| The arrival of the Information Age and the cultivation of innovative talents both call for the improvement of students’autonomy. How to guide students to apply autonomous learning styles so that they can not only effectively improve their academic performance but also promote the full growth of their characteristics, is one of the main difficulties in today’s curriculum teaching reform.In this study we investigate the correlation of elementary students’ performance, as well as performance consolidation, in mathematics with various styles of autonomous learning, via the empirical method. We also analyze the influence of the gender, age and learning habits.Based on a large number of domestic and foreign references found in the literature, we first designed a questionnaire survey on autonomous learning styles used by current elementary school students when learning mathematics. We developed an autonomous learning scale table, analogous to the one created by Zimmerman. By developing relevant indicators, the questionnaire of the elementary mathematics autonomous learning situation was finally designed. A total of 1535 third and fifth grade students, from 6 elementary schools in the C School District of Beijing, conducted the questionnaire. Data analysis showed that the primary school mathematics autonomous learning situation is healthy. The learning motivation dimension was at the highest level while the learning styles dimension was at the lowest levels.Another total of 2349 students, who were studying in Grade One, Grade Three and Grade Five from 6 elementary schools in the C School District of Beijing, also conducted the experiment. The subjects were equally divided into four groups. On the other hand, we also designed four styles of autonomous learning:"type under the guidance of teachers"; "material support type"; "self-study type" and "self-study and group discussion type". Each group of students used one of these types to learn a certain mathematical material (the same content within the same grade). Later, two tests were given to subjects to compare learning effects. The first test was directly after learning, while the second one happened after two weeks. Both tests contained the same content.Our experiments investigated the difference of the independent variable caused by variables (math test scores) under four different treatments (the four types of autonomous learning). According to Bloom’s new classification of cognitive goals, the experiment math test levels were also divided into four levels, which were understanding, application, analysis, and creation, in order to investigate the characteristics of different cognitive levels when independent variable influenced the dependent variable. At the same time, the experiment chose gender, grade, daily learning habits (divided into daily learning style preferences and daily learning application) as covariate of experiment, so as to investigate a covariate in the regulating role in the experiment.Experimental results showed that student’s performance in "the type under the guidance of teachers" were significantly higher than the others. On the other hand, the "self-study style" has the best score consolidation and the "self-study and group discussion style" has the worst score consolidation, no matter what types of autonomous learning styles were used, there were no significant differences in scores when understanding level and creative level questions were given to the testers. Among the factors of influences of autonomous learning styles on mathematical scores of elementary school students, the significant ones were grades and daily learning application while the unremarkable ones were gender and daily learning style preferences.This research indicate that in the practice of the elementary school mathematics teaching, teachers shall increase their guidance in students according to the individual needs of each student, and encourage students to learn is various of learning methods. Eventually, it will promote elementary school students to unify their daily learning style preferences and applications, and enhance the level of autonomous learning in elementary school mathematics. |
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