Doyne Kageni MugambiTheresia KinaiKiragu, Teresia Wanjiru2023-08-092023-08-092023http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/26654A Research Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements of the Award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education and Life Long Learning, Kenyatta University June, 2023The research issue addressed by this study is that for a long time, secondary school teachers in Kenya have primarily ignored the cognitive learning styles of students in their pedagogical strategies. Scholarly efforts to address this problem have focused on factors other than cognitive factors. The study aimed to establish the relationship between Field Dependent-Field Independent cognitive learning styles and reading comprehension performance, to examine the relationship between learning goal orientations and reading comprehension performance, to establish if there are differences in reading comprehension performance of Form Two students with FD and FI cognitive learning styles, to establish if there are differences in reading comprehension performance of Form Two students with mastery and performance goal orientations, to examine if there are gender differences in FD and FI cognitive styles towards reading comprehension performance and to establish if there are gender differences in learning goal orientation towards reading comprehension performance among Form Two students in Kiambu County. The study was anchored on the FD-FI theory of cognitive styles by Witkin (1976) and the achievement goal orientation theory by Elliot & Church (1997). The researcher used a correlation research design. The target population was 8142 Form Two students from 176 public day secondary schools in Kiambu County. Public day secondary schools were selected using purposive sampling, and the students were selected using proportionate stratified sampling and simple random sampling. The sample size was 20 public day secondary schools representing 11%, and 860 students representing 10.6%. The study used three research instruments namely; a modified group embedded figures test, goal orientation questionnaire and an English comprehension test. A pilot study was carried out in two public day schools with a sample of 30 students to establish the reliability and validity of the research tools. Data analysis involved Pearson correlation and t-test testing the research hypotheses using the SPSS program Version 27. The results indicated that there was a positive significant correlation between FD cognitive learning style and reading comprehension score, r (404) = .48, p < .00. The findings also revealed that there was a significant relationship between field independent cognitive learning style and reading comprehension performance, r (452) = .32, p < .01. There was a significant positive relationship between learning goal orientation and reading comprehension performance, r (856) = .14, p < .05. It was established that the mean score difference in reading comprehension performance of respondents with FD and FI cognitive learning styles was statistically significant, t (854) = -2.13, p < .05. The mean difference in reading comprehension performance of respondents with mastery and performance goal orientation was not statistically significant, t (825) = - 1.28, p > .05. The study results indicated that female respondents had a higher mean in FD cognitive learning style than male respondents, while male respondents had a higher mean in FI scores than female respondents. The study recommends that curriculum designers and learning content developers should include cognitive learning styles in learning books to educate secondary school students on the importance of these styles in educational achievement. Teachers, parents, and all other stakeholders should train students on skills required to develop learning goal orientation to enhance reading comprehension performance. Teachers should use diverse teaching methods to cater for cognitive learning styles to improve reading comprehension performance.enLearning Goal OrientationCorrelatesReading Comprehension PerformanceStudentsKiambu CountyKenyaThesis