Cognitive and Learning Style: Impact on Academic Performance in Higher Education
David Spicer, University of Bradford Management Centre, UK
This paper presents results of soem preliminary studies into the relationships between
cognitive and learning styles and students academic performance. A questionnaire
containing three instruments assessing learning and cognition was distributed to second
and final year undergraduates studying business management degree as part of normal
classes, and the outcomes of this will subsequently be explored and analysed in relation
to the students academic performance.
The instruments included in the questionnaire are:
The Cognitive Styles Index, assessing adaptive-intuitive cognitive styles (Allinson and Hayes, 1996)
The Local and Global Scales from Sternberg's (1997) Mental-Self Government Assessment of Thinking Styles
The Individual Learning Levels Questionnaire (Spicer and Sadler-Smith, 1998) which assesses approaches to learning based on Senge's (1990) adaptive-generative distinction.
The programme of study on which the students sampled are engaged in an elective programme in which students have to select and study 12 ten-credit modules in an academic year. These are drawn from a range of academic diciplines associated with business and management and organised behaviour, information systems, marketing production and operations, and strategy). It is suggested that students with strong preferences for analytic cognitive style, local thinking style and adaptive learning will show an affinity for and superior performance in more analytical subjects and diciplines such as accounting and economics. Conversely, students with strong preferences for intutitive cognitive style, global thinking style and generative learning will show an affinity for and superior performance in more holistic mdules focussing on diciplines such as strategy.
The research therefore seeks to explore such issues and examine the relationships between preferences for particular approaches to and styles for learning and cognition and students'selction of and performance in the range of modules on the business and management degree. Results of an initial analysis on results in academic assessments are presented, and implications for higher education practic are outlined.