IMPACT OF STUDENTS COGNITIVE STYLE CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PERCEPTION OF BARRIERS IN ONLINE EDUCATION

Problems of the barriers perception in on-line education were studied through motivation level and cognitive style in a sample of the undergraduates in Slovakia. We administered the motivation scale PMT (Pardel et al., 1984), two dimensions of cognitive styles: a Slovak version of category width (C-W, Pettigrew, 1958), cognitive style index CSI (Allinson, Hayes, 1996) and an original scale for the online learning barriers (OLB) in 5 categories: technology, communication with teachers, communication with classmates, learning activities, study materials. The results pointed out the main problems concerning the cognitive style category width (C-W), broad categorization perceives little variability of learning activities, lack of communication with classmates as well as limited possibilities to compare knowledge and skills with classmates as the obstacles. No significant impact of the analytical-intuitive cognitive style on barriers perception was noted.