Interaction of cognitive styles with handedness in PNU students: Implications for the design of teaching method in distance education system

Today, to study the personal differences of individuals, much more attention is paid to their cognitive styles. Cognitive styles are the individual methods of learner that are being considered for data processing at the time of learning new concepts. The aim of this research is to study the relationship between Gregorc cognitive styles and handedness of undergraduate students in Payame Noor university and to suggest applicable strategies for improving distant education system. This research is descriptive and correlation one and the librarian and field methods (Gregoric cognitive styles questionnaires and Edinburgh handedness questionnaire) have been used for collecting data, statistical society of the research was undergraduate students of Payame Noor university– Tehran Branch, with 17803 persons and sample was considered 200 persons by random classification sampling method. To analyze the obtained data, in addition to descriptive methods of variables Mean (average) and standard deviation also drawing the necessary diagrams for multivariate variance analysis test, the one-way variance analysis and Significance tests of multivariate models of Wilkes, Pilates, Hutling and Roise have been used for testing the hypothesis. According to the obtained results, the significance relationship between handedness and concrete-sequential, abstract-sequential and abstract-random cognitive styles has been observed. In this way that in concrete-sequential cognitive style, right-handed women obtained more scores significantly, in abstract-sequential style righthanded men and women were significantly higher than left-handed ones, and in abstract-random style, left – handed men obtained higher scores significantly, which is in line with previous researches. According to the obtained results, can be telling that interaction of cognitive styles with handedness can have pursuit new implications for the design of teaching method in distance education system.