Abstract The study investigated the thinking styles of teachers and students in junior high schools and, by using R. J. Sternberg¡¦s theoretical framework of thinking styles, further explored (a) their associations with teaching practices as well as students¡¦ performance (i.e., satisfaction of instructional practices, academic achievement), (b) the influence of the similarities of teachers¡¦ and students¡¦ thinking styles on students¡¦ performance, and (c) factors involved in teachers¡¦/students¡¦ thinking styles. A total of 793 participants (277 teachers, 516 7th-grade students) were studied. Data collected through rating scales, self-report, checklist, classroom observation and semi-structured interview of teachers were analyzed with t-test, Pearson product-moment correlation, MANOVA, and canonical correlation analysis. The results indicated : a) among the 5 background variables involved in teachers¡¦ thinking styles, both ¡§parents¡¦ education¡¨ and ¡§teaching subjects¡¨ did not show significant relations with any of the 7 teachers¡¦ thinking styles, but the other 3 variables (i.e., ¡§gender¡¨, ¡§age¡¨, ¡§teaching experience in terms of years¡¨) did, b) among the 3 background variables involved in students¡¦ thinking styles, ¡§parents¡¦ education¡¨ showed no significant relations with any of the 13 students¡¦ thinking styles, but ¡§gender¡¨ and ¡§birth order¡¨ did, c) teachers¡¦ thinking styles were significantly related with their background variables and teaching practices, d) among the 7 kinds of teaching practices, the ¡§developmental method¡¨ showed significant relations with 3 types of students¡¦ thinking styles, including ¡§legislative¡¨, ¡§external¡¨, ¡§liberal¡¨, e) among 7 teaching practices, students showed greatest satisfaction and highest academic achievement in ¡§rote style teaching,¡¨ f) academically underachieved students tend to be more of ¡§global style of thinking,¡¨ and g) no significant relations between teachers¡¦ and students¡¦ thinking styles were found, nor were the similarities of teachers¡¦ and students¡¦ thinking styles on students¡¦ satisfaction of instructional practices and their academic achievement.

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-100).

Candidates for Florida real estate sales associate licensure responded to a two-part questionnaire based on William A. Long’s Reactive Behavior Patterns Theory and Robert J. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. Examination scores were converted to a dichotomous pass/fail variable based on the Florida Real Estate Commission-mandated cut-off score of 75 correctly answered questions out of 100. The candidates’ responses to the questionnaire comprising the Long-Dziuban Inventory and the Cognitive Strengths Task List based on Sternberg’s theory, were crosstabulated with pass/fail to identify differential passing proportions, if any, based on reactive behavior pattern and/or cognitive strength. An ANOVA procedure was used with the raw scores to determine whether statistically significant differences in mean exam scores existed between the four Long Types and the three Cognitive Types adapted from Sternberg’s theory. The data were subjected to similar analyses to ascertain whether the ancillary traits described by Long were predictive of exam performance. A crosstabulation of Long Type by Cognitive (Sternberg) Type was performed to find out if any significant relationships existed between the several dimensions of the Long-Dziuban Inventory and the Cognitive Strengths Task List. The results revealed a moderate statistically significant relationship between exam performance and cognitive strength, with analytical types and creative types having the greatest exam success. Tenuous relationships were identified between exam performance and the Long types and traits and between the Long-based and the Sternbergbased components of the research instrument. Although the results of this study did not establish definitive relationships between the Long and Sternberg constructs, by combining them into a measure of cognitive style, it forged a framework for future research into the relationship between licensing examination performance and cognitive styles. Within this framework are the components of a predictive model potentially useful for identifying not only real estate licensing exam performance but also for identifying persons likely to succeed in the real estate industry.

The Canfield Instructional Styles Inventory and the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory were used to identify the teaching styles of business instructors and the learning styles of their students. The study purposes included determining if a match existed between students' learning styles and instructors' teaching styles and determining if relationships existed between style match and student success as indicated by course grades and final exam scores and between style match and student evaluations of instructors. The participants were 5 business instructors and 99 students from two community colleges in Southwest Virginia. The ages of the student participants ranged from 18 to 62 with the average age being 35. The instructors favored the Organization, People, Direct Experience, and A-Influence scales of the Canfield Instructional Styles Inventory, implying that they present material to their students in a clear, logical, and organized manner. Opportunities are created for students to interact in activities that relate to real-world experiences. Their least preferred instructor scales were Competition, Numeric, Reading, and D-Influence. On the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory, the student participants favored the Organization, People, Direct Experience and B-Expectation scales, implying that they like clearly organized and meaningful course work that requires hands-on or performance situations. Additionally, they like interaction with the instructor and classmates involving activities closely related to real-world experiences. Their least preferred scales were Independence, Numeric, Reading, and D-Expectation. In this study, 36% of the students' preferred learning styles matched the instructors' preferred teaching styles. The outcomes of the analysis of variance revealed that there was no significant relationship between learning style/teaching style match and student success as indicated by course grades and final exam scores. Furthermore, there was no significant relationship between learning style/teaching style match and higher evaluations of instructors. However, there was a significant relationship between course grades, final exam scores, instructor evaluations, and GPA as would be expected. Students who were categorized as high achievers according to GPA scored higher on course grades and final exam scores and evaluated instructors higher than those categorized as low achievers. / Ph. D.

No description available.

This study examined the relationship of principal and assistant principal leadership style in shaping teachers' perceptions of their schools as professional learning communities. The researcher proposed that the traditional distinctions between the classic modes of leadership, namely, transactional and transformational modes of leadership, are difficult to interpret within the framework of professional learning community without considering the interaction of the principal and assistant principal leadership roles. Using Leithwood's (1992, 1993, 1994) definitions of leadership as transformational and management as transactional, empirical evidence from 81 schools is presented that supports the need for both leadership and management skills in the development of a professional learning community. The data also suggest that the principal alone need not be responsible for both. A leadership model for principals and assistant principals with complementary transactional and transformational modes of leadership styles is advanced.

This program of research investigated the role of cognitive factors in adjustment to cochlear implantation. A cochlear implant is a medical device for severe to profoundly deaf individuals that simulates sound in the cochlea by electrically stimulating the hearing nerve. The audiological benefits of implantation have shown to be highly variable and difficult to predict. This has led to the utilisation of psychological factors to predict adjustment. The aim of this thesis was to develop an understanding of the psychological factors influencing adjustment to implantation within a cognitive framework. Three studies were conducted that investigated the central hypothesis that individuals with a maladaptive cognitive style are more likely to experience poorer psychological adjustment following implantation. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey that aimed to identify the main predictors of post-implant adjustment in a large representative sample of adult cochlear implant recipients. Participants completed measures of hearing-related cognitions, anxious and depressive symptomatology, emotional reaction to the implant, and hearing-related demographic characteristics. Psychological adjustment was assessed as stress and coping in relation to hearing impairment. The tendency to engage more frequently in negative hearing-related cognitions was found to be the strongest predictor of adjustment. This finding was consistent with the hypothesis that a maladaptive cognitive style plays a key role in determining psychological outcomes following implantation. Study 2 extended Study 1 by experimentally investigating the impact of a specific maladaptive cognitive process, rumination, on cochlear implant recipients' response to an auditory task. Based on the Study 1 finding that negative cognitions predicted poorer adjustment, participants engaged in either a positive or negative rumination task. During rumination, participants focussed on a series of either positive or negative self-statements. Following rumination, participants completed an auditory (story listening) task. Participants then rated their mood, extent of negative cognitions, and the perceived difficulty of the auditory task. Inconsistent with predictions, participants who engaged in negative rumination did not respond more negatively on any of the ratings than participants who engaged in positive rumination. A correlational analysis, however, showed that greater perceived task difficulty was associated with lower frequency of engagement in positive cognitions about hearing. Study 3 employed a thought suppression paradigm to investigate in cochlear implant recipients the effects of suppressing thoughts about hearing difficulty during an auditory task. It was predicted that participants instructed to suppress would experience an increased frequency of target thoughts and greater negative mood, both during and after suppression. During the first (baseline) experimental period, both suppression and non-suppression participants monitored their thoughts by pressing a button when they experienced a thought about hearing difficulty. In the second (suppression) period, suppression participants suppressed their thoughts about hearing difficulty. In the third (post-suppression) period, suppression participants were instructed to no longer suppress their thoughts. Participants who suppressed had an increased frequency of target thoughts subsequent to, but not during, suppression. There were no differences between suppression and non-suppression participants for mood, either during or after suppression. The finding of a delayed increase in target thoughts indicated that attempting to suppress thoughts about hearing difficulty may be a maladaptive cognitive strategy for managing unwanted negative cognitions about hearing in cochlear implant recipients. In concluding, the thesis proposes a cognitive model of adjustment to cochlear implantation that synthesises the findings of the studies conducted and takes into account the cognitive theories that informed the program of research. The major components of this model include the tendency to engage in negative hearing-related cognitions, the maladaptive cognitive processes employed to manage negative hearing-related cognitions, and cognitive load factors. While far from conclusive, the model presents an initial framework within which the current findings can be understood and further hypotheses generated. Methodologically, the model also provides an empirically informed framework for future investigations into the cognitive factors associated with adjustment in cochlear implant users.

Emotional Intelligence ( EI ) is held to explain how emotions may function to advance life goals, with the basic proposition being that individuals monitor and discriminate emotions within themselves and others to solve problems. A number of different theories of EI have been proposed and consequently there is still controversy about the best way in which to conceptualise and measure EI. It is, nonetheless, agreed that the relevance of EI is largely dependent on it being able to predict significant life outcomes. Academic achievement, life satisfaction, coping, problem - solving ability and anxiety are variables that have relevance in academic, occupational and interpersonal situations. The relationship between these variables and EI was assessed in two diverse populations ( University sample : N = 246 ; mean age = 19.9 ; Older community sample : N = 212 ; mean age = 51.6 ). The magnitude and direction of findings in both studies were found to be remarkably similar. As expected, older adults ( community sample ) were found to score significantly higher on EI than younger adults ( University sample ). Few gender differences in EI, however, were apparent, but those that were significantly favoured females. Previously identified relationships suggesting that self - report EI measures are moderately - to - highly correlated to personality, whereas ability EI is reasonably distinct from other constructs, were also upheld. Inconsistent with previous research, however, differential associations between EI and verbal and abstract reasoning ability were not observed. Fitting theoretical expectations, in both studies EI was low - to - moderately correlated with higher life satisfaction, problem and emotion focused coping and perceived problem solving ability and with lower avoidance coping and anxiety. However, the correlations for academic achievement were not significant. These correlations were found to be higher for self - report EI than they were ability EI, perhaps due to method variance with the life skills. Nevertheless, despite these low - to - moderate correlations, hierarchical regression analyses controlling for personality and cognitive abilities revealed that the incremental predictive validity of EI was 7 % at most. This finding was found for all life skills regardless of the EI measure involved. This raises some implications for the field of EI and highlights that personality and cognitive abilities should be taken into account when making assertions about EI ' s predictive power. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 2006.

Given the median age of today's workforce and the aging of the workforce, it was appropriate to examine learning styles of adults. This knowledge is necessary for facilitators of adult educational programs to provide adults a learning environment that can provide maximum opportunity for adults to learn. The research problem, that learning styles do not change as people age, was addressed. People will resort to different styles when situations necessitate they do so to learn a particular item. The data revealed that environmental factors have different effects on people's learning styles. Implications of this study are far reaching into many areas of research. An implication is in the area of child psychology, as to &quotwhen are learning styles acquired?" This research has implications of holistic education theory of the individual learners and with added factors that may be influencers of history and conditions. The complexity of learning styles is influenced by background experiences of learning, as opposed to the basic cognition acquisition generally utilized. There are undisputed facts that: no thing succeeds llke success, and nothing improves the likeliliood of repeated actions llke a value added or a &quotgood" feeling about an experience. Learners will try to replicate situations they find to be successful as much as possible. The things learners can control are: selecting the course as close to the time they like for study purposes, day of week, length, etc., and choosing an instructor, which may be influenced by gender, nationality etc. Also, the style of the class format influences their choices. Learners may not understand the mechanics of &quotMatching Their Learning Style to the Teaching Style", but 'they do understand their llkes and preferences. Learners will not understand all they are attempting to accomplish in their search for achieving this match, but professional educators must recognize these influences and assist the learners by helping match the style of instructional techniques with the learning style of the adult learner to maximize the learning experience.

<p>The fact is, no organization has ever become great without exceptional leadership - without leaders who can connect the efforts of their teams to the critical objectives of the organization, who can tap the full potential of each individual on their teams, who can align systems and clarify purposes, and who can inspire trust. The purpose of the study is to investigate and compare what management styles business students from Halmstad University, Sweden, will implement. Moreover, this study shows future leaders work preferences and concerns. As a tool for the findings the managerial grid (founded in 1964 by Blake and Mounton) was incorporated with situational theory (Hersey and Blanchard, 1977). The investigation was conducted applying a theoretical framework to empirical data. By analysing leadership styles and students work preferences, it illustrates the kind of leader a business student will potentially become and which direction he/she may take. Overall, the average of 130 business students from Halmstad University shows that they are going to be a Team Leader, because for them the people’s needs as well as the results of their work are important.</p>