Cognitive styles and learning styles as predictors of academic success in a graduate allied health education program

The inclusion of noncognitive variables in the admissions decision process has been suggested as a reliable means of more fully assessing the potential abilities of individuals within the applicant pool. An increase in predictive efficiency is particularly important now that allied health educational programs are faced with a continuing decline in the number of applicants. This study was designed to determine whether cognitive-style and learning-style variables are predictive of success in a graduate allied health education program. Three cognitive-style measures were used to assess integrative complexity, dogmatism, and field-independence-dependence. Learning-style preferences were measured by Canfield's Learning Styles Inventory. Academic success was measured by scores on the Master's Comprehensive Examination (MCE). The results indicated that there was no significant relationship between academic success and the cognitive-style variables. However, a stepwise multiple regression indicated that 20.44% of the variance on the multiple-choice section of the MCE and 41.36% of the variance on the essay portion of the MCE were explained by learning-style variables.