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The cognitive style of field independence (the tendency to differentiate objects from their surroundings) has been shown in a number of studies to be related to success in second language classrooms in which deductive teaching dominates. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to discover whether less rule-oriented teaching might prove more beneficial for field-dependent students. A pretest/post-test design was used to compare the effectiveness of two ESL lessons on participle formation for subjects at various points along the field independent/dependent continuum. One lesson was based on a traditional deductive approach; the other provided no rules but directed attention to many examples of participles in context. A regression analysis showed a significant interaction between field independence and lesson, with field-independent subjects performing better with the deductive lesson and fielddependent subjects better with the example lesson. Examination of individual items on pre- and post-tests provided evidence that the majority of subjects in both lessons had engaged in step-by-step rule building. Implications for teaching and further research are discussed. The interest of both teachers and researchers in the field of second language learning has increasingly focused on the learner--including the strategies which an individual uses in learning and communicating and the individual differences that may affect both strategy use and success. One learner characteristic that appears to be related to a number of second language performance measures is the cognitive style of field independence. The field independence/dependence continuum is described by Messick (1976:14) as follows:
Roberta G. Abraham (Sun,) studied this question.