熟练Web用户的搜索行为:关注控制与情感控制的影响

本研究调查了作为熟练Web用户的67位本科生的认知特征与情感特征对其Web导航及搜索行为的影响。在研究中,两个标准化测验和一个调查问卷用于收集参与者的认知方式、问题解决方式以及基本资料。通过对调查对象在团体镶嵌图形测验和问题解决问卷两个标准化测试中获得的分数进行因素分析,作者抽取了2个用户因素,即关注控制和情感控制。其中,关注控制因素似乎能影响用户导航行为(如链接和后退键的使用),而情感控制因素不仅影响包括关键词搜索等搜索行为,还影响以查准率和查全率等为指标的检索绩效。     

The effects of instructional stimulus loading on the recall of abstract and concrete prose

This study examined the effect that systematically loading story presentations with criterion information has on the recall of abstract and concrete prose. Results indicated that aal plus picture presentations were most effective for the learning of both abstract and concrete content. Furthermore, the loading of additional detail into visual presentations resulted in greater recall than with simple pictures and also provided a greater supplementary effect to oral prose.     

The Effect of Pupil Cognitive Style and Position of Prose Passage Title on Recall

A replication of Bransford and Johnson's (1972) experiment on contextual prerequisites was carried out with the additional inclusion of cognitive styles as independent variables. A total of 77 10‐ and 11‐year‐old subjects (year 6, primary school) were asked to read a short prose passage on the topic of washing clothes. Half of the subjects were told the title of the passage before reading it and half after. All subjects attempted to free recall the passage. They had also completed the Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) (Riding, 1991), thus providing their position on the two fundamental cognitive style dimensions: Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery. It was found that the Wholist‐Analytic cognitive style and title‐passage order interacted in their effect on recall (p < 0.05). Whilst Wholists performed best when the title was presented before reading the passage, the order made no difference for other individuals. This suggested that this cognitive style reflects the way individuals organise information.     

Measures of cognitive structure: Do they assess learning at the level of comprehension?

One purpose of this study was to determine whether cognitive structure, assessed by psychometric measures of concept interrelatedness, can be developed when the students initially do not know what concept relationships exist and what they mean. The second purpose was to apply those measures to a learning situation that has produced a nonspecific transfer effect, i.e., the facilitative effect of concrete examples on learning abstract passages, to attempt to explain this effect more completely. Five groups of 20 students each read two prose passages and took recall and structure assessment tests on the second passage. Results (1) indicated that the nonspecific facilitative transfer effect was replicated and (2) offered some support for the contention that the cognitive structure which proximity measures assess can be trained to correspond to content structure, but that related recall remains low. With resolution of some of the methodological issues surrounding these measures, however, clearer explanation of transfer effects and assessment of higher order learning may be facilitated.     

Individual Differences in Learning: Cognitive control,cognitive style,and learning style

This paper assesses the value of three learning style tests when used to examine the design of educational materials for teaching computer science at a distance. The paper presents three studies where three different learning styles were used to discriminate preference and performance in different contexts. The studies indicate that the Learning Style Questionnaire and the Group Embedded Figures Test are of little value. However the Cognitive Style Analysis proved useful in discriminating performance on imagery‐rich materials in a simulated learning context. The paper argues that it may be necessary to match the theoretical basis of learning style with the context in which it is used in order to gain useful information. On the whole the studies showed that the value of learning style tests may be limited.     

The effect of cognitive style,age, gender and structure on the recall of prose passages

Two-hundred 10–15 yr old students from a school in the UK for children from a Yemeni background were assessed for cognitive style by means of the Cognitive Styles Analysis. Based on their scores, students were placed on two dimensions: Wholist–Analytic and Verbal– Imagery. Half of the sample read three prose passages with a 20-question recall test after each. The other half received the same passages augmented with additional structuring features, (a) format structure as paragraph headings (Passage 2), and (b) conceptual structure as a summary inserted either after or before the main passage (Passages 1 and 3, respectively). The results suggested that pupils improved most with age on the content that suited their style, female Wholists and male Analytics benefitted most from the addition of structure, and, finally, with age the Verbalizers gained more with a summary added after the main passage and the Imagers with it inserted before. The results are discussed in terms of style effects on developmental trends in strategy development and gender differences in information processing.     

Teaching abstract vocabulary with the keyword method: effects on recall and comprehension

Twenty-five adolescents with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to either a keyword mnemonic condition or an experimenter-directed rehearsal condition and were individually taught 16 difficult vocabulary words, including 8 concrete and 8 abstract words. After an instructional period, students were given a test of literal recall as well as a comprehension test of their ability to apply newly acquired vocabulary words in a different context. Results indicated that mnemonically trained students outperformed control students on both abstract and concrete words, and on recall tests as well as on comprehension tests. Implications for vocabulary instruction as well as theories of learning disabilities are discussed.     

Reading versus Listening in Children: the effects of extraversion and coding complexity

The degree of extraversion of 11‐year‐old children was determined and after excluding children whose reading attainment was below average, the subjects were randomly assigned, within sexes, to the two presentation conditions of listening and reading. They then received a prose passage followed by an immediate questioned test of recall. The details in the prose passage necessary to answer the questions were categorised as simple or complex to represent in verbal and imagery codes. The main finding was of significant interactions between extraversion‐introversion (verbal‐imagery learning style), coding complexity and mode of presentation in their effect on recall. The results were discussed in terms of the probable relationship between extraversion‐introversion and verbal‐imagery learning style. Extraverts were assumed to be verbalisers and introverts imagers. Recall was superior following listening when the details were simple to represent in the learner's preferred code, but best after reading when complex. For the non‐preferred mode the results were reversed.     

Cognitive style and achievement in science: A report from a developing society

This study investigated the effect of cognitive style, instructional mode and sex on students' achievement in biology. A sample of 258 subjects were involved and the study used a Treatment (2) × Sex (2) × Cognitive style (3) Non-randomized Control Group Pre-test-Post-test Design. Data were collected with Biology Achievement Test (BAT), Aptitude Test and Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyse the data. The results show that subjects differed significantly in their post-test achievement scores on instructional mode and cognitive style factors. However, sex main effect was found not to be significant. It is interesting to note that the combined two-way interaction was significant. Of the three individual two-way interactions, instructional mode by sex, and instructional mode by cognitive style were significant. It is noteworthy that the three-way interactions were not significant. The results are discussed and their implications for effective biology instruction and consequently improved student achievement in biology especially in the Nigerian secondary schools are pointed out.     

An Investigation of Text‐based Instructional Materials Enhanced with Graphics

ABSTRACT An adaptation of Bagley's (1990) experiment which compared the interaction of instructional format with adult learners was carried out replacing the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) arithmetic reasoning subtest with the Riding & Cheema (1991) Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA). There was an additional inclusion of graphics to the structured instructional format, as an independent variable. A total of 45 participants attended workshops to learn how to write PASCAL programs. All of the participants completed the CSA and their CSA‐ratio was used to select pairs of similar CSA‐ratios. One participant from each pair was given a text‐only instructional booklet, while the other was given a text‐plus‐graphics instructional booklet. The treatment groups were controlled for instructional format (text‐only/text‐plus‐graphics) and cognitive style. The independent variables were used to test for their effect on learning abstract computer programming concepts. It was found that the Verbal‐Imagery cognitive style and instructional treatment interacted in their effect on the performance‐difference scores. The Novice‐Verbal programmers performed best with a text‐plus‐graphics instructional format, performing significantly better than the Novice‐Imagers’ subgroups using the same text‐plus‐graphics material. Conversely, the Novice‐Imagers participants performed better with the material. However, the Experienced‐Imagery participants performed better with the text‐plus‐graphics instructional material than the Experienced‐Verbalisers. Overall, the Verbalisers’ worst performance occurred with the text‐only materials, while their best performance occurred with the text‐plus‐graphics material. This pilot experiment suggests that learning performance is affected by an interaction of cognitive style and instructional format. However, this interaction was contrary to expectations (Riding & Douglas, 1993), with Verbalisers performing best with text‐plus‐graphics instructional material and Novice‐Imagers performing best with text‐only instructional material.     

Type of Instructional Material,Cognitive Style and Learning Performance

The positions of 129 14 to 19‐year‐old students on two fundamental cognitive styles dimensions (Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery) were assessed. They then received, by random allocation, one of three versions of a computer‐presented instruction package on home hot water systems. The versions differed in terms of their structure (large versus small step), advance organiser (absent or present), verbal emphasis (high versus low), and diagram type (abstract versus pictorial). Version 1 had large step, no organiser, high verbal content, and abstract diagram. Version 2 had small step, no organiser, low verbal content, and pictorial diagram. Version 3 was identical to Version 2, except that an organiser in the form of an elaborated introduction was given in which all five topics were introduced and each section began with an overview and ended with a summary. There was a significant interaction between version and cognitive style in their effect on recall. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for instruction.     

The effect of imaginative play actions on language development in five-year-old children

The study, using 60 five-year-olds, investigated forms of play: (a) self-action, (b) puppet-action, and (c) control treatments and differences between the sexes on aural language recall scores using semantic, absolute, and syntactic criteria. The results of the preliminary analyses between treatment groups and sex differences on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Harris-Goodenough Draw-A-Man Test indicated no significant main or interaction effects. The subjects in treatment groups and boys and girls were relatively homogeneous on receptive language IQ and motor coordination, respectively. With 3 × 2 factorial analysis of variance experiments run on aural language recall for each of the three criteria, several significant results were noted: (a) Using the semantic criteria for scoring aural language recall, self-action play yielded significantly higher mean scores than either puppet-action or control groups. (b) Using the semantic criteria to score aural language recall, girls yielded significantly higher scores than boys. (c) Using either the absolute or syntactic scoring criteria, the results of the analysis indicated no significant main or interaction effects on aural language recall.     

ADU LT COGNITIVE STYLES AND TEST PERFORMANCE

Ninety adult males ages 25 to 58 were individually tested with three cognitive style measures: the Estimation Scale (ES), a measure of category width; the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) Test; and the Hidden Figures Test (HFT). Multiple correlations were performed between the three cognitive style measures and the standardized scores from the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) area achievement examinations. The results of this analysis indicated that only MFF error scores produce a significant correlation with CLU exam performance. Further analyses conducted on the MFF data indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between response latencies and errors, there was a significant positive correltation between response latency and age, and reflective subjects had significantly higher mean CLU scores than did impulsive subjects. It was concluded that error scores on the MFF are a better predictor of test performance than are latencies. This conclusion was consistent with other studies that have found error scores to be more strongly related to personality variables and performance on other cognitive style than latencies prove to be.     

Theme and prose comprehension: Understanding or depth-of-processing?

Context orientation and depth of processing were tested as possible explanations for thematic organization. In the first experiment, the process of searching for the theme of concrete versions of prose passages by undergraduates was detrimental to subsequent recall. On the other hand, theme statements facilitated recall when provided prior to concrete as well as abstract versions of each passage. Finally, the theme search process with the abstract versions was beneficial only when the correct theme was identified. A second experiment provided further data supporting the comprehension hypothesis for theme organization when precise, instructor-generated theme statements were used instead of learner-generated themes.     

Selective attention of impulsive and reflective children

Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test was used to select 36 impulsive and 36 reflective children at each of three grade levels: kindergarten, second, and fifth. An incidental learning paradigm was used to assess the child's recall of central and incidental information. Reflective subjects recalled more central and incidental information than impulsives, suggesting that impulsives have difficulty encoding information for storage. Central recall increased with grade level but incidental learning remained constant, a finding consistent with the developmental trend found in previous investigations. A task order effect was found in the recall of central information with more errors made when the central recall task was presented after the incidental. This order effect may account for the higher central recall scores found in previous investigations. Other problems with the incidental learning paradigms raise questions about the validity of the task for inferring selective attention. Despite the problems associated with the task, the results offer further evidence to support the notion that impulsive and reflective children differ on dimensions other than response latency.     

Differences in field dependence-independence cognitive style as a function of socioeconomic status,sex, and cognitive competence

This study analyzes the field dependence-independence (FDI) cognitive style—ascertained and measured by means of the Children's Embedded Figures Test (CEFT) — as a function of socioeconomic status, sex, and cognitive competence — measured on the McCarthy Scales—in 7-year-old children. The tests were administered to 117 subjects, of whom 79 were of low socioeconomic status (50 girls and 29 boys) and 38 were of upper-middle socioeconomic status (20 girls and 18 boys). All subjects were in their second year of primary education. Subjects of upper-middle socioeconomic status achieved significantly higher scores than did subjects of low socioeconomic status on the five McCarthy Scales and on the FDI variable. The sex variable produced differences only in the FDI variable, where boys scored higher than girls. Perceptual ability explains 22.84% of the FDI variance; verbal ability is excluded from the regression equation that analyzes such dependence. Finally, the interpretation of FDI as a stylistic or cognitive variable is discussed.     

Are learning disabled children more impulsive?: A comparison of learning disabled and normal-achieving children on Kagan's matching familiar figures test

The study compared the performance of 100 learning disabled and 100 normal-achieving third- and fourth-grade children on Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) to determine group differences along the impulsivity-reflection dimension. No significant group differences were found on MFF response latency scores; however, children in the learning disabled group made significantly more errors than did the normal achievement group on the MFF. A double-median split procedure for the MFF response latency and error scores of the total sample of 200 children was performed to classify the children by cognitive style along the impulsivity-reflection dimension (i.e., impulsive, fast-accurate, slow-inaccurate, reflective). No significant group differences in the distribution and frequency of cognitive styles were noted. The overall results suggest that learning disabled children are not more impulsive but rather use poor strategic behavior in processing information. Implications for diagnosis and remediation are discussed.     

Cognitive Style,Gender, Attitude toward Computer‐assisted Learning and Academic Achievement

This paper reports an investigation of cognitive style, gender, attitude toward using computer‐assisted learning (CAL) and academic achievement among university students. A Group Embedded Figures Test was used to assess students’ cognitive style and a questionnaire was used for the evaluation of students’ attitude toward CAL. The results revealed that students have positive attitudes toward CAL but they were not prepared to rely entirely on CAL. A 2 x 2 ANOVA was used to investigate the effect of cognitive style and gender on the attitude toward CAL. The results revealed that male students preferred using CAL significantly more than females and field dependent students were more prepared to rely entirely on CAL than field independent students. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between males and females in their achievement scores in favour of the male group. But there was no difference between field dependence and field independence groups in their achievement. The results also revealed no significant relationship between students’ attitudes toward CAL and their achievement in these courses.     

The Effect of Cognitive Style on the Preferred Format of Instructional Material

Abstract A total of 90 15‐16‐year‐old female pupils from a single‐sex secondary grammar school did the Cognitive Styles Analysis which assessed their position on the Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery learning style dimensions. They were asked to select their preferred format of a single‐sheet handout on study skills which was offered in three modes: Unstructured‐Verbal, Structured‐Verbal and Structured‐Pictorial. Each mode contained the same information and differed only in format. On the format preference, there was a significant effect of the Verbal‐Imagery dimension (p = 0.002), with the majority of Verbalisers choosing the Structured‐Verbal sheet and the Imagers opting for the Structured‐Pictorial version. There was a smaller effect on the Wholist‐Analytic dimension, where Wholist had a preference for the Structured‐Pictorial and the Analytics for the Structured‐Verbal version (p = 0.056). The findings were discussed in terms of their practical implications for a differentiated approach to instruction.     

Exploring the Effect of Graphical Metaphors on the Performance of Learning Computer Programming Concepts in Adult Learners: a pilot study

ABSTRACT The effect of instructional materials enhanced with textual metaphors versus graphical metaphors was investigated. In the text‐plus‐textual metaphor material, the learning content described computer programming logic patterns (i.e. sequence, selection and repetition control structures) in a generic text format, followed by expository examples in the form of textual metaphors. The text‐plus‐graphical metaphor material consisted of the generic text instruction with the expository examples replaced by graphical metaphors (pictures). A total of 37 adult learners attended one lecture and two tutorials to learn how to write programming algorithms. All of the participants completed Riding and Cheema's (1991) Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) to measure their position on two cognitive style dimensions: Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery. The participants were paired based on their similar CSA ratios. One participant from each pair was given the text‐plus‐textual metaphor treatment, while the other was given the text‐plus‐graphical metaphor treatment. The treatment groups were controlled for instructional format and cognitive style. These independent variables were used to test for their effect on learning abstract computer programming concepts. Performance, as measured by the difference between pre‐test and post‐test scores, was analysed using statistical means and the QUEST probability analysis program. Both methods show that graphical metaphors improve participants’ performance. They also show that the best performance is achieved by Verbalisers, given the graphical metaphor instructional material.