student engagement. However, there may be no implications from this research as Jensen

(2000) has found learning style to be irrelevant in the complex process of learning.

 Concluding Discussion

 The most important finding in this study was that in these classes, cognitive style

gap was detrimental to motivation in courses taught by adaptive faculty members; even

more detrimental if student's cognitive style gap with the faculty member was larger than

20 points. Realizing the necessity of student motivation to foster student engagement

(Astin, 1984), this relationship must be further researched. Another important finding was

that in these undergraduate courses, students with a 20-point cognitive style gap or higher

did not have significantly higher levels of stress than students with less than a 20-point

gap with their faculty member. If this relationship is confirmed with further research, this

finding limits the application of Kirton's (2003) adaption-innovation theory in the

undergraduate classroom. Maybe the undergraduate classroom environment is unique in

that students are more conforming to the expectations of the faculty member; more so

than the group dynamics of managing change for which the KAI was developed. If the

undergraduate classroom is a different environment, the threshold for cognitive style gap

to cause stress in undergraduate students may be higher than 20 points. Also, the

undergraduate classroom environment may not offer enough individual interaction

between the faculty member and each student to constitute working together to solve a

problem.

 This study provides evidence that dissimilar cognitive styles between students and

their faculty member may contribute to student stress, student motivation and student

engagement. However, results were inconclusive to why some classes found cognitive

style gap contributing to these dependent variables and in other classes cognitive style