cognitive styles (field dependent/field independent) ontheir academic achievement is investigated.Field dependent /field independent cognitive style means the differences oneach individual?s thinking styles. When the literature is reviewed, being fielddependent or field independent effects individuals? learning styles and preferences.However, the findings about the students? cognitive styles effects on their academicachievement are inconsistent. In this study, the students? academic achievement isexamined by matching each student with a CAI tool which goes well with his/hercognitive style.In the instructional process, the type and the amount of learner control and itsadequacy for different learners are important issues. The learners? cognitive style isclosely related with their individual preferences about learner control. In thisresearch, the field independent learners, whom had more internal locus of control,and field dependent learners, whom had more external locus of control, studied thesubjects in the learner-controlled and learner-uncontrolled environments. As thelearner-controlled environment, cognitive-rational and emotional-motivationalinstructional strategies were presented. The relationships among cognitive styles(field dependent/field independent), learner control and learning strategies werefocused.The research was conducted during the year 2004 in Spring. The 54 sampleswere the students of Departments of Art Education and History Education in GaziUniversity Gazi Faculty of Education. The cognitive styles of learners weredetermined using ?Group Embedded Figure Test?, developed by Witkin, Oltman,Raskin and Karp (1971) and adapted to Turkish by Fişek-Okman (1979). The designof the research was true experimental model (experimental-control groups withpretest-posttest). The students were firstly categorized into two groups according tovtheir cognitive styles, and then the each group was regrouped into two randomly,learner-controlled and learner-uncontrolled. During the implementation in theIntroduction to Computer course, the students were presented information aboutMicrosoft Word program. The pretest and posttest had the same questions. While thestudents were studying in the CAI environment, the developed application recordedall the data in a database automatically. Then, the kept data were analyzed usingSPSS program.The findings showed that there was a significant difference between students?cognitive style points according to their genders [t=2,08, p<.05]. The girls werefound more field independent than boys. There was no significant differencebetween the academic achievement of field dependent learners who studied in thecomputer assisted environment which was both learner-controlled and learner-uncontrolled [t=1,14, p>.05]. There was also no significant difference between theacademic achievement of field independent learners whom studied in the computerassisted environment which was both learner-controlled and learner-uncontrolled[t=0,68, p>.05]. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the academicachievements of field dependent and field independent learners who studied in alearner-controlled CAI environment.KEYWORDS: Cognitive style, field dependence/field independence, learner control,cognitive-rational and emotional-motivational strategies, computer assistedinstruction.