Malleability of cognitive style
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Research References |
Findings |
(Agor, 1989) |
- Cognitive style is malleable.
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(Allison & Hayes, 1996) |
- Cognitive style is malleable.
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(Messick, 1976; Kogan, 1980; Robertson, 1985; Kirton, 1989) |
- Cognitive style is fixed.
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(Zhang, 2005) |
- Research has failed to confirm whether cognitive style is fixed or malleable. Available evidence-based information is inconsistent and contradictory.
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Information processing
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Research References |
Findings |
(Avilio, Alexander, Barrett, & Sterns, 1979) |
- FD individuals prefer to process information at a slower pace than FI learners.
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(Boysen & Thomas, 1980) |
- FD individuals have a slower reaction time than FI individuals.
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(Dickstein, 1968) |
- FD individuals pay more attention to salient cues than to relevant ones.
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(Davis & Frank, 1979) |
- FD individuals tend to test fewer hypotheses, and experience more difficulties in recalling cues and information extracted.
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(Beuhring & Kee, 1987) |
- FD individuals tend to apply shallow level of information processing and inefficient strategies for restructuring contents.
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(Fyle, 2009) |
- Cognitive style awareness of style is a precondition for metacognition.
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(Spanger & Tate, 1988) |
- FD learners exhibit rigidity in information processing and are unable to consider alternate outcomes.
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(Hecht & Reiner, 2007) |
- FI experienced an enhanced sense of presence in a haptic virtual environment.
- FI were able to create ‘‘missing information’’ and to concentrate on relevant information only, ignoring “noisy” information (p. 247).
- This finding supports previous research indicating that FI are more creative than FD (Hecht & Reiner citing Rastogi, 1987 and Noppe, 1985).
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(Kroutter, 2010) |
- ‘‘cognitive style differences are more influential on the learning process than on the learning outcome in the virtual environment’’ (p. 172).
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(Lee 2000) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
- FI learners tended to employ the internal reference strategy, while FD learners tended to rely on the external reference strategy when building a Home page.
- Learners’ performances deteriorated when they received an instructional strategy that contradicted with their cognitive styles. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 10).
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Learning
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Research References |
Findings |
(Berger & Goldberger, 1979); (Isaak-Ploegman, 2003) |
- FI students are more task-oriented than FD students and are more able to focus their attention on relevant aspects of the task.
- FI students were able to remember details and learn new rules.
- FI students can locate main ideas.
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(Davis, 1987) |
- FI learners focus their efforts on distinguished features, while FD learners tend to scan for more information and are easily distracted by irrelevant cues.
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Andris, 1996) |
- FI students assimilated information more quickly in a complex and visual environment, preferring less the more linear style of tutorial and the multiple questions than FD students in a geology laboratory simulation. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 5).
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(Angeli & Valanides, 2013) |
- FD/I ‘‘represent differences in cognitive abilities’’ (p. 1364).
- FI outperformed FD in problem solving ‘‘under instructional conditions that do not impose high extraneous cognitive load’’ (p. 1364).
- FI learners outperformed FD learners in problem solving tasks presented in different instructional formats (integrated and split) (p. 1364).
The authors stress the need for effective instructional designs to effectively support, facilitate, and guide all students’ learning irrespective of their FD/I. (p. 1364). |
(Summerville, 1999) |
- Awareness of students’ cognitive style did not make a difference in their learning
outcomes. Most students need additional support regardless of their cognitive styles when completing complex tasks. |
Academic achievement
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Research References |
Findings |
(Donnarumma, Cox, & Beder, 1980) in (Cao, 2006) |
- FD’s success rate on the General Educational Development Test (GED): 9.5% succeeded, 33.3% failed and 57.1% dropped out.
- FI’s success rate on the General Educational Development Test (GED): 52.6% succeeded, 15.8% failed and 31.6% dropped out.
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(Bai, 2008) |
- Support that FI have higher academic achievement in nonexistent social interdependence conditions than FD ‘‘who work in positive social interdependence conditions’’ (p.1).
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(Bal, 1988) |
- Strongly support that field independence contributes to academic achievement.
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(Paramo & Tinajero, 1990) |
- Strongly support that field independence contributes to academic achievement.
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(Savage, 1983) |
- Strongly support that field independence contributes to academic achievement.
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(Abdollahpour & Kadivar, 2006) |
- Strongly support that field independence contributes to academic achievement in mathematics.
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(Zhang, 2005) |
- There is evidence which indicates that if the individual’s cognitive style matches the information processing requirements of the situation or job, the individual will find it relatively easy to attend to and interpret relevant information and use it to decide how to act in order to perform effectively.
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(Paramo & Tinajero, 1990) |
- Field-dependent-independent is a predictor of academic achievement.
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(Robeck, 1982) |
- Field independence contributes to academic achievement in reading.
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(Hayes & Allinson, 1997) |
- FI learners succeed regardless of instructional strategies.
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(Archer, 2005) |
- FI outperformed FD in web-based instruction systems when using concepts maps and content outlines.
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(Hammoud, Love, & Brinkman, (2009) |
- Cognitive styles seem to have an effect on student achievements (p. 69)
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(Parkinson & Redmond, 2002) |
- FI students performed better in the Internet treatment than in the CD-ROM and Text treatments (Parkinson & Redmond, 2002, p. 42);
- FI also performed better overall (p. 42);
- Witkin’s FD/FI is the most consistent predictor of final score irrespective of treatment (Parkinson & Redmond, 2002, p. 42);
- Witkin’s FD/FI is the most consistent predictor of final score in the Internet environment (p. 42).
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(Korthaure & Koubek, 1994) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
- Experienced FI subjects outperformed Experienced-FD subjects in ergonomics, especially when explicit structure was not provided. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 5)
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(Boyce, 1999) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
- FI students showed higher scores for learning performance in distance learning course. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 7)
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(Chou & Lin, 1997) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
- Cognitive style was significantly related to the development of cognitive maps in an introduction course on computer network. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 7).
- FI students scored higher than FD students on the cognitive map in an introduction course on computer network. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 7).
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(Fullerton, 2000) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
- There was no significant correlation between cognitive styles and learning achievement on human heart.
- FD learners scored lower than FI learners and intermediate learners in a condition mismatched with their preferred manipulation style. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 10).
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Fyle, 2009 |
- FD/FI learners ‘‘with style awareness achieved higher scores than their counterparts who received no style awareness’’ (page ix).
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(Witten, 1989) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 10) |
- FI students tended to perform better than FD students in psychology course on all treatment levels.
- FD students performed at essentially equivalent levels as FI students in a congruent teaching method. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 10)
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Evidence-Based Instructional Strategies for Field-dependent/independent learners
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Research References |
Findings |
(Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993) cited by (Summerville, 1999) |
Instructional conditions that capitalize on the preferences of the field-dependent learners and challenge the field-independent learners:
- Providing a synergogic (social) learning environment;
- Offering deliberate structural support with salient cues, especially organizational cues such as advanced organizers;
- Providing clear, explicit directions and the maximum amount of guidance;
- Including orienting strategies before instruction;
- Providing extensive feedback (especially informative);
- Presenting advance organizers (verbal, oral, or pictorial);
- Presenting outlines or graphic organizers of content;
- Providing prototypic examples;
- Advising learner of instructional support needed (examples, practice items, tools, resources);
- Providing graphic, oral or auditory cues;
- Embedding questions throughout learning; and
- Providing deductive or procedural instructional sequences (p. 97).
Instructional conditions that capitalize on the preferences of the field-independent learners and challenge the field-dependent learners include:
- Providing an independent learning environment;
- Utilizing inquiry and discovery teaching methods;
- Providing abundant content resources and reference material to sort through;
- Providing independent, contract-based self-instruction;
- Providing minimal guidance and direction;
- Asking the learner to pose questions to be answered;
- Using inductive instructional sequence;
- Creating outlines, pattern notes, concept maps, etc.; and
- Using theoretical elaboration sequences (pp. 97-98).
Source: Adapted from (Summerville, 1999, p. 5) |
(Lee, 2006) |
- When introductory-level instruction emphasized an FD approach, both FD and FI complete successfully a visually-oriented tasks in online settings (p. iii).
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(Manfredo, 1987) |
- ‘‘trainability could be maximized by matching the FD/FI dimensions of cognitive style … with method of instruction’’ (p. 1).
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(Redmond, Walsh, & Parkinson, 2003) |
- When better structured learning environments and support is provided to FD learners, FD and FI performed similarly in text and web environments.
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(Elliot, 1976) |
- Concept attainment can be improved when instructional materials are designed for a specific cognitive style dimension.
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(Greco & McClung, 1979) |
- Results indicated a superiority of performance for field- independent students, regardless of the treatment. Attention directing strategies was found to be more effective for the field-independent than field-dependent students.
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(Grieve & Davis, 1971) |
- A significant interaction was found between cognitive style FI/FD and methodology. The deductive approach was more effective with FI learners.
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Implications of research to accommodate field-dependent adults in distant education
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Research References |
Findings |
(Isaak-Ploegman, 2003) |
Implications of research to accommodate field-dependent adults in distant education:
- Provide instructions on mnemonic and hierarchical memory techniques;
- Provide instruction on restructuring;
- Provide instruction on note taking and organizational;
- Provide instruction on a hypothetical approach to problem solving;
- Maximize instructor communication;
- Increase peer communication;
- Provide access to learning centers, labs, tutors;
- Provide technological support;
- Evaluate instruction using feedback from FD and FI learners;
- Humanize instruction;
- Provide charts, summaries, outlines, notes, and graphs;
- Diminish field factor;
- Provide navigation aids;
- Use cooperative learning techniques;
- Provide direct guidance;
- Teach both breadth and depth;
- Teach from global to specific;
- Provide reflective learning tasks;
- Model cognitive style flexibility;
- Interact face-to-face with learners;
- Use a variety of assessment tools;
- Minimize use of line graphs;
- Supplement instruction with sound whenever possible;
- Reduce interfering conditions;
- Give short learning tasks;
- Provide short due dates intervals;
- Balance use of inferential and factual questions;
- Closely monitor self-pacing;
- Colour-code instructional materials;
- Use animation.
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(Boyce, 1999) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 7) |
- Navigational styles were not found to be significantly different between FD & FI, in distance learning course. (Chen & Macredie, 2002, p. 7).
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(Parkinson, Redmond, & Walsh, 2004) |
- Providing navigational aids to accommodate FD users in a web-based interface reduce the disparity in the performance between FD and FI.
- These adaptations ‘‘did not adversely affect the performance of the FI individuals’’ (p. 75).
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Internet – web search
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