The Role of Cognitive Style in Academic Performance and in Teacher‐student Relations12

ABSTRACT The cognitive characteristics involved in a relatively field‐dependent or field‐independent cognitive style and the personal characteristics associated with these contrasting styles have been shown to play a role in students' selection of electives and majors, in vocational preferences they experience early in their academic careers, and in the vocational choices they make later on. They have been related as well to performance in different subject‐matter areas in school and in vocation chosen afterwards; they have also been implicated in shifts in major during the college years. Finally, they have been found to influence teachers' ways of teaching and students' ways of learning; in addition, teachers and students matched in cognitive style show positive mutual evaluation, whereas teachers and students who are mismatched tend to evaluate each other negatively.