Chapter 9: Teachers’ Cognitive Styles and Their Instructional Implications

Researchers have been concerned about the teachers’ performance in the classroom and about how to improve their performance. Teachers’ effective performance requires them to think about what they do before, during, and after their actions; thus, constructing an intellectual foundation for their performance (Saracho, 1988a). One component of cognitive functioning that researchers have studied extensively is cognitive style.

Cognitive styles are a consistent way individuals organize (Riding & Rayner, 1998) and refine information (Saracho, 1999). They have extended and organized qualities that affect the individuals’ reactions to different situations (Anastasi, 1996) and a broad realm of behaviors, which Riding (1997) and Riding and Rayner (1998) have authenticated. Armstrong and Priola (2001) report that cognitive style may provide individuals the ability to carry out these mechanisms in diverse, possibly idiosyncrati-cally ways. Cognitive styles are different from intelligence (Riding & Pearson, 1994; Riding & Agrell, 1997); they are more analogous to personality measures (Riding & Wigley, 1997). Researchers provide evidence to show that individuals have a variety of personality characteristics that they use to think and process information differently (Gadzella, 1999), which relates personality traits to cognitive style.