A Study On The Relationship Among Field Cognitive Styles,English Learning Strategies And English Achievements Of Art Undergraduates

The focus of researches in the field of Second Language Acquisition(SLA)has been shifted from language teachers to language learners since the 1970s.Learner's individual differences,such as age,personality,motivation,learning styles,cognitive styles,etc.have drawn attention of many scholars and researchers in this field.As an important dimension of cognitive style,Field-Independent(FI)/Field-Dependent(FD)cognitive style has been attached much importance.Meanwhile,language learning process also involves learning strategy choice and use.A large number of researchers show that learner's individual difference can directly or indirectly influence learning strategy use and further have impact on language learning achievement.Therefore,it is of great significance to explore the relationship among the three factors for second language learning and teaching.At present,most of domestic researches take English majors or non-English majors except the art students as subjects.Art students is a special group since the college entrance examination has special requirement for them in that their art specialty courses should get high marks but low admission score for other courses like Chinese,mathematics,English,history,etc.Consequently,art college students generally have weak English foundation and low proficiency.This study takes 90 sophomores majored in art(painting)from School of Arts of Hubei University as participants to explore the relationship among their FI/FD cognitive styles,English learning strategy and English achievement through questionnaire investigation and interview.The main research questions are as below:(1)What is the situation of art undergraduates' FI/FD cognitive styles?(2)What is the situation of art undergraduates' English learning strategy use?(3)Are there any differences in FI/FD cognitive styles and in English learning strategy use between high score group students and low score group students?If any,what are the differences?(4)Is there any correlation between art undergraduates' FI/FD cognitive styles and their English learning strategy use,between art undergraduates' FI/FD cognitive styles and their English achievements,and between art undergraduates' English learning strategy use and their English achievements?If any,what is the correlation respectively?Based on the research questions above,Group Embedded Figures Test(GEFT)has been used to test participants' FI/FD cognitive styles,and SILL questionnaire(Strategy Inventory of Language Learning)by Oxford(1990)has been employed to test participants learning strategy use,also their English achievements in the final exam have been collected.All the quantitative data have been input in SPSS(13.0)for descriptive statistics analysis,independent samples t-test,correlation analysis,and multiple regression analysis.Integrated with information from interviews,the following results can be achieved:1)Most of the art undergraduates in this study are with FI cognitive style,and at high FI degree;2)The frequencies of participants' total learning strategy use and six categories of strategy use are both at medium level,which reflect that art undergraduates sometimes use learning strategies;among six categories,compensation strategy is most frequently used and affective strategy is least used;3)There is no significant difference in FI/FD cognitive styles and learning strategy use between high score group and low score group;4)About the relationship among the three variables:(a)there is no significant correlation between FI/FD cognitive styles and learning strategy use(social strategy excluded),but a strong positive correlation exists for social strategy;there is no significant difference between FI students and FD students in learning strategy use.(b)FI/FD cognitive styles is strongly and positively correlated to English achievements,the more FI-oriented students are,the higher scores they get in the exam.(c)The correlation between learning strategy and English achievement is so weak that can be neglected,which indicates learning strategy use of art undergraduates is not the major factor influencing their English achievements.This study aims to explore the English learning situation of art students in China,and in the end provides some implications and suggestions for both art students and English teachers based on the research findings.