Cognitive Style as a Factor Affecting Task-based Reading Comprehension Test Scores

For purposes of the present study, it was hypothesized that field (in)dependence would introduce systematic variance into Iranian EFL learners’ overall and task-specific performance on task-based reading comprehension tests. 1743 freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior students all majoring in English at different Iranian universities and colleges took the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). The resulting 582 FieldIndependent (FI) and the 707 Field-Dependent (FD) students then took the 1990 version of the IELTS. Using SPSS commands for collapsing continuous variables into groups, and subjects' IELTS scores (based on 25, 50, 75 percentiles), four proficiency groups were identified for each kind of cognitive styles. From each proficiency group, 36 FD and 36 FI subjects were selected through a matching process. The resulting sample of 288 subjects took the Task-Based Reading Test (TBRT) designed for the study. The results of data analysis revealed that subjects' cognitive styles resulted in a significant difference in their overall test performance in proficient, semi-proficient, and fairly proficient groups, but not in the low-proficient group. The findings also indicated that cognitive style resulted in a significant difference in subjects' performance of true-false, sentence completion, outlining, skimming, and elicitation tasks in all proficiency groups.