SDU International Journal of Educational Studies

2148-9068

Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi

10.33710/sduijes.807970

Exploring the Correlation between Thinking Styles and Social and Academic Integration in English Major Students

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3419-8257

Kırmızı

Özkan

KARABUK UNIVERSITY

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9146-3964

Güneş Uçar

Nur

KARABUK UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF LETTERS

04 30 2021

8 1 19 35 10 08 2020 02 01 2021

2014

SDU International Journal of Educational Studies

In educational psychology, individual differences have always received remarkable attention, with attention increasing in mental aspects such as thinking styles in recent years and with implications for teaching and learning. The aim of the present study is to investigate the possible connection between thinking styles and academic and social integration. It is well-known that psychological constructs like thinking styles play a role in certain behaviors or preferences and studying them can shed light on the educational process. The present study was conducted with 79 pre-service EFL teachers, all of whom are 4th grade learners. One reason for having 4th grade learners is that they have well-established ideas and attitudes towards academic and social integration. In order to collect data, two questionnaires were used. The first one is the Thinking Styles Inventory (TSI), developed by Sternberg and Wagner (1991). It is a comprehensive tool containing 104 items. There are 13 subscales, with 8 items each. The second tool is the Academic and Social Integration Scale, developed by Pascarella & Terenzini (1980). It contains 5 sub-dimensions, peer-group interaction, interactions with faculty, faculty concern for student development & teaching, academic & intellectual development, and institutional and goal commitments. The findings of the study indicate that the most common thinking styles are oligarchic, executive, and liberal thinking style while the least common thinking styles are conservative and hierarchical thinking style and it was the liberal thinking styles that mostly correlated with academic and social integration.

Thinking styles academic and social integration higher education English major students

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