Situated cognition and cognitive style: Effects on students’ learning as measured by conventional tests and performance assessments

The purpose of the present study was to replicate and extend an earlier study that examined the effectiveness of an instructional method based on the tenets of situated cognition. The findings of an earlier study indicated that students who learned to read maps by this method did better on a performance assessment of map skills than, and equally as well on a written assessment of map skills as, students who learned to read maps by conventional instruction. The impact of situated cognition on short- and long-term retention of map skills among fourth graders and the effect of cognitive style on their learning was investigated in the present study. Fourth-grade students were assigned either to situated-cognition instruction using cognitive apprenticeship or to a conventional-instruction treatment. The conventional-instruction group performed significantly better than the situated-cognition group on the immediate postwritten measure of map skills, but the two groups did not differ on the corresponding delayed measure, administered 5 months later. Contrary to expectation, the two groups did not differ on the immediate postperformance assessment, and the conventional-instruction group scored significantly higher on the corresponding delayed measure. Cognitive style did not interact with type of instruction to affect learning but was found to affect learning directly (immediate posttests only).