The Pearson’s correlation test was used with the purpose of investigating the relation between intellectual styles, verbal intelligence, and learning strategies. We shall first discuss the results of the correlations obtained between the intellectual style variables assessed by TSI-R2 and the Verbal Intellectual Quotient.

As shown in Table 2, it was found that the intellectual quotient of verbal intelligence presented a statistically significant negative correlation with the conservative style scores (r = -0.333), indicating that, in an exploratory way, the higher the score of Verbal IQ, the lower the score in the conservative style. It should be noted that the sample on intelligence was restricted to only 45 students. Thus, it may not have been able to represent all students in elementary school from 2^nd -9^th grades, which may have interfered in the result. Further research with more significant population samples are required to obtain results that can be generalized for this variable.

The study also sought to establish a relation between the variables of intellectual styles and learning strategies. To do so, two analyses were conducted: a simple correlation (r) analysis, but also considering that simple correlations are indicators of covariance between two variables, without controlling external variables; and the partial correlation analysis (r partial). The purpose of this study was to control the effects of the other intellectual styles on each of the styles analyzed and their relationship with the learning strategy variables. Table 3 shows the data from the coefficients of the simple correlation, as well as the data of the partial correlation between each style and the subscales of learning strategies.

Table 3 shows that simple correlation leads to an overestimation of the correlations between the intellectual styles and learning strategies. However, during analysis, controlling the external variables by means of the partial r (in this case it balances the interference of the other styles in the pair of relation between a certain style and the strategies), it was found that the correlations, although for the most part have declined in magnitude, indicated some degree of correlation. Although most of the coefficients were low or almost null, the coefficients of low magnitude or almost null still represented 4% of the explained variance.

According to Table 3, the results from the partial correlation analysis indicated that, in the absence of Dysfunctional Metacognitive Strategies, statistically significant and positive correlations were obtained, although of low magnitude or almost null, for the legislative (r = 0.109), executive (r = 0.121), judicial (r = 0.181) and hierarchical styles (r = 0.144).

As for the Cognitive Strategy subscale, statistically significant and positive correlations were found for the following styles: executive (r = 0.100), local (r = 0.149), conservative (r = 0.183), hierarchical (r = 0.235), monarchic (r = 0.118) and anarchic (r = 0.109), and a statistically significant but negative correlation for the liberal style (r= -0.122). It should be noted that the data refer to the partial correlation analysis.

In the analysis of partial correlations, statistically significant and positive relationships were found for the Metacognitive Strategy subscale for the legislative (r = 0.124) and judicial styles (r = 0.109), although of low magnitude or almost null. Finally, the following correlations for the General Score were found: executive (r = 0.163), judicial (r = 0.198), global (r = 0.151), local (r = 0.115), conservative (r = 0.157), hierarchical (r = 0.218) and monarchic styles (r = 0.111). The study also investigated the relationship between verbal intelligence and learning strategies. The results are shown in Table 4.

Table 4 shows that a statistically significant and positive correlation was found between the verbal IQ and the Metacognitive Strategy subscale (r = 0.347), suggesting that the students’ higher score in verbal intelligence (and greater ability to solve verbal problems) leads to a more metacognitive tendency. According to literature on the subject, we shall discuss these results.

First it should be noted that the relations found in the present study are exploratory in nature and they do not intended to establish causal relationships. Thus, from the data obtained with this research, we found that the intellectual quotient of verbal intelligence was statistically significant, but negatively correlated with the conservative style. Thus, it may be suggested that people with a higher verbal ability have a lower tendency to deal with known problems that involve rule-following and ready-made ways of doing things (Sternberg, 1990; Zhang & Sternberg, 2005). This result, in turn, contradicts the findings of Sternberg (1990), Grigorenko and Sternberg (1997), and Sternberg et al. (1999), since the researchers did not find a relationship between the person’s thinking styles and their cognitive ability.

One of the possible explanations is because these results are due to the idiosyncrasies of the sample in our study. Other possible explanations include the use of different intelligence assessment tools as well as other cultural characteristics that imply different results. It must be noted that the sample for verbal intelligence in the present research was small, which can lead to restrictions in the interpretation of the results. Therefore, further studies with the purpose of investigating these relations in an exploratory way and using more representative samples of verbal intelligence are required to verify if these results can be confirmed.

However, Inácio, Oliveira, and Santos (2018) found a relationship between visual perception ability with styles of type I and II, but the correlations were statistically negative in the latter. Statistically negative relations between visual memory ability and the conservative style were also observed. These data corroborate the point of view of Sternberg (1990) that specific styles could have an affinity with certain cognitive abilities.

A simple correlation was found between TSI-R2 and EAVAP-EF. However, as simple correlations do not control for external variables, by controlling the effects, as represented by the partial r, shown in Table 3, the value of several coefficients decreased in relation to the simple correlation, becoming almost null.

A relationship between TSI-R2 and EAVAP-EF was identified. We found higher correlations between the General Score and Cognitive Strategy subscales with the hierarchical style and between the absence of dysfunctional metacognitive strategy subscale and the judicial style, whereas low correlations were found for the Metacognitive Strategies with the legislative and judicial styles.

Therefore, in general, except for the Metacognitive Strategies, there is an exploratory and non-causal tendency for learning strategies to be correlated with intellectual styles of type I. Thus, it may be inferred that more creative students who enjoy activities that involve a greater level of thinking flexibility and problem solving are inclined to use a greater number of learning strategies. These data corroborate the findings of Dembo (2000), Teixeira and Alliprandini (2013), Cunha and Boruchovitch (2012), according to whom the most effective students are those who can use a wide variety of studying strategies to adapt to different school situations.

However, Inácio (2016) found slightly different results regarding the correlation between the subscales in EAVAP-EF and TSI-R2. For the subscale Absence of Dysfunctional Metacognitive Strategies, correlations with the legislative (r = 0.230), executive (r = 0.349), conservative (r = 0.369), monarchic (r = 0.300) and internal (r = 0.303) styles were found; however, in the present study, relations with the legislative, executive, judicial and hierarchical styles were found.

For the Cognitive Strategy subscale, Inácio (2016) found the following correlations: executive (r = 0.278), judicial (r = 0.404), global (r = 0.376), local (r = 0.363), liberal (0.311), hierarchical (r = 0.482), and anarchic (r = 0.273) styles. In the present study, correlations with the executive, local, liberal, conservative (negative correlation), hierarchical, monarchic and anarchic styles were observed. As for the Metacognitive Strategy subscale, the author found the following relations: judicial (r = 0.302), global (r = 0.200) and liberal (r = 0.221) styles. In the present study, correlations were found for the legislative and judicial styles only.

Finally, Inácio (2016) found the following correlations for the General Score: legislative (r = 0.261), executive (r = 0.435), judicial (r = 0.379), global (r = 0.210), local (r = 0.352), liberal (r = 0.284), conservative (r = 0.304), hierarchical (r = 0.419), monarchic (r = 0.282), anarchic (r = 0.259) and internal (r = 0.255) styles. However, in the present study, correlations were obtained between the executive, judicial, global, local, conservative, hierarchical and monarchic styles.

Although Inácio (2016) found correlations between types I and II and the subscales of EAVAP-EF, these correlations were different from those found in this present study. Thus, despite the fact that the samples from the two studies were from the state of Paraná and the same instruments were used, there were differences in the results. This divergence may be because the author administered the instruments individually, while in this study we administered them collectively. It should be noted, however, that to date, except for Inácio’s study (2016), no Brazilian studies were conducted to study the association between intellectual styles and learning strategies in a more detailed way in a Brazilian sample.

Finally, as shown in Table 4, a correlation between the verbal intelligence score and Metacognitive Strategy score was found, showing that, in an exploratory way, without the intention of establishing a causal relationship, the higher the students’ ability to solve verbal problems, the more awareness, monitoring, and self-evaluation they will have of their cognitive and learning process (Frison, 2016). Research (Grillo, 2003; Pascualon-Araujo & Schelini, 2013; Zampieri & Schelini, 2013) shows that metacognitive skills are accompanied by good cognitive performance, and students who monitor their learning better show improved information processing and school performance, since they devise more effective strategies to acquire, organize, and recover knowledge. Thus, metacognitive skills tend to contribute to the students’ successful storage of school content and knowledge acquired in their daily lives.

Studies conducted by Oliveira (2008) and Joly and Dias (2012) found similar results in their research, since they found correlations between verbal IQ, measured by WISC-III and studying strategies, particularly metacognitive strategies, confirming that this type of strategy is related to verbal intelligence.

In view of this research, intellectual styles, verbal intelligence, and learning strategies can contribute to learning as they relate to more efficient information processing, as well as identifying the preferred ways students use their skills, and consequently obtain knowledge. Knowing how each student learns, studies, and solves problems, favors their participation in the school process. Thus, the aim of this study was to help professionals in the field of education understand that each student has specific ways of learning, which may lead to the development of different teaching methods to improve students’ school performance.

However, there are few Brazilian studies designed to investigate the intellectual styles in this population, which makes it difficult to compare data considering that the studies have only been developed in the North America. Further studies need to investigate whether the teachers’ teaching styles influence intellectual styles and learning strategies.

Thus, further studies in Brazil should be developed to study the validity of the Thinking Styles Inventory, seek to identify the intellectual styles of Brazilian students, establish differences among the grades, and possible relations with other psychoeducational variables. One limitation of this study was the reduced number of participants when investigating the intelligence construct, so it would be important to increase the number of participants for this variable to obtain more reliable results. In addition, validity studies for the thinking styles inventory must be carried out so that it can become a research tool on the students’ learning process.