Cognition, Education, and Deafness: Directions for Research and Instruction

Field Dependence of Deaf Students:Implications for Education

Field Dependence of Deaf Students: Implications for Education Joan M. Gibson The perceptual component of the larger cognitive dimension of differentiation is termed field dependence. Psychological differentiation, as proposed by Witkin, Dyk, Faterson, Goodenough, and Karp (1962), serves as a construct for conceptualizing one's degree of articulation of experience of the world and of the self. It also serves as a construct in intellectual functioning. The construct of field dependence (with no hyphen) is often referred to as the field-dependence/independence dimension involving field-dependence (with hyphen) at one end of the continuum and field-independence at the other end. Field-dependence is a cognitive style that describes the tendency to give greater credit to external referents in a self-consistent way, to experience surroundings in a relatively global fashion, and to passively conform to the influence of the prevailing field or context. Field-independence is a cognitive style that describes the tendency to rely primarily on internal referents in a self-consistent way and to perceive one's surroundings analytically, with objects experienced as discrete from their backgrounds. A recent study conducted with students from St. Mary's School for the Deaf, Buffalo, New York, examined the pattern of field dependence among the deaf according to age, sex, age of onset of hearing loss, and degree of loss. The investigators looked at the relationship between degree of differentiation as reflected in field dependence and results on certain language measures in deaf persons. Since the Embedded Figures Test is a timed visual perception test requiring visual-motor skills, any handicapping condition that would bias these test results was eliminated. The conditions eliminated included legal blindness, partial sightedness, perceptual-motor disorders, educable mental retardation, and some upper-body orthopedic disabilities. The Embedded Figures Test (EFT) was devised by Witkin (1950) as a measure of field dependence. This test involved embedding simple figures into complex figures. A score on the EFT is the mean time in seconds for the completion of the disembedding task. A high score indicates a fielddependent perceptual style, while a low score indicates a field-independent style. A shortened form (Form A) of the EFT, which was devised by Jackson (1956) and revised by Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, and Karp (1971), was used for this study. The complete version of this paper is available in microfiche or hard copy from ERIC Document Reproduction Service. Ask for Document No. ED 247 709. 50 Summary of Results The investigators reported three specific findings from this study. 1. A significant relationship between field dependence and sex was found only at age 15; however, the low number of subjects at each age level limited the study. EFT performance exhibited a moderately linear and significant relationship to age for males, with age accounting for 23% of the variance. The relationship for females, however , was curvilinear. Males, especially, exhibit an age-regressive pattern in adolescence. A strong but not significant interaction effect was found between age and sex in EFT performance, with females being more field-independent at ages 10, 11, and 12 and males being more field-independent at ages 13, 15, and 17. 2. No significant relationship was found between degree of hearing loss and field dependence. No significant relationship was found between age of onset and field dependence, given the limited range tested. 3. A significant relationship was found between field dependence and verbal ability when measured by the California Achievement Test Reading and Language subtests. When both age and IQ were controlled , only the Reading subtest remained a significant predictor of field dependence for females. Discussion Age and Sex The mean differences by sex and age obtained in this study were rarely greater than the deviation within each group. Certainly, the sex differences in field-dependence/independence are not inherent features of the development of differentiation. Witkin (1979) states that child-rearing practices , social organization, and the role of ecological factors carry congruent consequences in extent of differentiation. Kohlberg (1966), in a study with hearing children, found that cross-sex interests (associated with field-independence) in girls first increases during the preschool period and then decreases. For boys, same-sex interests and preferences increase during the same period. A similar pattern of results was found in this present study with deaf children, but at much later age periods. 51 Cognitive Styles and Problem-Solving Strategies The results of this study in part contradict previous research (Best, 197411975...