The Empirical Research On Students’ Mathematics Learning Cognitive Style In High School

Students’ mathematics learning cognitive style is an important part in mathematics teaching and mathematics learning. So the research of students’ mathematics learning cognitive style in high school is very meaningful for improving the quality of mathematics teaching and the efficiency of mathematics learning. This study creates a questionnaire of students’ mathematics learning cognitive style in high school through the literature analysis and interview method, and then make its correlation analysis, factor analysis and reliability analysis. In order to study the present situation of students’ mathematics learning cognitive style in high school and its relationship with mathematics achievements, the author investigates 213 high school students by using the questionnaire. All the students are from a provincial demonstration high school in Nanling county, Anhui province. Then the author combines students’ mathematics mid-term achievements, and use Excel and Spss18.0 software to collect and analyze the survey data. The research find that: students from different grades have different mathematics learning cognitive style,especially in the dimensions of field independence / dependence in perception style and synthesis / analysis in thinking style. Students in Grade 11 are more inclined to field independence and synthesis thanstudents in Grade 10. Students’ mathematics learning cognitive style in high school has some links with their nature of arts and science. In the dimensions of verbal perception / spatial perception in perception style and synthesis / analysis in thinking style, students in science class are more inclined to spatial perception and analysis type than students in arts class. Students’ mathematics learning cognitive style in high school has no significant differences between different genders. Mathematics learning cognitive style of students in Grade10 and arts students in Grade11 don’t relate closely with mathematics achievements, while science students in Grade11 have a high correlation with their mathematics achievements in the dimension of field independence /dependence. However, in other dimensions, they have no correlation. But on the whole, students with high achievements tend to be more field independence, divergent type and strong abstract type than those with low achievements. At last, the author puts forward some suggestions for students and teachers according to the research.