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A study on the correlation between high school students’ field-independent/field-dependent cognitive styles and cloze sentence/discourse level test point performance
Xu Suzhen
Abstract : This study is based on the relevant theories of field cognitive style, cloze test theory and Oxford (1990) learning strategy theory. It uses the mosaic test to select two groups of students in the field independent and field dependent control groups, and calculates their performance in Scores at sentence level and discourse level. Finally, the software SPSS13.0 was used for statistical analysis to explore whether the setting of cloze test points has a significant impact on students with different cognitive styles. The experiment found that there was no significant difference between the two different cognitive styles at the discourse level, but at the sentence level, field-independent students performed better than field-dependent students. Students with the field-dependent cognitive style should answer questions based on the details embedded in the sentences. Finally, the author suggests that the test level of cloze test questions should focus on the discourse level to improve the reliability and validity of the test.
Keywords: field-independent cognitive style; field-dependent cognitive style; cloze; test point level
1. Introduction
Tennant (1988: 21) believes that the difference in cognitive styles is mainly reflected in the way individuals solve problems. Method, with individual stability and consistency. Witkin (1965) believed that the field-independent cognitive method can obtain independent and specific information from complex background information without being interfered by external information, but the field-dependent cognitive method is more inclined to obtain independent and specific information from the entire environment or background when solving problems. Set out to analyze and solve problems. Learning styles and thinking styles may be caused by differences in individual cognitive styles. To improve students' learning efficiency and academic performance, teachers must conduct targeted teaching, so it is necessary to pay attention to individual cognitive styles.
cloze test questions generally omit specific words or phrases from a complete text in accordance with proposition guidance and question setting requirements. The cloze in the National College Entrance Examination English Paper requires the test taker to choose the best option based on the four options provided by Tigan to complete the blanks of the passage so that it has discourse meaning and is grammatical. Li Xiaoju (2001: 31) divides the test points into four levels according to the restrictive effect of the spaces on the context: word level (Word), phrase level (Phrase), sentence level (Sentence), and discourse level ( Discourse). Context has almost no impact on the questions at the word level. Candidates only need to look at the words themselves to determine the options. There are fewer test points at this level in the college entrance examination papers in recent years; for the phrase-level test points, they only need to look at the words before and after the spaces. To be able to determine the options, there is no need to contact the context or grasp the entire sentence. After the reform of the college entrance examination, the test points at this level have also been greatly reduced; the test points at the sentence level require candidates to read through and understand the sentence and select the answer from four distractors; the discourse level The test questions require candidates to combine the context to get the correct answer. The test points at the sentence level and the discourse level are the main test points involved in the college entrance examination papers. The test points at these two levels can better reflect the learners' comprehensive language application ability, and the test points at the discourse level are the main direction of the college entrance examination propositions.
2. Experimental research design on the impact of test point setting on students with different field cognitive styles
Are there differences in the performance of field independent/field dependent cognitive styles at the two (sentence/discourse) test point levels? The subjects of this study are two science classes in the second grade of a school, with a total of 119 students. There are 67 boys and 52 girls. The subjects were taught English by the same teacher and had the same learning background, thus avoiding the interference of irrelevant variables such as learning process, grade, liberal arts and sciences. The research data of this study include: 1. Mosaic test; 2. Cloze test questions of the 2015 National College Entrance Examination English Paper.
The author first arranged for students in two classes to take a mosaic test. Before the test, he declared to the students that the test would not have any impact on their academic performance and was only used for experimental research. The test time was 10 minutes. Then a cloze test adapted from the 2015 National College Entrance Examination English paper was conducted. The entire test was supervised by teachers to ensure the reliability of the test results.Through the mosaic test, two experimental groups, field-independent cognitive style and field-dependent cognitive style, were selected, with 30 students in each group. Finally, the scores of the two groups of subjects in the two test points and levels of the cloze test were calculated. Score.
The author used SPSS13.0 software to conduct an independent sample T test on the scores of the mosaic graph test and the scores of the cloze test questions at the two test point levels of the two experimental groups of students to determine the cloze score of the two groups of variables at different test point levels. Are there any significant differences? Finally, correlation analysis was used to determine whether the test scores of the two cognitive styles of the subjects at the two test point levels were correlated.
3. Experimental results
In Table 3.1, the probability of F test 9.447 of the mosaic graph test results is 0.003, which is less than the significance level 0.05. Therefore, assuming that the variances of and are not equal, the T value is -20.663, and the probability is 0.000, which is less than Significance level 0.05. It can be concluded that there is a significant difference in the mosaic test scores of the two groups, that is, the two groups have obvious differences. The same analysis shows that at the two test point levels, the T test result of the sentence level data is 0.000, which is less than the significance level of 0.05, so there is a significant difference between the two groups. At the discourse level, the T test result at this time is 0.291, which is greater than the significance level 0.000. The null hypothesis of the T test is accepted, that is, there is no significant difference in the score performance of field-independent students and field-dependent students at the discourse level.
From the data analysis in Table 3.2, it can be concluded that at the test point level, the correlation coefficient between the subject's sentence level score and the mosaic graph test score is 0.666, which is greater than 0.3. Therefore, there is an obvious positive correlation between the two. Statistical test probability 0.000, small At 0.05, both data reveal that there is an obvious positive correlation between the sentence-level score and the mosaic test score. That is, the higher the mosaic test score, the higher the score of the sentence-level test items. From this, it can be seen that field-independent cognition students with the field-dependent cognitive style performed better at the sentence level than students with the field-dependent cognitive style. From the perspective of the discourse level, the positive correlation between the two is not obvious. The probability of the correlation coefficient is 0.138, which is greater than the significance level of 0.05. This shows that the subjects’ mosaic graph test scores are not consistent with the scores of the cloze-level discourse level test items. There is a clear correlation.
4. Conclusion
In summary, students with the field-independent cognitive style show more obvious advantages in the sentence-level test points. At the discourse level, there is no obvious difference between the two. The author's explanation for this result is that field independent people pay more attention to the detailed understanding of words and sentences, and are not half-informed in detail reading. They are also better at extracting details from complex backgrounds. Sentence-level test questions are often detail questions, requiring the subject to carefully consider the details of the sentence, so this question type also takes care of students with field-independent cognitive styles; while students with field-dependent cognitive styles process information when processing . It is to obtain information from the whole rather than from the details for information processing. Furthermore, field-dependent people generally do not read word for word and sentence by sentence, and some detailed information is easily overlooked (Shi Tingdi, 2013). Field-dependent people generally have a high tolerance for ambiguity and will choose ambiguous answers when they see them. They generally do not answer the questions from the details embedded in the sentences. Therefore, field-independent subjects perform better at the sentence level than field-dependent subjects.
There is no obvious difference between the two at the discourse level, because the discourse-level questions require the test taker to answer the questions based on grasping the main idea of the full text (Zheng Huiru, 2013) and contacting contextual details and even some cultural background knowledge. Therefore, Discourse-level test questions not only require students to extract information from complex backgrounds, in which the field-independent cognitive style is dominant; discourse-level test questions also require students to grasp the overall context of the article and synthesize the context. In this regard, the field-dependent cognitive style is not Dominate. Therefore, the advantages of students with both cognitive styles are reflected at this level, so the performance is equivalent.
There are differences in sentence-level test points between field-independent and field-dependent cognitive styles of high school students. Students with field-dependent cognitive style are even less good at sentence-level questions.Teachers and students should strengthen training on this type of question based on field-dependent cognitive methods, and improve their ability to interpret and extract details in complex contexts. At the same time, cloze propositions at the discourse level can better detect students' comprehensive English level and ability, regardless of other factors. The level of test points in future cloze test questions should be more inclined to the test points at the discourse level. , thereby improving the reliability and validity of the test.
References
［1］Bachman, L. F. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing［M］. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1999.
［2］ Tennant, M. Psychology and Adult Learning［M］. London: Routledge, 1988 .
［3］Witkin, H. A. Psychological differentiation and forms of pathology［J］. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1965 (70): 117.
［4］Li Xiaoju. Science and Art of Language Test［M］. Changsha: Hunan Education Press, 2001.
［5］Shi Tingdi. Research on the correlation between high school students’ field-independent cognitive style and English reading thinking and comprehension [D]. Fuzhou: Fujian Normal University, 2013.
[6] Zheng Huiru. Study on the correlation between high school students’ field-independent cognitive style and performance in English essay word-writing tasks [D]. Fuzhou: Fujian Normal University, 2013.
A Study on Correlation between the Field Independent / Dependent Cognitive Styles and Cloze Setting of Senior High School Students
Xu Suzhen
Abstract: College Entrance Examination in China has attached great importance to the cloze test so as to evaluate the students' comprehensive ability of English language. However, a good deal of factors may affect senior high school students' performance in cloze test. The author tries to find out whether there is significant difference between FD and FI in sentence location or discourse location. Students in Grade 10 participated in the study and the adapted cloze test for college entrance examination paper of 2015. The statistical data were analyzed with SPSS 13.0, and the result shows that the cloze that located in sentence level benefited the subjects with FD style. However, there was no significant difference between FD and FI in discourse location.
Key words: FD cognitive style; FI cognitive style; cloze; cloze setting
(This article was first published in "Research on Foreign Language Teaching in Basic Education" Issue 3, 2017)
