Cognitive Style: Time to Experiment

Evidence exists that individuals possess habitual ways of approaching tasks and situations associated with particular patterns in cognitive processes including decision making, problem solving, perception, and attention. Such approaches are conceptualized as cognitive style, a concept first formally introduced by Allport almost eight decades ago and defined as an individual's typical or habitual mode of problem solving, thinking, perceiving, and remembering (Allport, 1937). The popularity of the concept has since continued to grow, leading to a profusion of applied research and commercial applications in such areas as business, management, and education. Such levels of activity have led to the emergence of more than 70 identifiable models and measures of cognitive (and learning) style (Coffield et al., 2004) and a plethora of related terminology, constructs, and measures of style. Consequently, the field of style has become wildly confusing to both researchers and practitioners, and, perhaps justifiably, has received weighty criticism, most notably from Coffield et al. (2004). Following a broad and detailed systematic review of the most popular models and construct measures, Coffield et al., issued a damning critique of style, noting the failure of the field to offer a consensus on definitions and terminology, construct models and underlying theory, and valid and reliable construct measurement. Such concerns present a major obstacle for continued research and practice in the field. Cognitive style focuses on the tradition of identification of styles based on individual differences in cognitive and perceptual functioning (Grigorenko and Sternberg, 1995). As is common in many areas of psychology where there is a need and desire to measure unobservable latent constructs, the majority of style assessment methods rely on self-report measures rather than direct objective observation of style-related behavior. The limitations of self-report questionnaire-based measures are well-documented (e.g., Rayner and Riding, 1997) and are particularly pertinent to cognitive style where the prevalent approach to measurement remains single method self-report questionnaires (Cools, 2009). Study designs that utilize multiple methods, including psychometric measures of style and more direct measures of style-based behavior, offer greater potential for validating existing style constructs and construct measures (Cassidy, 2012). However, although the application of a mixed methods approach has the potential to allay some of the limitations associated with self-report questionnaires (Spratt et al., 2004), this approach has been largely overlooked in cognitive styles research (Cools, 2009). One promising area is cognitive neuroscience, with initial findings providing evidence suggesting that cognitive style is directly linked …