This research aimed to investigate whether or not intellectual styles are
malleable and to study the effects of intellectual styles on learning achievement. These
aims were achieved through investigating whether or not teachers’ teaching behavior
could lead students to change their intellectual styles in learning, and examining the
relationship between students’ intellectual styles and learning achievement.
Surveys and an experiment were employed in this research. The surveys
consisted of two pilot studies (Study 1 and Study 2), while the experiment formed the
main study (Study 3). The pilot studies were performed to evaluate the two inventories
(the Questionnaire for Teacher Interaction and the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised)
used in the main study, and to investigate the relationship between thinking styles and
preferred teacher teaching behavior among students and teachers.
Two hundred and forty-seven students and 94 teachers were recruited in
Studies 1 and 2, respectively. Findings in these two pilot studies verified that the two
inventories were applicable to Chinese secondary school teachers and students. These
two studies also revealed that preferred teacher teaching behavior and thinking styles
of students and teachers were related. In particular, students and teachers with a
dominant preference for Type I thinking styles preferred student-centered teaching
behavior to teacher-centered teaching behavior. Moreover, they preferred a wider range
of teaching behavior than did the students and teachers with a dominant preference for
Type II thinking styles. Also, in the teacher sample, the relationship between thinking
styles and preferred teaching behavior exhibited a clearer pattern than in the student
sample.
The experiment was an eight-month instructional research. Five
experimental classes were formed, with five teachers and 139 students as participants.
Each teacher taught one class, after being trained to adopt only one type of teaching
behavior to teach and to interact with students. Dominant, oppositional, and submissive
teaching behaviors were the respective types adopted for three of the classes. The
remaining two classes were taught by teachers adopting cooperative teaching behavior.
Hence, the experiment adopted a 2 (time) × 5 (learning environment)
repeated-measures design. Students’ thinking styles were measured by the Thinking
Styles Inventory-Revised before and after the experiment. Also, an investigation of
student learning achievement was conducted after classroom instruction.
The results showed that students’ thinking styles changed in all of the five
experimental classes, with teachers’ teaching behavior in teaching being the main
factor contributing to the changes. Moreover, teacher-centered and student-centered
teaching behaviors led to student thinking style changes along different directions.
Teacher-centered teaching behavior tended to cause student thinking style changes that
diverged from the teachers’ own preferred thinking styles, while student-centered
teaching behavior tended to shift students’ thinking styles in a direction towards their
teachers’ preferred thinking styles. Furthermore, students’ thinking styles and their
learning achievement were related. Specifically, Type II styles and the internal style
tended to positively predict student learning achievement, while Type I styles and the
external style tended to negatively predict learning achievement. Theoretical and
practical implications of these findings are also discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/167183 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Yu, Tak-ming., 余德明. |
| Publisher | The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) |
| Source Sets | Hong Kong University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PG_Thesis |
| Source | http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B47967730 |
| Rights | The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License |
| Relation | HKU Theses Online (HKUTO) |
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