Cognitive Style Of International And Domestic Graduate Students In Agricultural Education And Agricultural Economics

Cognitive style is a dimension of learning style and can be defined as the distinctive and preferred way a learner organizes and retains information (Keefe, 1979). The two dimensions of cognitive style presented in this research originated from there search of Dr. H. A. Witkin. His research divided cognitive style into the dimensions of field dependent and field independent. When individuals are presented with a task designed to assess their cognitive style, field dependent individuals perceive a seen field as a whole; it would be difficult for such a person to separate a pattern from the surrounding environment (Escolme, 1988). They have a global perception of their environment. Field independent individuals tend “to experience parts of the field as discrete from the surrounding field even when the field (was) so organized as to strongly embed the part” (Witkin, 1974). They perceive their environment analytically.