Cognitive style and teaching style influences on the motor skill performance of 11 and 12 year old physical education students

Abstract

IntroductionSuccessful learning outcomes in school based teaching situations are dependent on a variety of factors that could include the intentional or unintentional matching of cognitive style to teaching style. Previous evaluation of the of the cognitive and teaching style constructs indicate that if students' learning preferences match their instructors' teaching styles, student motivation and achievement usually improve (StittGohdes, 2003). Identifying and promoting a particular teaching style can serve to facilitate an understanding of its with individual students' learning styles, however, few teachers are aware of the exact nature of their own teaching style and the cognitive style preferences of their students (Prashnig, 2004). Pedagogical domains such as physical education and more specifically motor skill learning serve as relevant platforms on which to examine and evaluate the efficacy of aligning teaching style with the cognitive style of students.Cognitive style is considered an important human characteristic that can affect the set of information processing heuristics necessary for problem-solving. It is a psychological dimension that highlights the consistencies and patterns of how an individual acquires and processes information (e.g., Ausburn & Ausburn, 1978; Blazhenkova & Kozhevnikov, 2010; Thomson, Watt, & Liukkonen, 2014). The construct of cognitive style represents a specific approach to encoding, storing, and utilising content, usually conceptualized as the characteristic ways in which individuals perceive environmental stimuli, organize and analyse new sensorial input and memory (Guisande, Paramo, Tinajero, & Almeida, 2007; Kozhevnikov, 2007; Messick, 1984), and the use of these interpretations to guide their actions (Hayes & Allinson, 1998).The term teaching style appears to have no universally accepted definition, but has been broadly referred to in the domain of physical education as 'a set of teaching tactics' (Galton, Simon, & Croll, 1980), 'instructional format' (Siedentop, 1991) and a 'general pattern created by using a particular set of strategies' (Mosston & Ashworth, 1986). In the student learning field, teaching style has been defined by Butler (1984, p. 47) as a collection of and actions that open a formal and informal world of learning to the student. It is a subtle force that influences access to learning and teaching by establishing perimeters around acceptable learning procedures, processes and products. It is important to also acknowledge the between teaching practices and the principal goals of student learning. More (1993, p. 12) provided a succinct description of this association relevant to the learning of skills and stated the relationship between teaching style and learning style is analogous to the between learning and teaching. Learning is the acquisition of knowledge, understanding, skills, and attitudes by individuals. Teaching is the provision of a situation in which learning may occur. Furthermore, Wilson (2012) supports the notion that teachers will benefit from an awareness of the learning and cognitive style attributes of their students and noted that the integration of instructional approaches which consider a variety of learning styles may be even more beneficial than tailoring teaching to specifically match student preferences. In contrast, previous literature has also highlighted that learning may still take place in situations where there is a mis-match between teaching and cognitive style (Evans & Waring, 2012).A commonly considered cognitive style theory in the discipline of educational psychology (e.g., Sternberg & Zhang, 2001; Zhang, Sternberg, & Fan, 2013) is that of field dependence-independence (FDI) (Witkin & Goodenough, 1981). The primary focus of Witkin and colleagues was the examination of individual differences related to distinct cognitive styles labelled field dependent (FD) and field independent (FI). …