- Cognitive Styles and Cognitive Controls
- Research on Digital Skills and the Cognitive Style Field-Dependent / Independent
- Field-dependent/Field-independent
Research on Digital Skills and the Cognitive Style Field-Dependent / Independent
In 1985, Van der Veer, Tauber, Waerns, and Muylwijk posited the impact of users’ cognitive style construct field-dependent/field-independent on human-computer interaction:
Field-dependent persons develop a fixation to a certain solution that is valid in one situation and so encounter difficulties in a new one that is analogous but has some minor differences. They lack the ability to focus on analogies and to transfer their solution methods. With the user interface we predict field-dependent users to need extra help in transfer from one level of the interface to the next … Experienced users learning a new system will also encounter difficulties if they are field-dependent. They will lack the tendency to use mental models of a familiar system as an analogy for the acquisition of new ones, without adequate support (i.e. metacommunication about similarities and differences). We expect field-independent users to overcome these difficulties without support (Van der Veer et al., 1985, p. 295).
Since then, a considerable amount of research has been conducted, on the cognitive style construct field-dependent/independent (Chinien, 1990). This section of the review of literature will focus only on studies that are of more direct relevance to the objectives of this project, which is to establish the importance of the cognitive style construct field-dependence/field-independence in the acquisition and practice of digital skills.
The search and selection process to identify empirical research focused on digital skills and the cognitive style field-dependent / field-independent consisted of four stages as summarized in Table 2. In the first stage, we conducted a thorough search of dissertation abstracts using ProQuest, and a systematic search of selected electronic journals including IEEE Explore, PsycNet, ACM Digital library, EDITLIB, and ERIC. Using the online search tools EndNote and Mendeley, the UQAM’s search engine (Virtuose) and search engine on the internet (Google Scholar), we made a first selection of empirical studies focused on digital skills and the cognitive style field-dependent / field-independent, conducted with an adult target population. The search targeted mainly studies from the year 2000 to date and was performed with the following four groups of keywords:
(1) digital technology, computer, internet, CHI (Computer Human Interaction);
(2) cognitive style, analytical, field-dependent, field-independent;
(3) adults, workers, men/women, males/females;
(4) learning, acquisition, application, deploying, using.
These search terms were combined using the Boolean AND, OR, NOT to identify relevant documents based on titles and abstracts. This first search resulted in a total of two hundred and eighty six (286) studies.
In the second stage, a review of the selected research titles was performed to identify all studies that appeared to reveal a relationship between cognitive style field-dependent/field-independent and digital technology. Following this second stage, one hundred and thirty seven (137) studies remained in the selection.
In the third stage, the abstracts of the selected studies were skimmed to assess their relevance to the objective of this research and to verify the targeted research population. The selection included studies conducted with an adult population only. As a result of this assessment, ninety five (95) studies were identified.
Given the poor quality of some of the abstracts, in stage four of the selection process we read in more depth the selected studies to assess their relevance to the objective of this review and to ascertain that the sample consisted of an adult population. Following this analysis, seventy nine (79) studies were considered for this review.
Table 2. The search and selection process for the literature review.
Stage 1 | Search electronic journal and dissertation abstracts using search engines and four groups of search terms, based on date of publication (year 2000 to date). | 286 studies |
Stage 2 | Review title from selected research and exclude non relevant studies. | 137 studies |
Stage 3 | Skim abstract of selected studies, assess their relevance and verify the targeted population. | 95 studies |
Stage 4 | Read in more depth selected papers to assess their relevance to the objective of this review and to an adult population. | 79 studies |
Total | 79 studies |
Given that the purpose of this review of literature was to establish the importance of the cognitive style field-dependent and field-independent for the acquisition and practice of digital skills, only the summary findings of the studies reviewed are reported in Table 3. These research findings were analyzed and categorized in order to provide a better understanding of the importance of the cognitive skill field-dependent / independent in the acquisition and practice of digital skills.
Two comprehensive reviews of literature were used as a starting point for this section. Jonassen and Grabowski (1993) reviewed several studies assessing differences in learning between field-dependent and field-independent learners and made a summary of the implications of the style characteristics. The summary of his findings as cited by (Summerville, 1999, p. 5) is reported in Table 3.
Isaak-Ploegman (2003) conducted a comprehensive integrated review of literature to ascertain the effects of cognitive style field-dependent/ independent in the context of distance education for adult learners. The researcher identified several implications for educational practice that can be beneficial to field-dependent learners. These implications are also listed in Table 3 below (Isaak-Ploegman, 2003).
Table 3. Research findings on digital skills and the cognitive style Field-Dependent / Independent
(Kinley, Tjondronegoro, & Partridge, 2010)
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(Nguyen, Santos, & Russell, 2011) |
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(Wang, Hawk, & Tenopir, 2000) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
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(Ford & Chen, 2000) |
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(Oh & Albright 2004) |
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(Umemuro, 2004) |
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(Kim, 2000) |
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(Kim, 1997) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
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(Chen & Liu, 2008) |
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(Clewley, Chen, & Liu, 2011) |
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(Chang, 1995) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
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(Shih & Gamon, 1999) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
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(Palmquist & Kim, 2000) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
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(Wood, Ford, Miller, Sobczyk,
& Duffin, 1996) in (Chen & Macredie, 2002) |
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(Qin & Rau, 2008) |
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This is a very good contribution to research. Iam Phd research student and I will be to have materials on FD, FI. Instructional stategy
Do you want to use Neuroludus for collecting data for your research? Please let me know we can make arrangements
Chris