THE EFFECT OF COGNITIVE-STYLE AND COGNITIVE SKILLS ON SCHOOL SUBJECT PERFORMANCE

TWO hundred and Jive 14-16 year olds from two Anglophone Canadian scho ols (99 females and 106 males) were given the Canadian Test of Cogniti ve Skills (an intelligence-type test) and the Cognitive Styles Analysi s and their grade 9 scores in the subjects of French, English, mathema tics, geography and science were obtained. The study first looked at t he relationship between cognitive skills and cognitive style. The corr elation between cognitive skills and cognitive style approached zero s uggesting their independence. Having confirmed the independence of cog nitive skills and cognitive style, their interactive effect, including gender, on subject performance was investigated by means of analysis of variance. There teas a significant interaction between sex and subj ect; females were superior to males in all five subjects, but particul arly so in French and English. There was also a significant interactio n between skill, style and subject in their effect on performance. Thi s was discussed in terms of the role of style in learning and the effe ct of skill/intelligence on strategy development.