The Effects Of Teachers' And Students' Cognitive Styles And Genders On Their Students' English Academic Achievement

Researchers began to shift their attention from seeking the best teaching method to studying general characteristic features from 1950s. Cognitive style is a characteristic feature that differentiates one individual from another. It is valuable for teaching and management education.The paper begins with an introduction to the cognitive style theory, the empirical studies in cognitive style field, and the importance of the theory to English teaching. Then 181 students and 4 teachers are assessed by means of Embedded Figure Test which indicates their degrees of field independence/dependence (FID). The results demonstrate that certain factors affect students' English academic achievement, which include the interaction of teachers and students in FID, students' cognitive style, teacher's gender, teacher's cognitive style. Teachers' and students' genders are included in the design as variables. Then the author gives explanations for 3 special cases where some of the above mentioned factors integrate and reach the significant level. At last on the basis of the above conclusion or hypothesis, an experiment is performed to testify the actual effect.