The use of virtual learning environments widens the offer for higher education, overcoming temporal and spatial limitations that make access to universities difficult. However, results in the Colombian educational system show that academic programs that are offered in this virtual modality have low levels of retention and show major differences in academic achievement among students.

With respect to academic retention and achievement in virtual higher education, research has shown that students that exhibit higher levels of self-regulation present, in consequence, higher levels of academic performance and are less likely to drop out from their programs. By the same token, the differences in achievement that have been observed can be explained considering individual differences among students, particularly, their cognitive style.

To improve levels of self-regulated learning, in previous projects we have design computer educational applications (scaffoldings) to train and guide students, step by step, through the process of a self-regulated learning experience. These projects have had positive outcomes (Hederich, Lopez y Camargo, 2016; Lopez, Hederich y Camargo, 2012a, 2012b). In this project, our purpose is to examine another strategy for the training in self-regulatory abilities: giving information to the student about his/her own cognitive characteristics. Since self-regulated learning consist of a set of abilities of metacognitive nature, we wonder what could be the effect of providing cognitive information to the student about the way he/she faces learning. Would it increase self-regulation? Will the effect be observable in his/her academic achievement? Would the effect depend on the type of information that we provide?

It should be mentioned that some of these hypothesis have already been examined in studies developed by our research group and, in general, the effects have shown to be positive and statistically significant (Pinzón, 2012). In the study reported here, we will focus on examining if the type of information given to the student about his/her cognitive characteristics has a differential effect on self-regulation and on learning achievement. Particularly, in this experiment we will provide two types of information to the students: to some of them, information about certain strategic and motivational aspects of the learning process, as examined by Pintich’s MSLQ (Pintrich, 1991); to some others, information about their cognitive style in the field dependence-independence dimension, determined by Witkin’s EFT (Witkin y Goodenough, 1981). We will analyze the effect of providing these two types of information on learning achievement and on levels of self-regulated abilities.

The questions we try to answer here are: Does giving information to the students about their own cognitive style and their own learning patterns favor learning in the context of virtual education environments? Does this effect depend upon the type of information provided to the student? How does this strategy interact with cognitive style?

Design: This research has a factorial design 2x2x3, in which the variables (having information about cognitive style/not having information about cognitive style) x (having self-regulatory information/not having self-regulatory information) x (field dependent cognitive style/field independent cognitive style) are contrasted and their effect is examining on: 1) learning achievement, and 2) a change in perception about the characteristics of one’s own learning patterns Sample: The sample was composed of 71(62 women, 9 men, average age 20,43; DE=2.99 ranging from 17 to 33 years old) psychology students attending a university in Bogotá, Colombia. They took the course “Statistics 1” for psychology students. This course was taught in a virtual modality. The students were distributed randomly to the four possible groups obtained by the combination of the two variables: having self-regulatory information/not having self-regulatory information and having information about cognitive style/not having information about cognitive style. Additionally, in each group the students’ cognitive style (FDI) was identified The distribution of the sample in the different groups is shown in the following table: Information about motivation and learning strategies Stylistic information Informed Not informed Total Informed 18 17 35 Not informed 18 18 36 Total 36 35 71 Having done this, cognitive style in the field dependence- independence dimension was determined by means of the administration of the EFT. Scores were classified, according to their terciles, in three groups: field dependents, in the first tercile; intermediates, in the second tercile, and field independents in the third tercile. Variables: As dependent variables the following were identified: • learning achievement for the course Statistics 1. • level shown in each of the descriptive scales of the MSLQ for learning strategies and motivation. The virtual course had a consultation unit where the student could have information about his/her own stylistic, motivational and cognitive characteristics.

An ANOVA factorial model was run, in which scores in the post-test was defined as the dependent variable. The independent variables were: having received information about cognitive style (yes/no); having receive information about motivational and cognitive strategies (yas/no) and cognitive style in the field dependent-independent dimension. The best predictors of the scores were: first, being informed about motivational and cognitive learning strategies. The group of students that had access to this information had an average score significantly higher than the other groups F= 44.976, p<.001. Second, being informed about one’s cognitive style. The group that that had access to this information scored significantly higher F= 6.511, p=.013. The interaction between these two variables did not reach statistical significance F= 0.614, p=.436. With respect to the effects of the MSLQ over the post-test, the results of the ANOVA indicate that there are no significant effects for any of the 15 scales of the questionnaire. None of the models built to predict the scores of the second administrations of the MSLQ showed better predictive potential than random chance. The results lead to the following conclusions • There is a noticeable effect of providing cognitive information to the students on their academic achievement. The effect is significant for the two types of information contrasted in this study. • The size of the effect, however, depends on the type of information that is given. In particular, providing detailed information about motivation and strategic patterns of learning show a bigger impact than information about cognitive style. • There is no noticeable effect of any of the strategies on the results of the MSLQ. It is possible that the MSLQ is not the suitable tool to measure this type of differences.

Avalo, A. (2017) Estrategias de información estilística y autorregulación en ambientes de aprendizaje mediados por web. Tesis de maestría no publicada la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. Bogotá, Colombia. Hederich-Martínez, C.; López-Vargas, O. & Camargo-Uribe, A. (2016) Effects of the use of a flexible metacognitive scaffolding on self-regulated learning during virtual education. Int. J. Technology Enhanced Learning, 8 (3/4), 199–216. DOI: 10.1504/IJTEL.2016.10002201 Hederich-Martínez, C. (2011) Reseña de la tesis doctoral “Aprendizaje autorregulado, estilo cognitivo y logro académico en ambientes computacionales” Autoría, Omar Lopez Vargas. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 60, 165-172. Lopez-Vargas, O.; Hederich-Martínez, C. & Camargo-Uribe, A. (2012). Logro en matemáticas, autorregulación del aprendizaje y estilo cognitivo. Suma Psicológica, 19(2), 39–50. Lopez-Vargas, O.; Hederich-Martínez, C. & Camargo-Uribe, A. (2012). Logro de aprendizaje en ambientes hipermediales: andamiaje autorregulador y estilo cognitivo. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 44(2), 13–26. Lopez, O. & Hederich-Martínez, C. (2010) Efecto de un andamiaje para facilitar el aprendizaje autorregulado en ambientes hipermedia. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 58, 14-39. Lopez, O.; Hederich-Martínez, C. & Camargo, A. (2011) Estilo Cognitivo y Logro Académico. Revista Educación y Educadores, 14 (1), 67-82. Pintrich, P.R., Smith, D., García, T. and McKeachie, W.J. (1991). A Manual for the Use of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning. University of Michigan. Pintrich, P.R., Smith, D., Garcia, T. and McKeachie, W.J. (1993). ‘Reliability and predictive validity of the Motivation Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ)’, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Vol. 53, pp. 801-813. Witkin, H.; Goodenough, D. (1981) Cognitive styles. Essence and Origins. New York: International Universities Press