Undergraduate Students' Academic Achievement, Field Dependent/Independent Cognitive Styles and Attitude toward Computers

This paper reports an investigation of cognitive styles, achievement scores and attitudes toward computers among university students. Field dependence/field independence is a dimension of cognitive style that has been researched with various student groups as well as with attitudes. Nevertheless, there appears to be a dearth of published research in this area relevant to teacher trainees in an international setting. In this study, the standardised Group Embedded Figures Test was used to assess field dependency among 130 teacher trainees. Overall, it was found that there was no significant relationship between cognitive styles and academic achievement (r=.14, p=.15); cognitive styles and attitudes toward computers (r =.01, p=.84); and, cognitive styles and attitudes toward computers when their academic achievement scores were covariated (F(2,126) =.40, p >.05). The findings indicate that students' attitudes toward computers are not associated with field dependency, even when their achievement levels were controlled. Attitude toward computers is found to function independently from cognitive styles.