The Influence Of Cognitive Styles On Non-english Majors' Reading Proficiency And Reading Strategies

Reading is a complex and multifaceted process,involving linguistic knowledge,culture background and some individual psychological factors.With the research shift to learner-centered language teaching and learning,cognitive style has aroused numerous interests of scholars,as one of the factors in individual difference.Meanwhile,cognitive style is assumed to have an effect on reading process.The thesis is an attempt to examine the influence of non-English majors' field cognitive style upon their English reading proficiency and use of English reading strategies.To be specific,three research questions are addressed in the study: 1)What reading strategies do students with different cognitive styles prefer to take? 2)How is students' reading proficiency influenced by different cognitive styles? 3)Do male students tend to be more field independent than female students? The participants involved in the present study are 80 sophomores majoring in International Trade,Economics,Law and some other non-English majors in Xi'an International Studies University.Data are collected through the Cognitive Style Figures Test(CSFT),a reading strategies questionnaire,a reading comprehension test and a semi-structured interview.Then the author has adopted the descriptive and divergence function of SPSS 22 to analyze these data.The major findings of the study are as follows: 1)FI students tend to be better at cognitive strategy and meta-cognitive strategy while FD students are more likely to socio-affective strategy.Compared with FI and FD students,FN students apply these three strategies at the same time;2)By analyzing the scores from the reading comprehension test of students with different cognitive styles,the author finds out that there is certain relationship between students' cognitive styles and their reading proficiency,that is,FN students show great superiority in reading speed and mean scores of reading though students of each cognitive style have high reading scores;3)FI students(field independent students),FD students(field dependent students)and FN students(field-independent students with relatively low scores and field-dependent students with relatively high scores)do exist among the participants in accordance with the results of CSFT.And male students in foreign language university are not more inclined to be field independent than female students.Theoretical and pedagogical implications can be drawn from the findings.First,it is confirmed that cognitive styles do exert certain influence on the employment of reading strategies and reading proficiency.Therefore,teachers are suggested to adjust their teaching styles to students' cognitive styles by initial endeavor in study of their cognitive styles.Second,given that the consistency and stability of cognitive styles,more attention should be paid on the selection and application of reading strategies.Specifically,teachers can design various teaching activities where students with different cognitive styles can be trained to employ their unfamiliar reading strategies.In terms of students,what they can do is to develop a scientific attitude towards their cognitive styles and cooperate with teachers actively,thus having a better reading performance.