Investigating the relationship between cognitive styles and self-regulated learning with the superior hand of students

Dissertation for Master's Degree in Educational Psychology "M.A"

Abstract

The present study was conducted with the purpose of "investigating the relationship between cognitive styles and self-regulated learning with superior hand in students". The sample consisted of 90 students who were selected through random cluster sampling from the female class and the male class. To measure cognitive styles, Kolb's Cognitive Style Questionnaire (1975) was used, and to measure self-regulated learning, the scale of Bouffard et al. There is a significant difference between the two variables, and the calculated agreement coefficient showed that the correlation between dominant hand and cognitive style was 37%, and this relationship is significant. Also, to investigate the relationship between types of cognitive style and dominant hand, a one-way analysis of variance test was used, and the results show that right-handed students tend to convergent cognitive style and left-handed students tend to divergent cognitive style. Independent t-test was used to investigate the relationship between self-regulated learning and dominant hand. The results showed that there is no significant difference between learning self-regulation and superior hand. Also, to investigate the relationship between cognitive styles and self-regulation, one-way analysis of variance test was used and the findings showed that there is no significant relationship between these two variables. Therefore, it can be concluded that people with the same cognitive styles have different levels of self-regulation learning, and only having a certain type of cognitive style does not play a role in the level of self-regulation learning.

Key words: cognitive style, dominant hand, self-regulation learning, left-handed, right-handed.

Introduction

One of the natural phenomena visible in all the structures of human societies is the existence of differences. In fact, the beauty of the universe lies in these differences. A healthy, humane, dynamic and efficient educational system receives and perceives these differences in the natural form of abilities and capabilities. One of the most important issues that teachers face in their classrooms is the existence of individual differences among students in terms of intelligence, talent, motivation, academic progress, learning style, and so on. Understanding these differences can help the dynamics of teachers' work.

Individual differences in learning have long been the focus of education specialists. The idea that people's differences in learning are simply due to their differences in intelligence and abilities was accepted in the world of education for a long time, but it changed later. Researchers have shown that students have different cognitive styles; That is, they analyze and learn information in different ways. Today, it is clear that people's differences in learning only partially depend on their intelligence and abilities. Therefore, other factors such as personality traits, task difficulty and differences in styles are also involved in this matter.

       The subject of this research is to study the relationship between cognitive styles[1] and self-regulated learning[2] with superior hand[3]. In fact, it emphasizes the importance of individual differences in how these characteristics are related to each other. These variables have a direct relationship with today's school education.

Cognitive styles and self-regulated learning can be considered as one of the most important structures of educational psychology. Specialists and educators always seek to identify the factors affecting these structures, so that by understanding these factors and differences, they can maximize the learning efficiency of students in educational environments, and make the most of the available space and facilities. In this way, efforts should be made to accurately identify the predictors of cognitive styles so that the educational conditions can be improved and its impact on academic performance can be observed. So, in this research, the question is how much being left-handed or right-handed, or in precise scientific terms, right-dominant or left-dominant, can predict people's cognitive and self-regulated learning styles.Are these personality or physical characteristics related to cognitive styles, and can they justify their beliefs and preferences, is right-handedness or left-handedness related to self-regulation?

Discussion about cognitive styles has flourished since the late 1970s, and one of the reasons that came up is that cognitive styles have a practical application, especially in education, and many educators believe that cognitive styles affect the learning process. Although these styles are defined in different ways, they mainly emphasize that cognitive styles include beliefs, beliefs, preferences and behaviors that people use to help their learning in a given situation. People use different learning styles according to their individual differences. Humans learn differently in the same situation, and perhaps the most important reason is their different learning styles, these styles determine how long a person should pay attention to what and how much when dealing with a situation. In fact, cognitive styles can be considered as the cause of many individual differences in the classroom.

Various researches have been conducted on what students learn and what styles they use. One of the researchers who has presented an important theory about cognitive styles is Kolb (1996). The theory presented by Kolb about learning has attracted a lot of attention. In his theory, Kolb identifies four states of experience, objective experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), creation of abstract concepts (AC), and active experience (AE). The dimensions of objective experience/creation of abstract concepts and active experience/reflective observation are two opposite poles in the concepts of learning methods. Each of these situations shows the type of information perception by the individual, and Kolb identified four types of learners according to their position in relation to these two dimensions (Fuji [4], 1996). According to this experiential learning, Kolb divides people into four groups: converging, diverging, adapting and absorbing people. Another important concept in contemporary learning, educational and cognitive psychology is self-regulation learning. In 1994, Zimmerman [5] defines it as a type of learning in which people initiate and direct their efforts to acquire knowledge and skills without relying on the teacher and others. Past definitions of self-regulation emphasize its cognitive aspects without paying attention to its emotional, emotional, and motivational aspects. But the related new definitions try to integrate the cold and warm aspects of learning such as cognitions, emotions and motivations. Based on this, it can be said that it includes all the cognitive and motivational processes during which a person sets goals and plans for his learning activities and applies the necessary management, monitoring and evaluation strategies according to the conditions, and if necessary, uses other resources such as people or places to carry out his plans well.

According to some experts, self-regulation in learning also explains an important part of the differences between successful and unsuccessful students. Successful students use motivational strategies and patterns such as striving for success and challenging activities and setting goals in order to complete assignments. On the other hand, unsuccessful students exert less effort and are less interested in doing activities, are unable to set goals and use learning strategies, have low self-efficacy and rarely reach a high level of success. is life Approximately 6 to 17 percent of people in society are left-handed, 3 to 17 percent are ambidextrous, and 66 to 89 percent are right-handed.

In the definition of the dominant hand, it should be said that most of the resources of the dominant hand are related to the innate, biological preference to use one hand more than the other hand, in performing specific tasks and duties, and the dominance of one hemisphere in performing those tasks. (Rice [7], 1998, quoted by Alipour and Saleh Mir Hosni).

1-2- Statement of the problem

Hand dominance is defined as the dominant preference of one hand in performing functional tasks that can be performed with one hand (Cavill and Bryden [8] 2003). Since the beginning of the formation of civilization, man has used one hand more than the other in using tools.