The Relationship of Cognitive Style to Classroom Expressiveness and Associated Variables

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Abstract
This study compares three different cognitive style groups (High IQ-High Divergent, High IQ-Low Divergent and Low IQ-High Divergent) of academically talented youngsters on their mode of classroom expressiveness behavior and on measures of attitude and on their parents’ attitudes. These groups were chosen in a similar manner to that previously used by Getzels and Jackson and by Torrance. These three groups were compared on classroom expressiveness through analysis of tapescripts of five consecutive one-hour class sessions by means of a classification system developed to analyze productive thinking in the classroom. The High IQ-High Divergent girls were significantly more expressive than the other two style groups of girls on the classroom analysis and on teacher ratings of cognitive ability. No differences in classroom expressiveness were noted with the boys. The High IQ-Low Divergent boys were rated higher on cognition than the Low IQ-High Divergent boys by their teachers but were lower than the High IQ-High Divergent boys on their own ratings of concepts of mother, father and work. The relationships between parental attitudes and cognitive style suggested that greater father achievement inducing in boys and greater mother independence granting in girls were related to the Low IQ -High Divergent pattern. The patterns in the study appeared to be sex specific and confusion in previous results may be attributed to failure of other investigators to take this into account. Differences in cognitive style do seem to relate to educationally relevant variables.

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