Cognitive Styles and Performance on Schema-based Cloze Multiple Choice Item Tests: A Fairness Issue

Abstract

This study reports the performance of 253 undergraduate and graduate students of English on the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and a schema-based cloze multiple choice item test (SBCMCIT) and its subtests as measures of cognitive styles and English language proficiency, respectively. Although field independent (FI) test takers outperformed their field dependent (FD) counterparts on the SBCMCIT, their performance showed relatively weaker and unexpectedly negative relationships with the GEFT. Assigning the participants to low, middle, and high proficiency groups on the basis of their standardized scores on the SBCMCIT and correlating them with the GEFT, however, showed that neither low nor high proficiency groups employed their cognitive styles because their performance on the two tests did not reveal any significant correlations. The middle proficiency group, however, employed both FD and FI cognitive styles to compensate for their partially acquired language proficiency and thus their scores on the SBCMCIT and two of its subtests showed significant correlations with the GEFT. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive styles and fairness in language testing.