Developmental and Cultural Aspects of Field-Dependence in 11 and 12 Years Old Estonian and Finnish Students

1. Introduction The field dependence-independence (FDI) model of information acquisition, processing, and recollection represents one of the most widely researched cognitive styles in relation to human personality and learning (Guisande et al. 2007). According to Keefe (1979:9), FDI measures the degree to which an individual uses an "analytical as opposed to a global way of experiencing the environment". The construct of field-dependence (FD) and field-independence (FI) has been shown to manifest across a broad spectrum of cognitive processing behaviors (e.g. Angeli and Valanides 2004, Guisande et al. 2012) and acknowledged as having important educational implications (Dewey 2004) that may influence the way teachers teach (Evans 2004) and the structuring of interactions between teachers and students (Saracho 2000). It is valuable, therefore, to foster a clearer understanding of the manner in which children process information, so as to facilitate improvements in teaching and learning strategies that could benefit the educational outcomes of students in school settings. In considering how FDI may affect the learning of children, the work of Jonassen and Grabowski (1993) serves as an appropriate descriptive platform. Specifically, when interacting with stimuli, children who are FD may find it difficult to locate the information they are seeking because it can become masked by other information within the stimulus field. Contrastingly, FI typically find it easier to recognize and select the critical information from the surrounding field. Furthermore, when information is ambiguous and unstructured in its presentation, FI children will impose their own structure on the information. Children who are FD, however will attempt to understand and learn that information directly as it is presented and without restructure. An additional classification of the FDI construct is the intermediate or mobile style and represents a preference between FI and FD (Graff 2000, Witkin and Goodenough 1981). Graff (2000) suggested that this style may highlight versatility in wholistic and analytic preference, whereas, Witkin and Goodenough (1981) proposed that mobility of FDI may represent diversity in adaptation of preference. Finally, individuals that can adopt a style different from their dominant style demonstrate a capacity for interchangeability to suit their immediate evaluation of the information field (Saracho 2000). Overall, classification of FDI appears to be more commonly directed towards a two dimensional framework, however, recent research has incorporated the intermediate category (e.g. Guisande et al. 2012). Continuing access to specific data regarding individual differences in cognitive style preference is important in framing pedagogical practice. Interestingly, in discussing children's learning patterns associated with cognitive style, Kleinfeld (1994) was firm in her acknowledgement that while it is necessary to be aware of different styles of learning, it is equally essential that teachers avoid narrowly matching their preferred teaching styles to the patterns of abilities shown by specific cultures at particular ages. Instead, teachers need to be conscious of both the influence of biological developmental and a unique societal effect that guide the approaches children utilize to learn inside and outside of their school settings. Cassidy (2004:421) highlighted that cognitive style in the learning domain may be considered as both a state and a trait, whereby an individual's style is "responsive to experiences and the demands of the situation (process) to allow change and enable adaptive behaviour". Furthermore, Cassidy's overview of the FDI cognitive style leads to the proposition that specific learning preference characteristics of FI (i.e. learning in isolation) and FD (i.e. integrated learning) individuals have implications for both learning situation and outcome. Children of different ages and cultural backgrounds typically demonstrate variation in their preferred style pattern when engaging in the cognitive processes associated with learning. …