The Relationship of Cognitive Style and Method of Instruction to Performance in Ninth Grade Geography

Two levels of task presentation (discovery and expository) and two levels of cognitive style (analytic and global) were factorially combined to form a 2 × 2 design. After 11 hours of instruction, the learning performance of 117 ninth grade Ss was measured in terms of (a) knowledge of Japan’s geography and (b) higher-learning, or the ability to use geographic materials in new situations. Separate analyses of variance of knowledge scores for males and females revealed no significant main effects or interactions. The analysis of the extreme analytic and global male Ss indicated a significant (p < .05) cognitive style by method interaction in which the global Ss receiving the expository method performed significantly poorer than the analytic males. The analysis of the higher-learning scores for males and females revealed a significant main effect of cognitive style (p < .05), with the analytic Ss performing significantly better than the global Ss, For the extreme analytic-global males the interaction of cognitive style and methods was reliable (p < .05), with extreme global males who were taught by an expository method performing more poorly than all other groups which did not differ.