Cognitive Styles On Information Processing In Text Reading

The significance, complexity and a phenomenon in College English ReadingTeaching stimulated the author's interest to investigate what patent variables influencingstudents'reading achievement are. Upon a thorough review of the findings andshortcomings of previous studies, the study intends to be systematic, multi-disciplinary,multi-dimensional and empirical from the perspective of information processing. It takeslearners'reading score as patent variable while latent variables are detail identificationability (DI), logical reasoning ability (LR) and evaluation ability (EV). Since this researchused College English Test, Band 4 (CET-4) as research material, these three factors wereadopted from the explanation from A One-step Reading Attack Tutorial Handbook ofCET-4, published by Shanghai Jiaotong University Publishing House 2009. During thecourse of research from the perspective of information processing, the researcher foundthese three reading factors were not the only latent variables. Verbal ability is crucial inencoding and decoding textual information. What's more, whether reading strategies,textual structure, and logical reasoning ability would exert influence on cognitive stylesand reading ability are also investigated.This study has integrated multi-disciplinary researches and has investigatedinformation processing of discourse relations from the perspective of cognitive styles andreading strategies, and discourse structure, and logical reasoning ability, and vocabularyknowledge, and other aspects of these variables. This is one of the highlights of the presentstudy. The theoretical model (Figure 3.1-1) is supposed to show how field dependent (FD),field independent (FI) and field neutral (FN) these cognitive styles and the three factors inreading ability, that is, detail identification ability (DI), logical reasoning ability (LR) andevaluation ability (EV), interact:Cognitive styles, which regulate these capabilities, are divided into field dependent(FD), field independent (FI) and field neutral (FN). When it is located in the intersection oftwo axes, the cognitive style is field neutral. When a reader's cognitive style is on the rightof the horizontal axis, his cognitive tendency is field independent. When a reader'scognitive style is on the left side, his cognitive tendency is field dependent. Likewise, on the top of vertical axis is field independence, and the bottom is field dependence. If we canadjust the reader's perception tendency to match these three factors in reading ability, andtry to make them achieve the best condition "+", then this issue in the testing of readingwill not be difficult to solve.In every reading exercise, reading ability is divided into three dimensions of DI, LR,and EV. Then, information or ability involved in a reading question can be divided intoeight cases. When a student's three reading factors are at the best level ("+"), he cansuccessfully solve the reading problem (Cell 1). However, when his three reading factorsare at the lowest position ("-"), he is unlikely to choose the correct answer (Cell 8). Thisprovides some clues for us to research into reading in order to effectively improvestudents'reading ability: divide reading abilities involved in all questions into differentcategories. Because each person's cognitive style has either field dependence or fieldindependence bias, rotating axis of the two cognitive biases can result in improvingstudents'cognitive styles, and their reading ability. When a student's three factors inreading ability are improved, it is likely that he can solve more reading questions.The study uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Fiftysophomores were selected to do a reading strategies questionnaire, tests about readingability, verbal aptitude, logical reasoning ability and textual structure knowledge. Theseresults constitute the empirical research data for the establishment of the theoretical modelof reading, which focuses on the impact of each reading variable on reading ability. Duringthe study, a qualitative research method -- interview– was used. Two unskilled FI students,one skilled FN student and one average reading ability FD student were interviewed.Differences in variables, such as English vocabulary ability, textual reading comprehensionability, etc. were compared in detail in his (her) understanding of reading ability as a wholediscourse. The results of qualitative research provide necessary explanation to thequantitative research results. In addition, a training that aimed to cultivate subjects'textualstructure knowledge was conducted. Data collected from the four copies of recall beforeand after the training was analyzed to detect characteristics that individuals with differentcognitive styles had on schema knowledge and their information processing features.The study has had some illuminating results. First of all, the main part of thetheoretical model has been confirmed. Data analysis shows that there is no correlation between cognitive styles and reading text. That is, cognitive styles can not adjust thelongitudinal and vertical axis of reading ability. But each two of the three reading factorsare relevant, and thus a cubic model with three reading factors still constitutes the cubicreading structure.Next, four principal components factors in reading strategies are extracted by usingfactor analysis. They are information storage and retention, discourse coherence,information selection and conversion capacity, and language decoding and transferringcompetence. Thirdly, verbal ability, as hypothesized, has a positive effect on readingability (Sig. =.0412). On this basis, a linear model: Yc = 8.082 +0.141 X was established.Fourthly, to my knowledge, no researcher has studied the relationship between FI, FN,and FD and reading ability by subdividing reading ability into three factors of detailidentification ability (DI), logical reasoning ability (LR) and evaluation ability (EV)according to a specified level of language proficiency.In addition to the quantitative findings of the study, the qualitative research hasindicated some differences between high-level and low-level English readers inconstructing overall structure of an article, logical reasoning ability, vocabulary, textualstructure knowledge and reading strategies.The results of this study have both theoretical value and practical significance. First,in theory, it provides a new theoretical model which consists of three factors in readingcomprehension and cognitive styles on the basis of extensive reading literature andempirical researches. It is a supplement to textual reading research. Practically, collegeEnglish teachers can use the model and research results to help students build their ownknowledge structure and thinking, and to have a good command of comparison,classification and other methods. Then they can understand logical relationships betweendifferent reading variables from specific details and overall structure.Next, language learning varies. Uniformity of different learning styles should not beinsisted on or teachers should not require that students learn languages in a uniform style.Teachers should also activate the student's"old knowledge"schema in order to assimilatenew knowledge, accurately understand and flexibly use languages, thus to cultivatestudents'independent learning strategies.In conclusion, it is hoped that the findings of the study in the Chinese context will provide new insights into the theories and practices of reading research and readinginstruction.