RESUMO
Cognitive styles are among the dimensions of individual differences considered particularly relevant in adaptive teaching. Field dependence-independence is one of the most heuristic cognitive style constructs and has been shown consistently to determine academic results of students, regardless of their educational level or cultural origin and the area of knowledge considered. This fact has prompted attempts to train field independence and a thriving line of investigation focused on the adaptation of instructional methods to cognitive style, which has been offering data which should be considered in educational practice. Studies made to date both on training and instructional adaptation have been gathered and synthesized in the present revision, and some general lines of action when adapting teaching to cognitive style have been extracted.
Los estilos cognitivos se encuentran entre las dimensiones de diferencias individuales consideradas relevantes en la enseñanza adaptativa. De especial valor heurístico se ha mostrado la dependencia-independencia de campo, dimensión que influye, de manera consistente en los resultados académicos de los estudiantes, al margen de su nivel educativo y su origen cultural y del área de conocimiento evaluada. Esta constatación ha inspirado intentos de entrenar a los estudiantes en las habilidades de los independientes de campo, así como una línea de investigación centrada en la adaptación de los métodos instruccionales al estilo cognitivo, que ha venido proporcionando datos que deberían ser considerados en la práctica educativa. En el presente trabajo, se sintetizan los estudios realizados hasta el momento sobre entrenamiento y adaptación instruccional y se proponen algunas líneas generales de actuación en la adaptación de la enseñanza al estilo cognitivo.
RESUMO
This paper analyses the role of academic preparation and learning strategies in the prediction of first-year Portuguese college students' academic achievement, considering students' sex and academic field attended. A sample of 445 first-year college students (68.5% female) from the University of Minho (25.8% enrolled in economics, 35.3% in science/technology, and 38.9% in humanities degrees) participated in the study. Students answered a questionnaire on learning strategies in the classroom at the end of the first semester, which consisted of 44 items organized in five dimensions: comprehensive approach, surface approach, personal competency perceptions, intrinsic motivation, and organization of study activities. Academic achievement (grade point average at the end of first year) and academic preparation (students' higher education access mark) were obtained through the academic records of the university. Results showed that academic preparation was the strongest predictor of first-year academic achievement, and only marginal additional variance was explained by learning strategies as assessed by the self-reported questionnaire. There were sex and academic field differences, but these variables do not seem strong enough to affect the results, although the different percentages of variance captured by each model and the different weights associated to higher education access mark, stimulate the use of these and/or other personal and contextual variables when analysing the phenomenon.
