Abstract：Reading is intimately correlated with almost everyone’s daily life as a useful and common approach to obtain information in modern society，especially for foreign language learners. What’s more, reading ability may settle down an untackled problem, such as selecting useful material in information flow, and even cast an influence on a person’s career. Therefore reading ability is a focused point in recent research of foreign language teaching and learning. A large number of previous studies indicate that there is an intimate correlation between reading ability and Field Dependence/Independence.

There are three hypotheses in academic field about the relation between Field Dependence/Independence and Foreign Language Learning: Field Independent persons are better learners; Field Dependent persons are better learners; both two kinds of persons can be good learners. The hypothesis that Field Independent persons are better learners is supported in the thesis. According to relevant literature and resources, it is believed that reading ability, as an essential language competence, must have an intimate correlation with Field Dependence/Independence. Besides, more theoretical bases and empirical experiments support the hypothesis that Field Independent persons are better learners.

This thesis is aiming at testifying the relationship between reading ability of advanced foreign language learners and Field Dependence/Independence by an empirical experiment. 37 participants are sophomores major in textile in Jiangnan University in WuXi. Cognitive style of each participant is verified by the cognitive style questionnaire and the Group Embedded Figure Test. To evaluate reading ability of all participants, mean score of four reading grades of each participant in four reading evaluation tests are collected as the standard of reading ability. At last, the correlation between cognitive style and reading ability of Foreign Language learners is determined in accordion to the data analyzed by SPSS: Independent Foreign Language Learners have better reading competence. 

Keywords: cognitive style; Field Dependence; Field Independence; reading competence;  

Foreign Language Learning

Contents

摘要

Abstract

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

Chapter 2 Literature Review-3

2.1 Definition of Field Dependence/Independence-3

2.2 Formation and Measures of Field Dependence/Independence-3

2.3 the Influence of Field Dependence/Independence on Foreign Language Learning-4

2.4 the Trend of Field Dependence/Independence Research and Disagreement in Foreign Language Learning-6

Chapter 3 My Experiment-9

3.1 Correlation Between Reading Ability and Field Dependence/Independence-9

3.2 Method of the Experiment-9

3.3 The Findings of the Experiment-10

3.4 Discussions-11

Chapter 4 Conclusion-13

References-15

Acknowledgements-17

Appendix 1The Cognitive Style Questionnaire-18

Appendix 2 The Data of the Experiment-19