A Psycholinguistic Look at the Role of Field Dependence/Independence in Receptive/Productive Vocabulary Knowledge: Does it Draw a Line?

Abstract

The thrust of this study was to investigate the impact of learning styles in general and Field dependence/Independence (FD/I) in particular on the receptive/productive lexical performance of language learners. It aimed to check whether FD/I learners perform differently on receptive and productive vocabulary tests. To achieve this, first, 94 Iranian language learners were given the Group Embedded Figure Test (GEFT) to determine their learning style; and second, they were put into two groups and were asked to take a receptive and a productive vocabulary test. Having collected and analyzed the data, the study revealed that first, with regard to the receptive test, although FI learners outperformed the FD ones, this outperformance was not significant statistically. Second, for the productive test, a significant difference was found between FIs and FDs with FI learners having a better performance. Third, FI learners acted significantly better in the productive test compared with receptive test. Finally, FD learners performed almost similarly in both receptive and productive tests. The pertinent implications are also discussed.