The cognitive styles and reading comprehension among undergraduates

Abstract

This study aimed at verifying the existence of relationships between the characteristics of the freshmen students' cognitive styles and their reading comprehension abilities. The informants were 120 students, from a private university attending night courses in the exact, human and biological areas. The instruments used were the evaluative Scale of Cognitive Style and a text prepared according to Cloze's technique. The results showed that the majority of the students tend to be divergent and reflexive; there are holist and serial characteristics in a similar proportion. There was a significant difference between the cognitive style and gender showing that men are more holistic than women. As for the reading comprehension, it wasn't identified any significant statistical difference, considering the student's courses and gender. A marginally significant negative correlation, between the reading comprehension and the serial cognitive style was also identified.