Equilibriating Instructional media for Cognitive Styles

Two types of instructional environment (Text and Web) that had been used in a previous study were adapted to accommodate Cognitive Style preferences for Witkin's Field-dependent and Riding's Imager. Ninety six Information Systems students were randomly allocated to each of these environments and their Cognitive Styles were assessed. The students studied an Introductory Course in Artificial Intelligence one hour per week for six weeks after which they were assessed by a one hour exam. It was found that Field-dependents and Field-independents performed similarly in both environments as indicated by their examination scores demonstrating the success of the adaptation of both environments for Field-dependents. The adaptation for Imagers as measured by Riding's CSA was not successful as Verbalisers performed better than Imagers in both Text and Web. This raises questions about the stability of Riding's Verbaliser/Imager dimension. People performed significantly better in the Text environment than in the Web environment.