The Influence Of Field Independence/Field Dependence On English Learners’ Performance On Language Tests

Based on American psychologist H. A. Witkin’s FI/FD cognitive style theory,this study takes senior high school students of grade two in the urban area of Ganzhoucity as subjects and aims to explore the influence of field independence/fielddependence (FI/FD) cognitive style on senior high school students’ performance onEnglish test. To achieve the study purpose, three research questions are put forward:⑴Are there any differences in FI/FD cognitive style between males and females?⑵Are there any differences in FI/FD cognitive style between art and sciencestudents?⑶To what extent does FI/FD cognitive style correlate with senior high schoolstudents’ performance on English tests of listening, reading, writing andintegrative English.In this study, psychological test is used as the research method.295senior highschool students of grade two from Ganzhou city are selected as subjects; CognitiveStyle Figure Test (CSFT) made by School of Psychology of Beijing NormalUniversity is adopted to test subjects’ FI/FD cognitive style;2012final Englishexamination held among eight senior high schools in Ganzhou is used to collectsubjects’ scores of listening, reading comprehension, writing etc.; SPSS17.0softwareis employed to do data analysis (including Descriptive analysis, T test and Pearsoncorrelation coefficients). The results are as follows:⑴Males have more FI inclination than females.⑵Science students have more FI inclination than art students.⑶FI cognitive style correlates significantly and positively with high schoolstudents’ performance on English test of listening, reading, writing andintegrative English.Based on data analysis and results discussion, main findings are as follows: on theone hand, there are differences in FI/FD cognitive style between males and females,and between art and science students; on the other hand, at the same level of Englishproficiency, FI learners tend to outperform FD learners on English tests. According to the above findings, three implications are given as follows:⑴Teachers should be aware of the cognitive differences between males andfemales, art students and science students and use different teaching methods toteach students of different FI/FD cognitive style.⑵The evaluation of students’ English learning outcome should take students’FI/FD cognitive style into consideration to be as fair as possible.⑶The use of English teaching materials should be selected and adapted accordingto students’different learning characteristics of different cognitive style.In addition, this study has some limitations for example: the sampling excludessenior high school students from grade one and grade three; the English testing rangefails to cover oral English test; whether CSFT can exactly test testers’ FI/FDcognitive style is doubtable. Future studies are suggested to improve the way ofsampling, to enlarge the English testing range, and to create better testing tools, etc.What’s more, how to imply the research results of FI/FD cognitive style to practicalinstruction requires more and deeper study.