Many distance education researches have pointed out that students are often forced to study in isolation due to the lack of support from mates and regular attendance. Thus, the objective of this research is to find effective group composition methods to increase the interaction among students in asynchronous distance education using the theories of cooperative learning, group dynamics and social cognitive theory as foundations. The outcome can be a reference for the design of network cooperative learning activity and web-based instructional system in the future. This study is conducted in NSYSU Cyber University using surveys and observations to investigate the influence of cognitive style on cooperative learning when different types of tasks are assigned. This research concludes that the choices of discussion tools in the chat room are different under intellective and decision-making tasks. Moreover, regardless of the task types, the heterogeneous groups outperform the homogeneous group during the cooperative learning process. Finally, the cognitive style is significantly related to group satisfaction in a cooperative learning environment

A Study of the Effect of Cognitive Styles Learning Approaches on Identifying English Clause Tasks Lieu, Pin-huei Abstract The main purpose of this study intended to discuss the effect of Field Independent subjects(FIs), Field Dependent subjects (FDs) of junior high school using Discovery, Rule Learning approaches on identifying English clauses task. The questions explored here were: 1.How did FIs and FDs differently perform on identifying English clauses tasks. 2.How did Discovery and Rule learning approaches differently perform on identifying English clauses tasks. 3.How did FIs / FDs and Discovery/Rule learning approaches create interactive effect on identifying English clauses tasks. The study used experimental research method. The subjects were 90 third grade students of junior high school. According to the scores of Embedded Figures Test students were divided into FI and FD. Then depending on the scores of the prior test on identifying English clauses task, FIs and FDs match with two group to accept Discovery and Rule learning approaches , and each one was composed of 10 students. The instruments was ¡§ Embedded Figures Test¡¨ , ¡§self-made that clauses test ,¡¨and the information acquired was dealt with statistical testing through 2*2 ANOVA .The results indicated as followings. 1.An interactive effect of cognitive style and learning approaches were found through ANOVA. FIs using Discovery learning performed better than using Rule learning ,and FDs using Rule learning performed better using Discovery learning .In sum ,FIs appropriately use Discovery learning approach and FDs appropriately use Rule learning approach on identifying English clauses task. 2.Cognitive style lives up significantly different level .FIs performed better than those of FDs. 3.No overall difference were found between Discovery and Rule learning approach. Finally the study discussed the above results in more detail ,and provided suggestions and references of research concerning teaching of English clauses .

<p>The overall aim of the study is to get a better understanding for the relation between different forms of representation in ICT-interfaces and cognitive variation in individuals. Cognitive style is, according to Riding & Al-Hajji (2000) ”an individual’s preferred and habitual approach to both organizing and representing information”. Research of the relation between cognitive style and learning performance has shown, according to Riding & Al-Hajji (2000), that pupils learn best when the structure, the content and the mode of presentation of the material suits their style.</p><p>On the basis of an explorative pre-analysis of a multimedia program for learning mathematics, named Matador, a general hypothesis was formulated. The general hypothesis that was examined is: The Matador multimedia program can be improved as concerns the presentational formats both for pupils who are helped by and attracted by visual information and – in particular – for pupils who are helped by and attracted by verbal information. A minor user’s test with 10-15 year old pupils was carried out in order to complement the pre-analysis by testing some specific details of the program with users. The results of the study indicate that there are certain aspects that could be improved, especially for those who are helped by and attracted by verbal information.</p>

The purpose of this study was to explore leadership effectiveness from the perspectives of the Full Range Leadership Model and Cognitive Style Theory within the framework of understanding both followers and leaders as individual's attitudes to leadership effectiveness. Leadership effectiveness was measured using newly developed self-report instrument, the Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ) with three scales of effectiveness as suggested by Yukl (2002), which were: 1) aims, 2) followers' attitude towards the leader and, 3) group processes. The Full Range leadership approaches were measured using Bass & Avolio's (1997) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Form 5X-Short, whilst cognitive style was gathered by using Allinson & Hayes's (1996) Cognitive Style Index (CSI). A two stage (questionnaire survey followed by semi structured interviews) mixed method study was undertaken. Questionnaire data was gathered from 331 followers and 172 leaders in Malaysian Government-Linked Companies, and 10 leaders involved in the interviews. Findings from the survey suggest that a transformational approach was correlated significantly and positively with effectiveness. Intuitive Cognitive Style also correlated significantly with leadership effectiveness. Findings from the semistructured interviews identified a few more characteristics of an effective leadership such as balance and appreciative, whilst new dimensions of cognitive style identified such as rational and holistic.

This PhD study examines some of what happens in an individual’s mind regarding creativity during problem solving within an organisational context. It presents innovations related to creative motivation, cognitive style and framing effects that can be applied by managers to enhance individual employee creativity within the organisation and thereby assist organisations to become more innovative. The project delivers an understanding of how to leverage natural changes in creative motivation levels during problem solving. This pattern of response is called Creative Resolve Response (CRR). The project also presents evidence of how framing effects can be used to influence decisions involving creative options in order to enhance the potential for managers get employees to select creative options more often for implementation. The study’s objectives are to understand: • How creative motivation changes during problem solving • How cognitive style moderates these creative motivation changes • How framing effects apply to decisions involving creative options to solve problems • How cognitive style moderate these framing effects The thesis presents the findings from three controlled experiments based around self reports during contrived problem solving and decision making situations. The first experiment suggests that creative motivation varies in a predictable and systematic way during problem solving as a function of the problem solver’s perception of progress. The second experiment suggests that there are specific framing effects related to decisions involving creativity. It seems that simply describing an alternative as innovative may activate perceptual biases that overcome risk based framing effects. The third experiment suggests that cognitive style moderates decisions involving creativity in complex ways. It seems that in some contexts, decision makers will prefer a creative option, regardless of their cognitive style, if this option is both outside the bounds of what is officially allowed and yet ultimately safe. The thesis delivers innovation on three levels: theoretical, methodological and empirical. The highlights of these findings are outlined below: 1. Theoretical innovation with the conceptualisation of Creative Resolve Response based on an extension of Amabile’s research regarding creative motivation. 2. Theoretical innovation linking creative motivation and Kirton’s research on cognitive style. 3. Theoretical innovation linking both risk based and attribute framing effects to cognitive style. 4. Methodological innovation for defining and testing preferences for creative solution implementation in the form of operationalised creativity decision alternatives. 5. Methodological innovation to identify extreme decision options by applying Shafir’s findings regarding attribute framing effects in reverse to create a test. 6. Empirical innovation with statistically significant research findings which indicate creative motivation varies in a systematic way. 7. Empirical innovation with statistically significant research findings which identify innovation descriptor framing effects 8. Empirical innovation with statistically significant research findings which expand understanding of Kirton’s cognitive style descriptors including the importance of safe rule breaking. 9. Empirical innovation with statistically significant research findings which validate how framing effects do apply to decisions involving operationalised creativity. Drawing on previous research related to creative motivation, cognitive style, framing effects and supervisor interactions with employees, this study delivers insights which can assist managers to increase the production and implementation of creativity in organisations. Hopefully this will result in organisations which are more innovative. Such organisations have the potential to provide ongoing economic and social benefits.

Cognitive ability has been identified as a factor which is associated with accounting expertise, yet little is known about its effects on accounting task performance. The widely-accepted model of accounting performance proposed by Libby and Luft (1993) predicts that cognitive ability influences accounting performance directly and indirectly by affecting task-specific knowledge. Empirical inconsistencies found in these relationships are largely unexplored in the accounting literature, and so a complete understanding of the ability~performance relation remains elusive. The psychology literature suggests that cognitive style, as well as cognitive ability, contributes to the cognitive processes that underlie accounting performance. Research has shown that cognitive style can affect accounting performance, particularly under conditions of cognitive misfit (Chan 1996). Cognitive misfit occurs when an accountant's cognitive style interacts with incongruent demands of the accounting task. Theory suggests the condition of cognitive misfit may explain empirical inconsistencies found in prior ability~performance research. The existing accounting literature has not investigated how cognitive misfit impacts the ability~performance relationship in accounting tasks. The current study explores how the condition of cognitive misfit affects direct and indirect relationships between cognitive ability and accounting performance proposed in the Libby and Luft (1993) performance model. The new knowledge generated in this research will benefit the accounting profession in its quest to identify the determinants of expert performance.

A presente dissertação investigou a relação entre estilo cognitivo verbal-visual, recordação e expressão narrativa de eventos autobiográficos. Cento e quatro estudantes universitários realizaram as seguintes tarefas: 1) Relato de Evento Autobiográfico; 2) Questionário de Memória Autobiográfica (QMA); 3) Questionário Verbalizador-visualizador (QVV); e 4) versão reduzida do Bett´s Questionnarie Upon Mental Imagery. A análise fatorial do Estudo I distinguiu dois níveis da recordação de eventos pessoais: 1) processos cognitivos pouco dependentes de recursos reflexivos e concomitantes ao ato de recordar, como a vivacidade de imagens; e 2) processos reflexivos, nos quais se destacam as avaliações e juízos acerca da importância do evento. O Estudo II indicou a inconsistência empírica do fator visual do QVV e a adequação psicométrica do fator que avalia preferências cognitivas verbais. O Estudo III não confirmou a expectativa de correlação entre preferências cognitivas (por palavras ou por imagens) e memória autobiográfica (tanto na recordação quanto no relato de eventos pessoais). No entanto, o teste t revelou diferenças significativas (p>0,01) entre dois grupos (Psicologia e Letras versus Odontologia e Biomedicina) quanto às variáveis: escore em estilo verbal, número de palavras e coerência narrativa. O grupo Psicologia e Letras apresentou os maiores escores nas três variáveis. Os resultados sugeriram a existência de um construto que abarca tanto estilo cognitivo verbal quanto características narrativas: perfil cognitivo verbalnarrativo. A análise quantitativa/qualitativa do Estudo IV apontou a proporção equilibrada entre descritores objetivos e subjetivos como condição para a obtenção de alta coerência narrativa. Além disso, verificou-se que características verbais e narrativas estavam alicerçadas em habilidades imaginativas. Este achado contradiz a freqüente concepção de que preferências verbais e imaginativas seriam polaridades excludentes, indicando interação entre estes dois processos cognitivos. / This research investigated the relationship among verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style, recall, and narrative expression of autobiographical events. One hundred and four undergraduate students were asked to complete four tasks: 1) Report of an Autobiographical Event; 2) Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (AMQ); 3) Verbalizer-visualizer Questionnaire (VVQ); 4) Bett´s Questionnarie Upon Mental Imagery – Short Version. Factorial Analisys of Study I distinguished two factors in recalling of personal events: 1) pre-reflexive cognitive processes (poorly dependent on reflexive resources, such as imagery vivacity); 2) reflexive cognitive processes (such as evaluations concerning the event significance). Outcomes of Study II highlighted an empirical inconsistency of the visual factor of VVQ and appropriate psychometric properties of its verbal scores. In Study III the expected correlation between cognitive preferences (for words or images) and autobiographical memory (for recall and report of personal events) was not confirmed. However, a t test analysis indicated significant difference (p>0,01) between two groups (Psychology and Languages versus Odontology and Biomedicine) concerning the following variables: verbal scores, narrative coherence and narrative volume. Psychology and Languages students presented higher scores in such variables. A new construct is suggested in order to explain both verbal cognitive style and narrative characteristics: the verbal-narrative cognitive profile. Qualitative/quantitative analysis in Study IV indicated that a similar balance between objective and subjective narrative descriptors is needed to achieve high levels of narrative coherence. Moreover, it was observed that verbal and narrative characteristics depend upon imaginative skills. Thus, outcomes contradict the ordinary assumption that verbal and imaginative preferences should be taken as excluding polarities: an interaction between these two cognitive processes was found.

The current growing of distance learning in Brazil makes two topics to be usually associated with this growing and discussed: the increase in the access from the people to university and peoples professional qualification improvements. The effectiveness of distance learning implementation in different institutions is directly related to the student s acceptance for this new learning model. In this sense, the comprehension of this acceptance and the understanding on how this phenomenon occurs individually brings important information to identify potential issues and/or resistance. Thus, this work had as main goal to detect the factors that have influence over students in order to make them to accept distance learning. In order to achieve this, the acceptance was checked using the Lee scale (2010). The Kirton scale (1976) was also applied to verify the cognitive style of each student. A survey was applied to 236 students from Programa Nacional de Formação de Administração Pública at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. The Structural Equation Model was used as main technique to analyze data resulting from the survey. The Lee model (2010) proved to be appropriate to understand the acceptance of distance learning. This was due the Confirmatory Factorial Analysis presented good indication of adjusts. In order to answer the first hypotheses of the study, which are relations among several constructs, the Structural Equation Modeling was made, using an overall sampling. From the thirteen proposed hypotheses, eight were confirmed: utility has relation with confirmation; easiness has relation with utility; confirmation has relation with satisfaction; utility has relation with use attitude; easiness has relation with use attitude; entertainment has relation with use attitude; satisfaction has influence in use attitude; and the relation between focus and use attitude is negative. / Com o crescimento do ensino a distância no Brasil, dois temas são recorrentes: a democratização do acesso ao ensino superior e a necessidade da formação das pessoas, como fator para a qualificação profissional. Observa-se que a efetivação dos benefícios esperados com a implementação do ensino a distância nas instituições de ensino depende da aceitação desta inovação pelos alunos. Neste contexto, a compreensão da aceitação individual do ensino a distância fornece subsídios importantes para identificar potenciais resistências. Dessa forma, este estudo teve como objetivo geral diagnosticar os fatores que influenciam os alunos a aceitar o ensino a distância. Para tanto, foi averiguada a aceitação do ensino a distância utilizando a escala de Lee (2010) e aplicada a escala de Kirton (1976) para verificar o estilo cognitivo dos alunos. Foi conduzida uma pesquisa do tipo survey, com 236 alunos do Programa Nacional de Formação de Administração Pública da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria e utilizou-se a Modelagem de Equações Estruturais como técnica principal para a análise dos dados. O modelo de Lee (2010) mostrou-se adequado para compreender a aceitação do ensino a distância, pois a Análise Fatorial Confirmatória apresentou bons índices de ajuste. Para responder as hipóteses do estudo, foi realizada a Modelagem de Equações Estruturais com a amostra total. Das treze hipóteses propostas, oito foram confirmadas: a utilidade possui relação com a confirmação; facilidade influencia a utilidade; confirmação possui relação com a satisfação; utilidade possui relação com a atitude de uso; facilidade possui relação com atitude de uso; diversão possui relação com a atitude de uso; satisfação influencia a atitude de uso; e a relação de dependência entre concentração e atitude de uso é negativa.

A presente dissertação investigou a relação entre estilo cognitivo verbal-visual, recordação e expressão narrativa de eventos autobiográficos. Cento e quatro estudantes universitários realizaram as seguintes tarefas: 1) Relato de Evento Autobiográfico; 2) Questionário de Memória Autobiográfica (QMA); 3) Questionário Verbalizador-visualizador (QVV); e 4) versão reduzida do Bett´s Questionnarie Upon Mental Imagery. A análise fatorial do Estudo I distinguiu dois níveis da recordação de eventos pessoais: 1) processos cognitivos pouco dependentes de recursos reflexivos e concomitantes ao ato de recordar, como a vivacidade de imagens; e 2) processos reflexivos, nos quais se destacam as avaliações e juízos acerca da importância do evento. O Estudo II indicou a inconsistência empírica do fator visual do QVV e a adequação psicométrica do fator que avalia preferências cognitivas verbais. O Estudo III não confirmou a expectativa de correlação entre preferências cognitivas (por palavras ou por imagens) e memória autobiográfica (tanto na recordação quanto no relato de eventos pessoais). No entanto, o teste t revelou diferenças significativas (p>0,01) entre dois grupos (Psicologia e Letras versus Odontologia e Biomedicina) quanto às variáveis: escore em estilo verbal, número de palavras e coerência narrativa. O grupo Psicologia e Letras apresentou os maiores escores nas três variáveis. Os resultados sugeriram a existência de um construto que abarca tanto estilo cognitivo verbal quanto características narrativas: perfil cognitivo verbalnarrativo. A análise quantitativa/qualitativa do Estudo IV apontou a proporção equilibrada entre descritores objetivos e subjetivos como condição para a obtenção de alta coerência narrativa. Além disso, verificou-se que características verbais e narrativas estavam alicerçadas em habilidades imaginativas. Este achado contradiz a freqüente concepção de que preferências verbais e imaginativas seriam polaridades excludentes, indicando interação entre estes dois processos cognitivos. / This research investigated the relationship among verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style, recall, and narrative expression of autobiographical events. One hundred and four undergraduate students were asked to complete four tasks: 1) Report of an Autobiographical Event; 2) Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (AMQ); 3) Verbalizer-visualizer Questionnaire (VVQ); 4) Bett´s Questionnarie Upon Mental Imagery – Short Version. Factorial Analisys of Study I distinguished two factors in recalling of personal events: 1) pre-reflexive cognitive processes (poorly dependent on reflexive resources, such as imagery vivacity); 2) reflexive cognitive processes (such as evaluations concerning the event significance). Outcomes of Study II highlighted an empirical inconsistency of the visual factor of VVQ and appropriate psychometric properties of its verbal scores. In Study III the expected correlation between cognitive preferences (for words or images) and autobiographical memory (for recall and report of personal events) was not confirmed. However, a t test analysis indicated significant difference (p>0,01) between two groups (Psychology and Languages versus Odontology and Biomedicine) concerning the following variables: verbal scores, narrative coherence and narrative volume. Psychology and Languages students presented higher scores in such variables. A new construct is suggested in order to explain both verbal cognitive style and narrative characteristics: the verbal-narrative cognitive profile. Qualitative/quantitative analysis in Study IV indicated that a similar balance between objective and subjective narrative descriptors is needed to achieve high levels of narrative coherence. Moreover, it was observed that verbal and narrative characteristics depend upon imaginative skills. Thus, outcomes contradict the ordinary assumption that verbal and imaginative preferences should be taken as excluding polarities: an interaction between these two cognitive processes was found.

The overall aim of the study is to get a better understanding for the relation between different forms of representation in ICT-interfaces and cognitive variation in individuals. Cognitive style is, according to Riding &amp; Al-Hajji (2000) ”an individual’s preferred and habitual approach to both organizing and representing information”. Research of the relation between cognitive style and learning performance has shown, according to Riding &amp; Al-Hajji (2000), that pupils learn best when the structure, the content and the mode of presentation of the material suits their style. On the basis of an explorative pre-analysis of a multimedia program for learning mathematics, named Matador, a general hypothesis was formulated. The general hypothesis that was examined is: The Matador multimedia program can be improved as concerns the presentational formats both for pupils who are helped by and attracted by visual information and – in particular – for pupils who are helped by and attracted by verbal information. A minor user’s test with 10-15 year old pupils was carried out in order to complement the pre-analysis by testing some specific details of the program with users. The results of the study indicate that there are certain aspects that could be improved, especially for those who are helped by and attracted by verbal information.