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Cognitive style and learning strategies



     

    1. Theoretical background: nature
      or nurture?
    2. Pedagogical
      implications
    3. Cultural influences and
      imitations
    4. Conclusion
    5. References

    1. Theoretical
    background: nature or nurture?

     Before the 1970s, individual differences had
    been synonymous with differences in ability (Willing 1988:35), at
    least in the field of learning theory. Nevertheless, many
    psychologists in the 1950s and 1960s became increasingly
    concerned about the narrowness of abilities measured by standard
    intelligence (IQ) tests. Emphasis on abstract logical reasoning
    seemed to restrict intelligence to "convergent thinking" towards
    pre-determined answers but excluded the type of "divergent
    thinking" which leads to imaginative or creative innovation.
    Guildford (1965) introduced a model of the structure of the
    intellect in which he differentiated between a number of
    cognitive operations including convergent and divergent thinking
    (Lovell 1980:104). Divergent thought soon became equated with
    creativity, but although his (1975) concepts of fluency,
    flexibility and originality are still widely used, the value of
    his contributions to the understanding of creative thinking is
    now thought to be questionable (Ochse 1990:205).

     The real value of Guildford’s distinction
    was realised by Hudson (1968) who suggested that tests of
    divergent thought were not so much a measure of creativity as a
    sampling of the individual’s preferred style of thinking
    (Lovell 1980:105). From a study of sixth form science and arts
    students, Hudson found that science students, specially those
    specialising in physics, tended to prefer a convergent style of
    thinking and saw themselves as basically cold, dull and
    unimaginative. Similarly, arts students, particularly those
    specialising in English literature, history and modern languages,
    were more likely to be divergent thinkers and saw themselves as
    warm, imaginative and exciting but at the same time lacking in
    manliness and dependability (Lovell 1980:105).

     Hudson’s work was important in that it
    also showed a connection between style of thinking (or cognitive
    style) and the learners’ social behaviour and
    self-image.

     Hudson (1968) also found a relationship between
    convergent/divergent thinking and another bi-polar dimension
    known as syllabus-bound and syllabus-free orientation. Convergent
    thinks or "sylbs" were typically concerned with getting good
    examination marks and happily accepted the restrictions of a
    formal syllabus. "Sylfs", on the other hand, had intellectual
    interests that extended far beyond the syllabus, which they often
    found constricting (Lovell 1980:105). Parlett (1969) found that
    "sylbs were exam-oriented but had little personal interest
    in the subjects they studied. Although they were "model" students
    at university, attending more lectures, working harder and
    achieving higher marks in exams, "sylbs" were less successful
    than "sylfs" when it came to independent project work (Lovell
    1980:106).

     Again, the distinction between "sylbs" and
    "sylfs" was not just limited to cognitive behaviour but included
    social and affective characteristics. Another study of sixth-form
    students, this time by Josephs and Smithers (1975), showed that
    "sylbs" tended to be "more conservative, controlled,
    conscientious and persistent, shy, cautious and practical "when
    contrasted with "sylfs". They were more intolerant and
    authoritarian in their outlook and more dependent upon their
    social group (conformists) (Lovell 1980:106).

     As many as 19 different ways of describing
    cognitive style have been identified, all of which consist of
    bi-polar distinctions similar to those described above (Entwistle
    1988:47). All of these tend to be assimilated to the construct
    field-dependence-field-independence (Willing 1988:41), which has
    become a sort of general theory of perception, intellect and
    personality. Berry (1981) characterises this dimension as
    follows:

    "The central feature of this style is the "extent of
    autonomous functioning" (Witkin, Gooddenough and Otman 1979);
    that is, whether an individual characteristically relies on the
    external environment as a given, in contrast to working on it, is
    the key dimension along which individuals may be placed. As the
    name suggests, those who tend to accept or rely upon the external
    environment are relatively more Field Dependent (FD), while those
    who tend to work on it are relatively more Field Independent
    (FI)" (quoted in Willing 1988: 41-42).

     Berry goes on to explain that individuals have
    a characteristic "place" on this dimension but that this may
    change according to circumstance and in response to specific
    training (ibid: 42).

     A summary of the findings of cognitive style
    research as they relate to the two contrasting poles of the field
    independent (analytical/field independent (concrete) dimension is
    given below in Fig.1.

      

    Fig 1 Contrasts on the two poles of the Field
    Independent (Analytical) Field Dependent (Concrete) Dimension
    (from Willing, 1988)

      

    Analytical (Field
    Independent)

    Concrete (Field
    Dependent)

     

    Information processing

     This person finds it relatively easy
    to detach an experienced (perceived) item from its given
    background

     

    The item is extractable because it is
    perceived as having a rudimentary meaning on its own; thus
    it can be moved out of its presented surroundings and into
    a comprehensive category system—for understanding (and
    "filing" in memory)

     

    Tendency to show traits of introversion
    (the person’s mental processing can be strongly
    activated by low-intensity stimulus; hence dislikes
    excessive input)

     

    Tendency to be "reflective" and cautious
    in thinking task

     

    Any creativity or unconventionality would
    derive from individual’s development of criteria on a
    rational basis

     

    This person experiences item as fused with
    its context; what is interesting is the impression of the
    whole

     

    Item is experienced and comprehended as
    part of an overall associational unity with concrete and
    personal interconnections; (item’s storage in, and
    retrieval from, memory is via these often
    affectively-charged associations)

     

     

    Tendency to show traits of extraversion
    (person’s mental processing is activated by
    relatively higher-intensity stimulus; therefore likes rich,
    varied input

     

    Tendency to be "impulsive" in thinking
    tasks; "plays hunches"

     

    Any creativity or unconventionality would
    derive from individual’s imaginativeness or "lateral
    thinking"

      

    Learning
    strengths

     Performs best on analytical language
    lasks (e.g. understanding and using correct syntactical
    structures; semantically ordered comprehension of words;
    phonetic articulation)

     

    2.     Favours
    material tending toward the abstract and impersonal;
    factual or analytical; useful; ideas

     

     

    3.     Has affinity
    for methods which are: focused; systematic; sequential;
    cumulative

     

     

    4.     Likely to set
    own learning goals and direct own learning; (but may well
    choose or prefer to use—for own purpose—an
    authoritative text or passive lecture
    situation.

     

     

    5.     "Left
    hemisphere strengths"

     

    1.     Performs best
    on tasks calling for intuitive "feel" for language (e.g.
    expression; richness of lexical connotation; discourse;
    rhythm and intonation)

     

     

    2.     Prefers
    material which has a human, social content; or which has
    fantasy or humour; personal; musical,
    artistic

     

    3.     Has affinity
    for methods in which various features are managed
    simultaneously; realistically; in significant
    context

     

    4.     Less likely to
    direct own learning; may function well in quasi-autonomy
    (e.g. "guided discovery"); (but may well express preference
    for a formal, teacher dominated learning arrangement, as a
    compensation for own perceived deficiency in ability to
    structure

     

    5.     "Right
    hemisphere strengths"

     

     

     Human relations

     1.     Greater
    tendency to experience self as a separate entity; with,
    also a great deal of internal differentiation and
    complexity

     

     

    2.     Personal
    identity and social role to a large extent
    self-defined

     

     

    3.     More tendency
    to be occupied with own thoughts and responses; relatively
    unaware of the subtle emotional content in interpersonal
    interactions

     

    4.     Relatively less
    need to be with people

     

    5.     Self-esteem not
    ultimately dependent upon the opinion of
    others

    1.     Tendency to
    experience and relate not as a completely differentiated
    "self but rather as—to a degree— fused with group and
    with environment

     

    2.     Greater
    tendency to defer to social group for identity and
    role-definition

     

    3.     More
    other-oriented (e.g. looking at and scrutinizing other
    "faces; usually very aware of other" feelings in an
    interaction; sensitive to "cues"

     

    4.     Greater desire
    to be with people

     

     

    5.     Learning
    performance much improved if group or authority figure give
    praise

      In order to understand
    better the notion of field dependence/field independence, it is
    worth explaining how the original distinction came about and how
    it differs from an alternative but complementary explanation of
    the source of cognitive style differences, namely the split
    nature of the brain.

     Witkin et al (1954) found that people differ from
    each other in the way they perceive both their environment and
    themselves in relation to it. Their original findings were based
    on the contrasting ways in which individuals establish the
    upright in tests involving tilted frames or tilted rooms.
    Field-dependent people tended to rely upon visual information
    from the outside world (hence the term field-dependent) whereas
    field independent people relied almost exclusively on internal
    cues such as muscle tension or sensations from the vestibular
    system in the ear (Lovell 1980:107) and ignored external evidence
    to the contrary. A brief description of these experiments is
    given in Witkin (1969:288-291).

     Later, an alternative (and simpler) way of
    measuring field dependence – field independence (FD-FI) was
    developed which consisted of having people pick out simple
    figures from a more complex design. Again, individuals were asked
    to deal perceptually with items in a field. For some (FI) people
    the simple figure almost "popped out" of the complex design,
    while other (FD) people were unable to find it even in the five
    minutes allowed (Witkin 1969:292).

     Witkin (1969:294) argues that "the style of
    functioning we first picked up in perception (…) manifest
    itself as well in intellectual activity". Field dependence or
    field independence are the perceptual components of a
    particular cognitive style. Thus "at one extreme there is a
    tendency for experience to be diffuse and global; the
    organisation of a field as a whole dictates the way in which its
    parts are experienced. At the other extreme the tendency is for
    experience to be delineated and structured; parts of a field are
    experienced as discrete and the field as a whole is structured"
    (ibid: 294).

     While scores for any large group of people on
    tests of FD-FI show a continuous distribution (ibid: 294). Witkin
    repeatedly found sex differences with females tending to be more
    FD and males correspondingly more FI. (Later studies, however,
    show the evidence to be conflicting – see Willing
    1988:103.) Witkin attributed this discrepancy to different styles
    of child rearing. Thus he claims, for example, that mothers of
    field-dependent children tend to represent the world to their
    children as uniformly dangerous and satisfy all their
    children’s needs in the same way (e.g. a mother might
    breastfeed her baby every time it cried). Mothers of
    field-independent children, on the other hand, are more likely to
    specify sources of danger selectively and to respond differently
    needs. According to Witkin, the extent to which the mother
    articulates such early experiences determines the child’s
    later position on the FD/FI continuum (Witkin
    1969:312).

     But just as there is a nature-nurture debate with
    regard to the source of intelligence differences, so differences
    in cognitive style can also be attributed to genetic factors. An
    alternative explanation is that cognitive style reflects the
    individual’s preferential use of one or other hemisphere of
    the brain much in the way that left-or right-handedness does.
    Evidence from brain research suggests that one gene determines
    the dominant hemisphere of the developing brain, while another
    relates to "handedness" (Entwistle 1988:48). While the
    specialisation of functions is relative rather than absolute
    (ibid: 48) and, in normal functioning, the two halves cooperate
    very closely to produce a unity, Levy (1979) argues that a
    perfect balance of strength only exists in about fifteen per cent
    of normal people: in all other cases, hemisphere strengths are
    unbalanced (Willing 1988:45).

     There is no room here to go into the question of
    hemispheric specialisation in any great depth, but Hartnett
    (1981) states that:

     "Recent brain research … provides
    evidence that the left cerebral hemisphere is specialised for
    logical, analytical, linear information processing, and the right
    hemisphere is specialised for synthetic, holistic, imagistic
    information processing. This evidence seems to parallel research
    on dual cognitive style models such as field independent/field
    dependent …, analytical/rational …,
    serialist/holist … and
    sequential-successive/parallel-simultaneous". (Quoted in Willing
    1988:46).

      2. Pedagogical
    implications

     What are the
    implications, then, of cognitive style for the development and
    use of learning strategies? As mentioned above, the construct
    FD-FI has over the years become very broad and encompasses not
    only cognitive and metacognitive elements but also the
    socio-affective side of the learner. In order to avoid too much
    repetition, the socio-affective implications of learning style
    will be discussed in a later article that deals with personality.
    Here we shall refer to a more limited version of the FD-FI
    dichotomy which was developed with special reference to education
    and which according to Lovell (1980:106) has special significance
    for an individual’s choice of learning strategies although
    Lovell himself gives no examples. This is Pask’s (1969)
    distinction between serialist and holist styles of
    learning.

     A holist style involves a preference for setting
    the task in the broadest possible perspective and gaining an
    overview of the area of study so that the details are
    contextualised (Entwistle 1988:61-62). This has implications for
    metacognitive strategies such as previewing, organisational
    planning and directed and selective attention. Previewing will
    tend to come naturally but may be rather indiscriminate. It is
    perhaps more difficult for holistic to extract the organising
    principle from a text without explicit cues. Holists may have
    more difficulty in attending to task or deciding what is
    essential in the early stages. On writing task, they are more
    likely to discover what they want to say through a global
    strategy of drafting and redrafting rather than filling in an
    initial outline, and their approach tends to be "idiosyncratic
    and personalised" (Entwistle 1988:62). They may have difficulty
    with evaluating form.

     Holists use visual imagery and personal experience
    to build up understanding. Drawing mind-maps using imagery and
    colour will be useful memory strategies for holists (see Buzan
    1989:95). Creative elaboration (e.g. making up stories) and
    personal elaboration are also likely to appeal to holists.
    However, they may need to develop strategies that compensate for
    a natural tendency to over generalise and ignore important
    differences between ideas. Such attention-directing strategies
    are described by De Bono (1976) and include "thinking tools" such
    as listing other people’s points of view, arguments for and
    against a proposal etc.

     In contrast, a serialist style is described by
    Pask (1969) as step-by-step learning. The focus is narrow, with
    the student concentrating on each step of the argument in order
    and in isolation (Entwistle 1988:63). Serialists approach the
    study of new material by stringing a sequence of cognitive
    structures together and thus tend to be very intolerant of
    redundant information because of the extra burden it places on
    memory (Lovell 1980:106). They are likely to use planning and
    selective attention strategies too early in an attempt to limit
    the amount of information they have to deal with. On writing
    tasks, they may need to make a considerable effort to
    "brainstorm" for new ways of approaching a subject and are likely
    to have difficulty in evaluating content, which "tends to be
    carefully structured and clearly presented, but may be dull and
    humourless" (Entwistle 1988:63) and "lacking in personal
    interpretation or independent conclusions" (ibid)-

     Unlike holists, serialists are good at noticing
    even trivial differences but are poor at noticing similarities.
    Thus they may need to use elaboration strategies that emphasise
    relating different parts of new information to each other as well
    as relating information to personal experience. A caveat must be
    added here. As with the FI/FD dimension of which the
    serialist-holist forms a part, few people are totally serialist
    or holist in their approach. Pask found some students who were
    versatile: they were equally comfortable with either style and
    could use both as appropriate. Other students, however, showed a
    marked over-reliance on one or other of these styles which gave
    rise to characteristic pathologies of learning (Entwistle
    1988:62). It is these individuals who are likely to prove the
    most impervious to strategy training.

    3. Cultural influences
    and imitations

     Finally, there is the question of how cognitive
    style relates to cultural background. Witkin himself identified
    field independence with a higher and more advanced degree of
    autonomy and individualisation (Willing 1988:48). Subsequent
    research (Witkin 1977; Berry 1979,1981) has shown that in "loose"
    migratory, hunter-gatherer societies in which the individual
    typically works alone and depends upon a high degree of
    perceptual discrimination and autonomous decision-making,
    field-independence is favoured. But in more stable, sedentary or
    stratified societies (usually agrarian) with "tight" family and
    social networks, relative field dependence seems to be the norm
    (Willing 1988:48-49).

     Modern industrial societies, however, are more
    complex. On the one hand, they present many of characteristics of
    agrarian societies although the extended family is rare in
    Northern Europe and America. Yet it might also be predicated that
    education would tend to produce a more "analytical" mode of
    thinking (Willing 1988:102). In fact a study carried out in
    Australia by the Adult Migrant Education Service (AMES) has shown
    that at least as far as language learning is
    concerned:

     "(…) learning modes cut across age
    levels, both sexes, and all levels of previous education. To a
    considerable degree, learning preferences actually cut across all
    biographical variables
    – including ethnic group". (Willing
    1988:151)

     Over eighty per cent of the participants in
    this study were from large towns (50,000+) or cities and belonged
    to a wide number of ethnic groups, both European and Asian (ibid:
    passim).

     Unfortunately, research has also shown that
    perceptually-based testing devices such as the Embedded Figures
    Test are not
    reliable when the tested group itself is multicultural (Willing
    1988:44). Willing (ibid: 44-45) cites the example of obviously
    highly "analytical" students from certain Asian cultures that
    were slower and less accurate in responding than some Europeans
    who were in all other respects far less analytical and claims
    that it would be necessary to reposition the entire scale in
    order to permit comparison between cultures. The reason for this
    seems to be the cultural bias involved in tests containing
    abstract geometric patterns. (Highly educated Asians with long
    exposure to Western culture, however, are presumably less likely
    to misunderstand what is required of them). Curiously enough, the
    Embedded Figures Test correlates quite highly with another
    culturally biased instrument – the standard IQ test in the
    low and medium range of the scales although not at the higher end
    (see also Skehan 1989:114-115 on FI as a disguised measure of
    intelligence).

     

    In conclusion,
    cognitive style, in particular the FI-FD dimension, is a
    well-researched construct that includes not only cognitive and
    metacognitive elements but also the socio-affective side of the
    learner. Unlike Gardner’s (1984) theory of multiple
    intelligences (MI), it does not assume that linguistic
    functioning is separate from other types of functioning, but
    rather that people fall on a continuum between serialist and
    holist, analytical and intuitive, and independent and social, and
    have different strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, unlike MI
    theory, it does not presuppose that a person’s linguistic
    ability is more or less pre-determined at birth (see my article
    in Share No. 68) but rather that cognitive style is the result of
    complex interactions between hemisphere strengths and early
    learning experiences. Also, the fact that the Embedded Figures
    Test has been shown to be culturally biased should make us wary
    of assuming that hemisphere strengths are totally
    ‘biological" or "genetic" in origin. Above all, the
    research on cognitive style provides us with a rationale for
    diagnosing individual weaknesses, while suggesting that the ideal
    balance is somewhere in the middle of the FI/FD continuum. In
    this way, learners can be taught compensatory strategies so as to
    get the best of both worlds.

     © Douglas Andrew Town 1993, 2003

     References

    Buzan, T. (1989). Use your head. London BBC
    Books.

    De Bono, E. (1976). Teaching thinking. Pelican
    Books.

    Entwistle, N. (1988). Understanding classroom
    learning. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

    Gardner, H. (1984). Frames of mind. London:
    Heinemann.

    Lovell, R.B. (1980). Adult learning. London:
    Croom Helm.

    Oche, R. (1990). Before the gates of excellence:
    The determinance of creative genius. Cambridge:
    CUP.

    Skehan, P. (1989). Individual differences in
    second language learning. London: Arnold.

    Willing, K. (1988). Learning Styles in adult
    migrant education. NCRC Research: Adelaide.

    Witkin, H.A. (1975). ‘Some implications of
    cognitive style for problems of education’
    . In
    Personality and learning 1. Ed. by Whitehead, J.M. London:
    Hodder and Stoughton.

     

     Douglas Andrew
    Town
     BSc (Hons) Psychology, MA (English Language
    Teaching), Diploma in
     Translation (Spanish)
     Profesor de la
    Universidad de
    Belgrano, Argentina (Licenciatura en Inglés).
     

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