FIELD DEPENDENCE - INDEPENDENCE AND EVALUATING DEDUCTIONS FROM TEXT
Abstract
Field dependence - independence is postulated to involve breaking up and reorganizing an organized field and supplying missing organization. The majority of the research which supports this view has employed visual - spatial tasks. To test the hypothesis that field dependent and field independent learners differed on a verbal task, 58 high school students evaluated three levels of class inclusion statements under two conditions of reading passage organization. Field independent learners overall evaluated literal assertions, simple deductions, and complex deductions with greater accuracy than field dependent learners. Field dependence - independence interacted with complexity of the statements when organized passages were read and when invalid statements were analyzed. The hypothesis that group differences should be larger on complex deductions than on simple deductions was not supported statistically although means from the organized passages were consistently in the expected direction.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Educational psychology
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