Analysis of students’ cognitive style in learning mathematics from three different frameworks

Abstract

The term cognitive style refers to a psychological dimension that describes the distinctive and observable ways in which individuals process information. Student success will be improved when educational policies and interventions respond appropriately to the different cognitive styles of college students. In Indonesia there have been many research related to cognitive style, but the research mostly examines from one side of cognitive style only. This makes it as if the child is only influenced by one cognitive style without being influenced by other cognitive styles. The purpose of this study is to see whether a student can have a combination of cognitive visualizer-verbalizer styles, independent fields that are field-dependent, and reflective-impulsive. The three cognitive styles in this study are Visualizer-Verbalizer by Mendelson (2004), Reflection-Impulsivity by Kagan (1964), Field Dependent - Field Independent by Witkin et al (1977). This is a qualitative research using case studies approach and used purposive sampling techniques to select the subjects of the study. The participants are 31 students. The instruments of data collection used in this study were 3 types of questionnaires about cognitive style. This study used triangulation data to validate the data. The data analysis techniques used in this study was discovering cultural theme analysis. The results show that there are 11 students visualizer, 7 students have verbalizer, 13 students are negligible, 8 students have reflective, 5 students have impulsive, 16 students have fast-accurate, 2 students have slow-inaccurate, 19 students field dependent, and 12 students have Field independent. Visualizer students tend to be reflective and field dependent, while verbalizer students tend to be impulsive and field dependent.