A Study Of The Effect Of Computer-Assisted Instruction On Learning Styles Of Chinese EFL Learners

This thesis aims at a study on the effect of Computer-assisted Instruction on Chinese EFL students' Instructional Learning Style. So far this study is the first attempt to focus on the relationship between instructional learning styles and computer-assisted instruction from the point of quantitative study. Learners' factors have been increasingly recognized in the field of foreign language teaching and learning these years; therefore learning style is an important aspect worthwhile to be attended to. On the other hand many researchers and practitioner advocate the application of computer-assisted instruction in that to a great extent it meets learners' varied needs and style.In order to find out their relationship, 353 Chinese non-English-majored EFL learners of three different levels in Chongqing University participated in this survey. A questionnaire with 30 closed questions on 6 kinds of instructional learning styles was employed to collect quantitative data. All the data were analyzed by Analysis of Variance of SPSS, and it turned out some surprising and unexpected findings, which deviated from the original hypothesis: (1) Chinese non-English-majored EFL learners showed multiple perceptual learning modalities, which was the similar tendency with those in traditional classroom; (2) although there was a slight decrease of the means of six instructional learning styles, there was no statistically change of the visual, tactile, kinesthetic, individual and group learning; (3) however, there was a significant negative shift on auditory learning style of Chinese non-English-majored EFL learners, which was contrary to the originally hypothesis; (4) after being analyzed as a moderator variable, gender played a significant part in the choice of instructional learning styles among Chinese non-English-majored EFL learners; (5) within the group of female or male learners, it produced significant change in auditory, kinesthetic and group learning in female students while there was no significant change of all the six learning styles in male students.The results of the study indicated that CAI was not the theological pill to solve all the problems in teaching, which is highly preached up by those CAI proponents. On the other hand, the study just validate practitioner' suspicion of the effectiveness of CAI in China. Therefore in the discussion part, an attempt was made to discuss the problems of CAI in China from different point of view: the nature of computer, the CAI environmentin China as well as constraints from both the teacher and students' side so that it is supposed to offer a comprehensive understanding and reflection on the frustration and vapidity encountered by teachers.Based on the above data analysis and discussion, some practical designing principles were provided when the design of CAI and learning style was taken in consideration. Although there were still some limitations of this study, the thesis was exploratory but its findings were enlightening in designing CAI and attending to varied learning styles of Chinese non-English-majored EFL learners.