| Ever since the 1970 s,in the fields of second language learning and language teaching,students have gained much attention from researchers gradually.And individual differences of students,such as cognitive style,personality,affection and tolerance of ambiguity,have been proved to have influence on language learning.Filed independence/Filed dependence cognitive style is one of the most significant factors of individual differences and attracted much attention from researchers.Reading is a fundamental skill for language acquisition and a significant method to gain information.It is not only a process of cognition and construction,but also an interactive process between readers and reading materials.So as to acquire information quickly and effectively,readers use various methods and skills,or to say it reading strategies.In the process of reading,readers' filed cognitive style have affect on their employment of reading strategies and reading effect.This study is going to make an empirical research to explore the relationship between reading strategies and FI/D cognitive style.The purpose of this thesis is to survey the holistic situation of non-English major students' filed cognitive style and employment of reading strategies.Furthermore,the relationship between reading strategies and FI/D cognitive style will also be explored to discover whether there exists correlation and significant differences in the employment of reading strategies among FD learners and FI learner.The subjects of this research are non-English major postgraduates of the first year in Xinjiang University.200 students participated in the research and 174 valid data was collected.The instruments adopted by the thesis are questionnaires and interview.Finally,the data was analyzed by the tool SPSS 20.0.Results of the study come from various data analysis,descriptive analysis,pearson correlation analysis and independent sample t-test is also done in the end.The results and major findings of the thesis are presented as follows:(1)Among the 174 participants,there are 94(54%)FI learners and 80(46%)FD learners.The number of FI learners is larger than FI learners.Generally speaking,four kinds of reading strategies investigated in the study are used at a medium level,that is to say,most students often use these reading strategies.Among four kinds of reading strategies,meta-cognitive strategies are used most frequently but social/affective strategies are used the least.(2)FI/D cognitive styles have influence on the employment of reading strategies.It correlates positively with meta-cognitive strategies,cognitive strategies,and resource strategies.However,they have negative correlation with social/affective strategies.Furthermore,FI learners and FD learners have different performance on the usage of reading strategies.There exist remarkable differences in the usage of meta-cognitive strategies and social-affective strategies.FI learners show great advantages in the usage of meta-cognitive strategies over FD learners.However,FD learners use social-affective strategies more frequently.The research results shown above have some theoretical significance and practical significance in the filed of English learning research and English teaching research.Theoretically,it corresponds with the present view that FI/D cognitive style has influence on the English learning and testifies it in the empirical research.Practically,it has illumination for English teaching and learning.For learners,they ought to have a good understanding of their learning style and search for some reading strategies and skills that are suitable for them and use them in their reading practice to improve their reading effects.In terms of teachers,they ought to help students recognize their learning style and teach their reading in accordance with students' cognitive style and adopt different teaching methods in the process of teaching reading.Furthermore,teachers can also encourage students use various reading strategies actively to improve their reading. |
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