Since the 1950s, inquiry has been considered an effective strategy to promote students’ science learning. However, the use of inquiry in contemporary science classrooms is minimal, despite its long history and wide recognition elsewhere. Besides, inquiry is commonly confused with discovery learning, which needs minimal level of teacher supervision. The lack of thorough description of how inquiry works in diverse classroom settings is known to be a critical problem. To analyze the complex and dynamic nature of inquiry practices, a comprehensive tool is needed to capture its essence. In this dissertation, I studied inquiry lessons conducted by one high school science teacher of 9th grade students. The inquiry sequence lasted for 10 weeks. Using the Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS), elements of inquiry were analyzed from multiple perspectives. The SPA-map analysis, developed as a part of this dissertation, revealed the types of scientific practices in which students were involved. The results from the M-SCOPS provide thorough descriptions of complex inquiry lessons in terms of their content, flow, instructional scaffolding and representational scaffolding. In addition to the detailed descriptions of daily inquiry practices occurring in a dynamic classroom environment, the flow of the lessons in a sequence was analyzed with particular focus on students’ participation in scientific practices. The findings revealed the overall increase of student-directed instructional scaffolding within the inquiry sequence, while no particular pattern was found in representational scaffolding. Depending on the level of cognitive complexity imposed on students, the lessons showed different association patterns between the level of scaffolding and scientific practices. The findings imply that teachers need to provide scaffolding in alignment with learning goals to achieve students’ scientific proficiency.

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Counselor cognitive complexity is a counselor’s ability to recognize and organize multiple characteristics that might affect client needs. I examined whether various admissions criteria–Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical Writing scores; previous coursework grade point averages; and faculty co-leaders’ admissions group interview ratings–for 182 applicants to a southwestern U.S. CACREP-accredited master’s counseling program predicted cognitive complexity scores on a modified Counselor Cognitions Questionnaire (CCQ). Participants were predominantly ages 20 to 30 years (91.8%), female (91.8%), and White (81.3%). Multiple regression analyses showed statistical significance with small effect sizes: the admissions criteria together significantly predicted cognitive complexity differentiation (p = .033), accounting for 6.6% of variance, and cognitive complexity integration (p = .003), accounting for 9.8% of variance. The small effect sizes and low variance percentages support the idea that cognitive complexity measured by the modified CCQ is a substantially different phenomenon from commonly-assessed academic aptitude and personality characteristics. If future researchers confirm these findings with additional samples, subsequent researchers could determine whether one or both domains of cognitive complexity, either alone or in combination with one or more of the commonly used admissions criteria, could help counselor educators better predict which applicants will be successful in master’s programs and the counseling field.

Despite the increased attention directed toward high potential and talent in the world of work, conceptual and empirical research is lagging and is needed to better understand what these concepts represent and how they can be predicted (Dries, 2013; Silzer & Church, 2009). The present dissertation sought to address these gaps using discursive and psychological approaches. In Study 1, semi-structured interviews were conducted with executive and senior leaders from a Canadian post-secondary institution to understand how they made sense of and gave sense to high potential and talent. I analyzed transcripts from 20 participants using discourse analysis. The analysis revealed that ‘high potential’ was in the initial stages of entering the focal institution’s discourse and tied to the concept of ‘leadership.’ Talent was used in a general sense to depict successful, skilled, or accomplished individuals. Leadership books and their corresponding ideas served as discursive resources that were used by participants to reshape, legitimate, and contest the shifting meaning of leadership that was occurring in the focal institution and to define the meaning of ‘high potential leadership.’ Moreover, the leadership books (and the associated ideas) were embedded within leadership development programming and other HR practices in the institution. In Study 2, associations between distinct dimensions of cognitive complexity (i.e., differentiation and integration) with leadership level and high potential recommendations were examined in a sample of mid- and senior-level leaders from the aforementioned post-secondary institution. Using two novel computer-assisted software programs (i.e., Profiler Plus & Automated Integrative Complexity), participants’ responses to six questions on the topic of leadership were content analyzed to assess the extent to which their cognitive representations were differentiated and integrated. As expected, participants holding senior leadership positions possessed lower differentiation and higher integration than mid-level leaders. Furthermore, mid-level leaders possessing higher differentiation and lower integration were provided with more high potential recommendations from senior leaders. I discuss the findings of this work within the context of how cognitive complexity may be a valid predictor of high potential leadership across its shifting conceptions. / February 2017

Supervision literature has indicated the importance of the supervisory working alliance in the development of effective supervision (Landy, Ellis, & Friedlander, 1999). While there has been a wealth of research on the role of the supervisory working alliance within supervision, there is a dearth of information on how this alliance is formed (Cooper & Ng, 2009). The purpose of this study is to examine if supervision cognitive complexity is a unique aspect of cognitive complexity within counseling and better understand its role in the formation of the supervisory working alliance. Forty-two participants were selected from CACREP accredited masters and doctoral programs located in the North Central region of the Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors (NCACES). Cognitive complexity was measured via two different measures: the Counselor Cognitions Questionnaire (CCQ) and Supervision Cognitive Complexity Questionnaire (SCCQ). The supervisory working alliance was measured by the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory-Trainee (SWAI-T) which measures the supervisory working alliance from the perspective of the trainee. Results indicated a strong correlation between counseling cognitive complexity and supervision cognitive complexity. Further, the supervision working alliance was not significantly correlated with either measure of cognitive complexity. Supervision cognitive complexity did provide a significant contribution to the variance accounted for in the subscale of client focus in the SWAI-T. Implications for counselor educators and supervisors are discussed.

The main aim of this study is to investigate human understanding of process models and to develop an improved understanding of its relevant influence factors. Aided by assumptions from cognitive psychology, this article attempts to address specific deductive reasoning difficulties based on process models. The authors developed a research model to capture the influence of two effects on the cognitive difficulty of reasoning tasks: (i) the presence of different control-flow patterns (such as conditional or parallel execution) in a process model and (ii) the interactivity of model elements. Based on solutions to 61 different reasoning tasks by 155 modelers, the results from this study indicate that the presence of certain control-flow patterns influences the cognitive difficulty of reasoning tasks. In particular, sequence is relatively easy, while loops in a model proved difficult. Modelers with higher process modeling knowledge performed better and rated subjective difficulty of loops lower than modelers with lower process modeling knowledge. The findings additionally support the prediction that interactivity between model elements is positively related to the cognitive difficulty of reasoning. Our research contributes to both academic literature on the comprehension of process models and practitioner literature focusing on cognitive difficulties when using process models.

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has quickly become the industry standard for object-oriented software development. It is being widely used in organizations and institutions around the world. However, UML is often found to be too complex for novice systems analysts. Although prior research has identified difficulties novice analysts encounter in learning UML, no viable solution has been proposed to address these difficulties. Sequence-diagram modeling, in particular, has largely been overlooked. The sequence diagram models the behavioral aspects of an object-oriented software system in terms of interactions among its building blocks, i.e. objects and classes. It is one of the most commonly-used UML diagrams in practice. However, there has been little research on sequence-diagram modeling. The current literature scarcely provides effective guidelines for developing a sequence diagram. Such guidelines will be greatly beneficial to novice analysts who, unlike experienced systems analysts, do not possess relevant prior experience to easily learn how to develop a sequence diagram. There is the need for an effective sequence-diagram modeling technique for novices. This dissertation reports a research study that identified novice difficulties in modeling a sequence diagram and proposed a technique called CHOP (CHunking, Ordering, Patterning), which was designed to reduce the cognitive load by addressing the cognitive complexity of sequence-diagram modeling. The CHOP technique was evaluated in a controlled experiment against a technique recommended in a well-known textbook, which was found to be representative of approaches provided in many textbooks as well as practitioner literatures. The results indicated that novice analysts were able to perform better using the CHOP technique. This outcome seems have been enabled by pattern-based heuristics provided by the technique. Meanwhile, novice analysts rated the CHOP technique more useful although not significantly easier to use than the control technique. The study established that the CHOP technique is an effective sequence-diagram modeling technique for novice analysts.

The objective of this study was to test the efficiency of an educacional program (PECC) in order to improve moral reasoning and cognitive complexity. The sample was 18 tenth-grade students of both genders, aged 15-16 years. Even though there were no structural advances in the moral reasoning leve!, there was an increase of reasoning complexity and in the number of elements that the subjects were able to identify in social dilemma. / El objetivo de esta investigación fue probar la eficiencia de un programa educativo (PECC) para elevar el nivel de razonamiento moral y de complejidad cognitiva. La muestra estuvo constituida por 18 estudiantes de 4to de secundaria, de ambos sexos, de 15 y 16 años de edad. Los resultados indican que, aunque no se dieron avances estructurales en el nivel de razonamiento moral, hubo un incremento de la complejidad del razonamiento y en el número de elementos que los sujetos fueron capaces de identificar en los dilemas sociales.

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Conduct an exploratory study on operationally focussed managers within a South African company, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, to determine the correlation between the required and actual levels of complexity and time-span of control at specific hierarchical levels / Organisational design needs to be in line with capabilities of the individual-inrole. The structure of an organization directly impacts the overall effectiveness and ultimately the success of such an organization and the number of layers required in any given hierarchy is a product of the organization’s mission (Jaques, 1989). Stratified Systems Theory (Jaques, 1989) defines work in seven strata based on a basis of decision-making complexity. The research presented here identifies a specific organisation’s current level of work based on complexity and the time-span of decision-making. Research was done in one specific geographical region of a company operating in the Supply Chain and Logistics industry in South Africa. Qualitative data collection was done by means of interviews with a defined sample group that provided an adequate cross-section of the main functions of the business, however, the sampling technique used may not provide results representative of the entire population. ii The Brunel Institute for Organisation and Social Studies’ (BIOSS) Matrix of Working Relationships was used as main basis for reporting results. The research indicates that the organisation is presently, according to Jaques Stratified Systems Theory (Jaques, 1989), operating at one level below their intended level that will allow them to effectively meet their longterm strategic objectives. The report identifies shortcomings in terms of the current capabilities of the individual-in-role and the actual work requirements, setting a foundation for further analysis of individual capabilities for effective organisational design. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL