A Preregistered Validation Study of Methods Measuring Analytic and Holistic Cognitive Styles: What do We Actually Measure and How Well?

LACKO, David, Tomáš PROŠEK, Jiří ČENĚK, Michaela HELÍSKOVÁ, Pavel UGWITZ, Vojtěch SVOBODA, Peter POČAJI, Matěj VAIS, Helena HALÍŘOVÁ, Vojtěch JUŘÍK and Čeněk ŠAŠINKA. A Preregistered Validation Study of Methods Measuring Analytic and Holistic Cognitive Styles: What do We Actually Measure and How Well? PsyArXiv preprints. 2021, 93 pp. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/p6hr7.

Basic information

• Original name: A Preregistered Validation Study of Methods Measuring Analytic and Holistic Cognitive Styles: What do We Actually Measure and How Well?
• Authors: LACKO, David, Tomáš PROŠEK, Jiří ČENĚK, Michaela HELÍSKOVÁ, Pavel UGWITZ, Vojtěch SVOBODA, Peter POČAJI, Matěj VAIS, Helena HALÍŘOVÁ, Vojtěch JUŘÍK and Čeněk ŠAŠINKA.
• Edition: PsyArXiv preprints, 2021.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal (not reviewed)
• Field of Study: 50100 5.1 Psychology and cognitive sciences
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/p6hr7
• Keywords in English: cognitive styles; analytic and holistic cognitive style; global and local processing; reaction times; validity; reliability; measurement
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

Cognitive styles are commonly studied constructs in cognitive psychology. It can be argued that measurement of these styles in the past had significant shortcomings in validity and reliability. The theory of analytic and holistic cognitive styles followed from traditional research of cognitive styles and attempted to overcome these shortcomings. Unfortunately, the psychometric properties of its measurement methods in many cases were debatable or not reported. New statistical approaches, such as analysis of reaction times, have been reported in the recent literature but remain overlooked by current research on analytic and holistic cognitive styles. The aim of this pre-registered study was to verify the psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure, split-half reliability, test-retest reliability, discriminant validity with intelligence and personality, and divergent, concurrent and predictive validity) of several methods routinely applied in the field. We developed/adapted six methods, and selected several types frequently applied in cognitive style research: self-report questionnaires, methods based on rod-and-frame test principles, embedded figures, and methods based on hierarchical figures. The analysis was conducted on 392 Czech participants, with two data collection waves. The results indicate that the use of self-report questionnaires and methods based on the rod-and-frame principle may be unreliable, demonstrating unsatisfactory factor structure and no absence of association with intelligence. The use of embedded and hierarchical figures is recommended. Because the concurrent and divergent validity of the methods did not correspond with the original two-dimensional theory, we formulated a new three-level hierarchical model of analytic and holistic cognitive styles which better described our empirical findings.

Links

• GC19-09265J, research and development project: Name: Vliv sociokulturních faktorů a písma na percepci a kognici komplexních zrakových podnětů (Acronym: ISOVIS)

Investor: Czech Science Foundation

• MUNI/A/1323/2020, interní kód MU: Name: Validizace metod měřících analytický a holistický kognitivní styl (Acronym: VAMEMAHKOS)

Investor: Masaryk University