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)

Information processing

Learning
strengths

 Human relations

  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).