인지양식, 認知樣式, Cognitive Style
인지행동에 있어서 나타나는 개인차를 뜻하며, 대상에 대하여 자극상황이나 상태를 초월하여 개인이 일관성 있게 나타내는 반응양식을 의미한다.
이러한 인지양식을 학습장면에 적용하여 논의할 때는 학습양식(learning styles)이라고 하는데, 이는 학습활동 또는 학습과정에서 나타나는 개인의 고유한 반응양식을 말한다.
장독립적-장의존적 인지양식
장의존 (field-dependent), 장독립(filed-independent)
위트킨은 삽입된 도형을 찾아내는 잠입도형 검사를 통해 인지양식을 장독립형과 장의존형으로 구분했다.
장독립적 인지양식: 인식의 대상이 있는 환경, 즉 장(場)의 영향을 받지 않거나 적게 받는 사람의 인지양식을 말한다. 분석적, 구조화, 체계화, 비사회적, 사실과 원리에 집중 등의 특징을 보인다.
장의존형 인지양식: 사물의 지각에 있어서 그 사물의 배경, 즉 장(場)의 영향을 많이 받는 사람의 인지양식을 말한다. 직관적·종합적. 비구조적. 비체계적. 사회적. 개념을 자신의 경험과 연결 등의 특징을 보인다.
언어성지능이 높은 사람들은 검증된 정보만 수집하며
비구조화된 정보를 가만히 놔두려고 한다.
역사, 경제, 경영 등에 관심을 가지며
독서와 대인관계 같은 외부 척도에 의존한 성장이 효율적이며
이는 장의존적이라고 정의한다.
분석지능이 높은 사람들은 새로운 문제에 마주치는 걸 선호하며
비구조화된 정보를 계속 구조화시키려고 한다.
수학, 공학, 과학, 심리학에 관심을 가지며
관찰과 사색같은 내부 척도에 의존한 성장이 효율적이며
이는 장독립적이라고 정의한다.
전자는 실용적인 머리며 사회적인 사람들이 발달한다.
후자는 학구적인 머리며 내성적인 성향에서 주로 발달한다.
언어능력은
배경이 빈약해도 사람의 사회적 수준을 끌어올려주며
한 분야를 깊게 파기보단 폭넓게 인식하는 능력이기도 하다.
분석능력은
과제 해결에 특화돼있으며
주어진 과제를 파고드는 능력이다.
그럼 나무위키야 말로 얕고 넓게 파는데 특화돼 있고
매우 실용적인 학습법 아닌가?
책 100장 읽을때 나무위키 100페이지를 읽는 게 이득 아닌가?
| ① 장독립적 인지양식 | 어떤 사물을 지각할 때 그 사물의 배경에 영향을 받지 않거나 적게 받는 인지양식 |
| ② 장의존적 인지양식 | 사물의 지각에 있어서 그 사물의 배경에 영향을 많이 받는 인지양식 |
| 장독립형 | 장의존형 |
| 분석적·논리적임 : 주어진 대상을 분석적이고 논리적으로 지각 | 전체적·직관적임 : 주어진 대상을 있는 그대로 전체적이고 직관적으로 지각 |
| 구조화 능력이 뛰어남 : 상황을 분석하여 재조직하고 구조화하는데 능숙 ⇨비구조화된 학습자료 선호 | 기존의 구조를 수용 : 주어진 조직을 그대로 수용하고 재조직하지 못하는 경향 ⇨구조화된 학습자료 선호 |
| 내적 준거체계 소유 : 자신이 설정한 목표나 강화에 영향을 받는 경향 | 내적 준거체계 없음 : 외부에서 설정한 목표나 강화에 영향을 받는 경향 |
| 내적 동기 유발 : 활동의 선택, 개인의 목표 추구를 통해 내적 동기가 유발되는 경향. 외부비판에 영향을 적게 받음 | 외적 동기 유발 : 언어적 칭찬, 외적 보상 등에 의해 외적 동기가 유발되는 경향. 외부 비판에 영향을 많이 받음 |
| 개별 학습 선호 : 개별적, 독립적 학습 선호 | 동료학습 선호 : 동료와 함께 학습하는 것 선호 |
| 개인적 성향 : 사회적 관계에 관심이 없고 대인관계에 냉담(비사교적) | 사회적 성향 : 사회적 관계에 관심이 많고 대인관계를 중시(사교적) |
| 사회적 내용의 학습에 어려움 | 사회적 내용의 학습을 잘 함 |
| 수학, 자연과학 선호 : 수학자, 물리학자, 건축가, 외과의사와 같은 직업 선호 | 사회 관련 분야 선호 : 사회사업가, 카운슬러, 판매원, 정치가와 같은 직업 선호 |
| 개념이나 원리 지향적 ⇨실험적 | 사실이나 경험 지향적 ⇨관습적, 전통적 |
| 학문중심 교육과정에 유리 | 인간중심 교육과정에 유리 |
| 비선형적인 CAI(hyper-media)학습에 적합 | 선형적인 CAI 학습에 적합 |
Field-dependence/independence: cognitive style or perceptual ability?––validating against thinking styles and academic achievement
Abstract
In individual differences psychology, one of the long-standing debated issues has been focusing on the nature of the field-dependence/independence construct as defined in Witkin’s theory of psychological differentiation––the pioneer work in the study of intellectual styles. The present study examines the nature of the field-dependence/independence construct against academic achievement as well as against the thinking style construct as defined in Sternberg’s theory of mental self-government. Participants were 200 (154 female and 46 male) students enrolled in a large comprehensive university in Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China. Participants responded to the Group Embedded Figures Test and the Thinking Styles Inventory. Students’ academic achievements were also examined in relation to their field-dependence/independence (FDI) and thinking style scores. Major findings are (1) the FDI and the thinking style constructs were unrelated; and (2) whereas particular thinking styles were related to the students’ overall achievement in mathematics courses and courses in the Chinese language, the FDI scores were related only to students’ achievement in geometry. It was concluded that the field-dependence/independence construct represents perceptual ability, but not a broad cognitive style.
Introduction
No one could possibly provide a full account of the literature on intellectual styles (a broad term encompassing cognitive styles, learning styles, and thinking styles) without mentioning Witkin’s (1965) theory of psychological differentiation as represented by the field-dependence/independence construct (also see Witkin and Asch, 1948a, Witkin and Asch, 1948b; Witkin, Dyk, Faterson, Goodenough, & Karp, 1962; Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971). Individuals who are more field-independent are good at identifying objects or details that have surroundings that might obscure their view. They tend to see objects or details as discrete from their backgrounds. Individuals who are more field-dependent are less able to view things separate from the overall environment. They tend to be affected by the prevailing field or context. Several instruments have been developed to assess the field-dependence/independence (FDI) construct, including the widely used Embedded Figures Test (EFT) and the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT, Witkin et al., 1971).
For more than half a century, regarded as the pioneer work in the field of intellectual styles, Witkin’s concept of field-dependence/independence has been the most extensively researched and has generated the most interesting disputes among scholars. The focus of these disputes is on the nature of the field-dependence/independence construct. Some scholars (e.g., Kogan, 1980; Saracho, 1991, Saracho, 2001; Witkin & Goodenough, 1977) argued that the field-dependence/independence concept can be used to describe individual differences in a broadly defined intellectual (behavioral) style, whereas some others contended that the FDI construct primarily represents individual variations in perpetual/spatial/visual preference patterns (e.g., Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1995; Jones, 1997; Richardson & Turner, 2000; Shipman, 1990; Sternberg, 1994, Sternberg, 1997). While both sides of the argument have been presented at the conceptual level, both also are grounded in empirical research.
The contention that the FDI construct describes a broad intellectual style (often called “cognitive style”) is based on the overall empirical finding that the FDI construct plays an important role in people’s intellectual activities in a wide array of areas. For example, Dyk and Witkin (1965) reported that when parents encouraged their children to act independently, children tended to be field-independent. They also suggested that when children are encouraged to conform to authority, children tend to be more field-dependent. In the study of the role of field-dependence/independence in secondary school students’ re-enrollments in vocational education and their attitudes toward teachers and programs, Fritz (1981) found that re-enrolled drafting students were statistically more field-independent than were students in three home economics programs. Furthermore, he concluded that field-independent students were less concerned about interpersonal relations with their teachers. Woodward and Kalyan-Masih (1990) reported significant relationships of field-dependence/independence to loneliness as well as to coping strategies among gifted rural adolescents. They found that field-independent adolescents in rural environments sought individual pursuits, and demonstrated more autonomy and self-reliance. In his study of middle school students, Dulin (1993) found that field-independent students showed a significantly lower preference for cooperative learning. In his book “Cognitive styles and classroom learning”, Morgan (1997) noted that studies had reported that field-independent students from higher education institutions tend to select areas of study associated with the sciences and field-dependent students are more likely to choose fields of human services such as teaching and social work. More recently, Saracho (2001) pointed out that previous research had shown that field-dependence/independence characterizes an individual’s perceptual style, personality, intelligence, and social behavior.
The contention that the FDI construct primarily represents individual variations in perceptual/spatial/visual preference patterns is based on the repeated empirical evidence that (G)EFT performance is only related to intellectual tasks that require disembedding, especially visual disembedding. Furthermore, this argument is also supported by the absence of significant relationships between the field-dependence/independence construct and constructs defined by other models of intellectual styles.
Empirical evidence showing that field-independent people demonstrate superiority over field-dependent people in performing tasks that require visual disembedding is abundant. For instance, early in 1972, Vernon equated field-independence measures with spatial measures in the discussion of his empirical study of the relationships between field-independence measures and tests of abilities. Furthermore, he concluded that the field-independence measures did not define a factor distinct from spatial ability. Similarly, after administering a battery of 9 tests to 81 undergraduates, Hyde, Geiringer, and Yen (1975) conducted a factor analysis which indicated that tests of spatial ability, field-independence, and mental arithmetic emerged together in a spatial ability factor. In fact, as Richardson and Turner (2000) have pointed out, research in this area suggests that when field-dependence/independence is measured by the (G)EFT, scores converge with spatial ability scores of intelligence tests (e.g., Dubois & Cohen, 1970; Jones, 1997; Satterly, 1976; Spotts & Mackler, 1967; Stuart, 1967; Weisz, O’Neill, & O’Neill, 1975).
In the study of undergraduate architecture majors and business majors using the Group Embedded Figures Test, Morris and Bergum (1978) found that students majoring in architecture (a field of study that requires a high level of visual disembedding) were significantly more field-independent than were students majoring in business. Copeland (1983) identified significant relationships of field-dependence/independence to yet another area of study that requires high level of perceptual ability: art appreciation. Copeland’s investigation of students in university art appreciation courses suggested that students with higher GEFT scores received significantly higher course grades than did students with lower GEFT scores. When studying the relationships between field-dependence/independence and mechanical engineering technology students’ achievement, Thomas (1986) found that the field independents tended to achieve significantly better in technical drawing courses, mechanics courses with a strong emphasis on drawing free-body diagrams, and a course with a strong emphasis on diagramming.
Furthermore, scholars (e.g., Richardson & Turner, 2000; Shipman, 1990) challenge the globality of Witkin’s construct of field-dependence/independence also because the FDI construct has failed in obtaining significant relationships with constructs defined in other models more widely known as models of intellectual styles. For example, Shade (1984) administered both the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1962) and the Group Embedded Figures Test to a group of 180 ninth-graders. Factor analysis resulted in two factors, with one being dominated by the common component of the use of visual analysis, and the other being most represented by the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. She concluded that field-dependence/independence primarily represents individual variations in perceptual preference patterns rather than the traditionally defined behavioral styles. Also for instance, many studies exploring the relationships between extraversion and field-dependence indicated that there was no significant relationship between the two (e.g., Fine, 1972; Loo & Townsend, 1977; Riding & Dyer, 1983; Satterly, 1979).
The present study attempts to join this dispute by presenting the findings obtained from testing the FDI construct against a more recent and general model of intellectual styles: Sternberg, 1988, Sternberg, 1997 theory of mental self-government. Using the word “government” metaphorically, Sternberg, 1988, Sternberg, 1997 contended that just as there are many ways of governing a society, there are many ways of governing or managing our activities. These different ways of managing our activities can be construed as our thinking styles. In managing our activities, we choose styles with which we feel comfortable. Moreover, we use different thinking styles depending on the stylistic demands of a given situation. Another important feature of thinking styles is that they are at least partially socialized, suggesting that thinking styles can be cultivated and modified.
The theory of mental self-government describes 13 thinking styles that fall along five dimensions. These are three functions (legislative, executive, and judicial styles), four forms (hierarchical, oligarchic, monarchic, and anarchic styles), two levels (global and local styles), two scopes (internal and external styles), and two leanings (liberal and conservative styles) of the mental self-government. The key characteristics of each of these 13 thinking styles are briefly summarized in Appendix A.
The theory of mental self-government has been operationalized through a number of instruments, including through the most frequently used Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992). Internal validity of the theory has been demonstrated in many studies (e.g., Bernardo, Zhang, & Callueng, 2002; Dai & Feldhusen, 1999; Zhang, 1999; Zhang & Sternberg, 1998) conducted among students and teachers from a number of cultural groups, including Hong Kong, mainland China, the Philippines, and the United States. External validity of the theory has been obtained through examining the nature of thinking styles not only against a number of constructs that belong to the family of intellectual styles such as Biggs’s (1992) concept of learning approach (see Zhang & Sternberg, 2000) and Holland, 1973, Holland, 1994 notion of career personality types (see Zhang, 2000), but also against a few constructs that are perceived to be significantly correlated with the thinking style construct, including Costa and McCrae’s (1992) big five personality traits (see Zhang, 2002a) and Perry’s (1999) construct of cognitive development (see Zhang, 2002c).
This research focusing on thinking styles has suggested that the thinking style construct represents a broad intellectual style for two reasons. First, it has been demonstrated that thinking styles play important roles in multiple aspects relevant to student development both inside and outside the classroom. Second, this research has proved that the thinking style construct encompasses intellectual style constructs from all three traditions to the study of styles as reviewed by Sternberg (1997). These three traditions are cognition-centered (e.g., modes of thinking and learning, see Zhang, 2002b), personality-centered (e.g., vocational interest/personality types, see Zhang, 2000), and activity-centered (e.g., learning approaches, see Zhang & Sternberg, 2000).
Thus, the present study selected the thinking style construct, a broad intellectual style construct, in testing whether the field-dependence/independence construct represents a broad intellectual style construct or it simply represents individual variations in perceptual/spatial/visual (these three terms will be used interchangeably in this paper) preference patterns. Two specific research questions were investigated. First, are students’ scores on the field-dependence/independence scale significantly related to their scores on the thinking style scales? Second, are students’ academic achievement scores in Mathematics and Chinese Language significantly correlated with their scores on the field-dependence/independence scale and on the thinking style scales, respectively? If so, how are they related?
Both research questions were set to study the relationships between the thinking style construct and the field-dependence/independence construct. Whereas the first question asks more directly about the relationships between the two constructs, the second question makes use of an intermediate variable (i.e., academic achievement) to further examine the relationships between the two constructs.
The logic behind the first research question is as follows: If the FDI construct simply represents perceptual ability, it should not be significantly related to thinking styles that are defined by a rather general model of intellectual styles. However, if the FDI construct represents a more general stylistic behavior, it should be significantly related to thinking styles. Moreover, if the two constructs are significantly related, they should be related in the following ways: First, higher field-independence scores are significantly positively related to the legislative, judicial, global, hierarchical, oligarchic, anarchic, liberal, and the internal thinking styles. Second, higher field-dependence scores are significantly positively related to the executive, local, monarchic, conservative, and external thinking styles. These hypothetical significant relationships were based on the definition of each of the thinking styles in the theory of mental self-government as well as on the characteristics of field-dependence and of field-independence documented in the literature (e.g., Goodenough & Karp, 1961; Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993; Kalgo & Isyaku, 1993; Saracho, 2001; Witkin et al., 1971). For example, while people higher on the legislative thinking style prefer to choose their own activities and to work on tasks that allow them to use their flexibility and creativity (Sternberg, 1988, Sternberg, 1997), the field independents experience independence from authority which leads them to depend on their own standards and values (Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993). While an individual with the internal thinking style prefers to work on tasks that allow him/her to work as an independent unit (Sternberg, 1988, Sternberg, 1997), the field independents are described as being socially detached and preferring occupations that allow them to work by themselves (Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993). Also for instance, individuals with the conservative thinking style are characterized by their preference for working on tasks that allow them to adhere to existing rules and conventions in performing tasks (Sternberg, 1988, Sternberg, 1997). By the same token, the field dependents are described as being uncomfortable with unconventionals and as relying on standard approaches (Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993).
The logic behind the second research question is as follows: If the FDI construct merely represents perceptual ability, it should be significantly related only to academic tasks that require perceptual/visual disembedding. However, if the FDI construct represents a broad cognitive style, it should be related to academic performance in ways that are consistent with the ways that particular thinking styles are related to academic performance. Specifically, an achievement score that is significantly related to the field-dependence dimension should also be significantly related to the thinking styles that are hypothesized to be related to the field-dependence dimension. Similarly, if the two constructs are significantly related, an achievement score that is significantly related to the field-independence dimension should also be significantly related to the thinking styles that are hypothesized to be related to the field-independence dimension.
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Section snippets
Participants
Volunteer participants for this research were 200 (154 female and 46 male) students from a large research-oriented university from Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China. With 20 years being both the mean and the median, the students’ ages ranged from 18 to 23 years. Of all participants, 103 students were majoring in the Chinese Language, and 97 students were majoring in Mathematics. There were 75 freshmen, 67 sophomores, and 58 juniors.
Measures
Data on two kinds of measures were collected for this
Zero-order TSI and FDI (sub)scale correlations
None of the Pearson’s correlation coefficients between the GEFT (sub)scales and the thinking styles scales was statistically significant at the 0.05 level. This finding indicated that the FDI construct and the thinking style construct are unrelated. These non-significant correlation coefficients are presented in Table 2.
Principal component factor analysis
Exploratory principal component factor analysis with an oblique rotation yielded five factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. These five factors accounted for 68% of the
Discussion and conclusion
The present study examined the nature of the field-dependence/independence construct against a general model of intellectual styles: the theory of mental self-government. The relationships between the GEFT (sub)scales and the thinking styles scales were first tested by zero-order correlations, factor analysis, and t-tests, respectively. Results from none of these statistical procedures suggested significant relationships between the FDI and thinking style constructs.
In order to further
Implications
In this study, the theory of mental self-government, a general and one of the most recent models of intellectual styles, has been used to test the nature of field-dependence/independence, the pioneer work in the field of intellectual styles. The results have not only provided further evidence for the argument that the field-dependence/independence construct represents perceptual ability, but also enriched our understanding of the nature of thinking styles defined in the theory of mental
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Wu Jieh-Yee Research Fund as administered by The University of Hong Kong for its strong support to this research project.