| Personalization has become a major feature of contemporary education.Therefore,linguists attach great importance to individual differences such as intelligence,language aptitude,personality traits,cognitive style,learning strategy(Liu,1999).From the 1990 s,cognitive style has become an important individual factor and has received extensive attention from all over the world,in which a number of researches has been carried on field independence/dependence(FI/D)cognitive style with in-depth exploration.The FI/D cognitive style,as an invisible nature carried by students in the reading process,directly affects reading effects(Chapelle and Roberts,1986).Previous studies on the relationship between the FI/D cognitive style and reading strategies focus on middle students and college students,while this study takes postgraduates in Xinjiang University as subjects.It aims to investigate the general situation of postgraduates' FI/D cognitive style and reading strategies,analyzing the influence of FI/D cognitive style exerted on reading strategies and the relation between them.The questions are as follows:(1)What is the general tendency of FI/D cognitive style of postgraduates in Xinjiang University?(2)What is the current situation of postgraduates' reading strategies?(3)What is the relationship between postgraduates' FI/D cognitive style and reading strategies?167 postgraduates from Xinjiang University are taken as subjects in this thesis and 158 valid data are collected.The Group Embedded Figure Test(GEFT)developed by Beijing Normal University and the Questionnaire on English Reading by Oxford(1990)are applied in this study.All the collected data are analyzed by SPSS19.0 for descriptive statistics,correlation analysis and Independent-sample t-test.The main findings are as follows:(1)Among the 158 participants,82 students belong to FI cognitive style learners(52%),and 76 students are FD cognitive style learners(48%).(2)Postgraduates show moderate frequency in the use of six reading strategies.The maximal frequency used two strategies are compensation strategy and cognitive strategy,while the affective strategy and social strategy are two minimal used strategies.(3)FI/D cognitive style has the positive relation with application of the cognitive strategy(R=.191),while it shows negative relation with employment of social strategy(R=-.535),meta-cognitive strategy(R=-.201),and affective strategy(R=-.28).FI cognitive style learners use more cognitive strategies,while FD learners are better at using social strategies,meta-cognitive strategies and affective strategies.The result that FD cognitive style learners take more meta-cognitive strategies is different from the previous studies,which would be explained in the semi-structured interview.This study shows FI/D cognitive influence on the use of reading strategies,revealing the differences on FI/D cognitive tendency and reading strategies of postgraduates.Meanwhile,it provides references for school educators and learners.In the process of teaching activities,teachers should appropriately adjust the design of the class activities,teaching materials and teaching methods to adapt to students with different FI/D cognitive style.Students should be aware of their own cognitive styles and current condition of using of reading strategies,covering their shortage,and improving their reading effect consciously. |
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