Familiarity With, The Discipline Nature And The Influence Of Cognitive Styles Of Hypertext Learning Performance

At the21stcentury, the Internet supported by asp technology has become the preferred sourceof information for the world citizen. This trend prompted more and more researchers are turningto hypertext reading field, studies of hypertext learning related empirical research also more andmore. Grounded in cognitive flexibility theory and the construction-integration model, this studyexamines the effects of the cognitive styles of students, materials familiarity and subject types onhypertext reading.This study includes two experiments. In experiment one: how the cognitive styles of studentsand materials familiarity affect hypertext reading. By a2×2mixed experiment design, theindependent variable for cognitive style (field-dependent/independence), materials familiarity(low/high); cognitive style is between-subject variables, materials familiarity within-subjectvariables, and the dependent variable were the performance and preferences for hypertext reading.In experiment two we researched how the cognitive styles of students and subject types of thematerials affect hypertext reading. By a2×2mixed experiment design, the independent variablefor cognitive style (field-dependent/independence), subject types of the materials (social/naturalscience); cognitive style is between-subject variables, subject types of the materials within-subjectvariables, and the dependent variable were the performance and preferences for hypertext reading.Main conclusions are as follows:1. In hypertext reading, the usage on the title links in different cognitive style individuals wasdifferent: compared with the field-dependence, a field-independence more use title link tofinish reading tasks.2. On the time dimension of hypertext reading performance, there is an interaction effectbetween the discipline nature and cognitive style: the reading time of a field-independence insocial sciences materials was longer than a field-dependence, while the reading time of afield-independence in natural discipline materials was longer, which showed that the differentcognitive style subjects in hypertext reading showed different discipline preference.