An Experimental Study of Cognitive Styles Incorporation in Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language Online

Abstract

The problems of incorporating cognitive styles into teaching Russian as a foreign language have tended to draw the attention of the researchers recently. However, there are not any profound studies testifying the effectiveness of cognitive styles incorporation in teaching Russian as a foreign language online. The study presented here will focus specifically on this issue. We are addressing such cognitive styles as field independence, field dependence, analyticity, syntheticity and perceptual styles. Tests for cognitive styles diagnosis have been compiled, and the results were correlated with the academic performance of the students. We developed differential studying materials. The experimental group received the materials corresponding to their cognitive styles, and the control group received not corresponding materials. After that, we analyzed the results of the experiments. Conclusions. Field dependent and field independent foreign students are about the same successful in learning Russian, students with analytical style were slightly more successful than ones with synthetical style, and visual learners displayed higher academic achievements than audial learners. As one of the results of study, we established that kinesthetic style is preferred to consider apart from the visual and audial perceptual styles. The experimental group demonstrated better results than the control group (20% higher), which testifies to the effectiveness of cognitive styles incorporation in teaching Russian as a foreign language online. We have concluded that it is necessary not only to differentiate Russian as a foreign language teaching according to current cognitive styles, but also to develop these styles at the same time.