A Comparative Study of Cognitive Style among Boys and Girls Graduate College Students

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1 The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN (e) ISSN: (p) Volume 4, Issue 3, No. 100, DIP / ISBN: April-June, 2017 A Comparative Study of Cognitive Style among Boys and Girls Graduate College Students Dr. Ina Nath 1 * ABSTRACT Aim of the study: To find the Systematic Styles among boys and girls graduate college students. To find the Intuitive Styles among boys and girls graduate college students. Hypotheses: There is no significant difference in the Systematic Styles among graduate college students in relation to their gender. There is no significant difference in the Intuitive Styles among graduate college students in relation to their gender. Sample: The sample size of the study is 100 belongings to Aurangabad, which includes college student. Out of 150 populations, 100 college Student sample has been derived by Stratified Random sampling method. 50 boys graduate college students and 50 girls graduate college students. The age range of subjects was years. Tools the tool used in this study was Cognitive-Style Inventory developed by Praveen Kumar Jha (2001). Variable Independent variable Gender: i) Boys ii) Girls Dependent Variable Cognitive Style - Systematic Styles and Intuitive Styles result girls college student found significantly better Systematic Style than the boys college. Girls college student found significantly better Intuitive Styles than the boys college. Keywords: Cognitive Style, Graduate College Students, Boys and Girls Cognition is a regular process in human lives. Cognition connotes knowing and it is the basic process that helps human beings to conduct their lives. It is a process comprising perception, information processing, and the resultant output. Even though it is a universal process that occurs in human beings, however, it varies from person to person. Therefore, it is construed as ways of cognition and is psychologically known as cognitive style. Perception is the first component process of the cognitive style. Perception takes place through senses. But there is a likelihood of its occurrence as a result of intuition also. The information processing takes place by means of perceptual matching with previous information available in the memory and subsequent judgment but before the appearance of the output or revelation through retrieval. 1 Head & Associate Professor, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar College, Aurangabad, India *Responding Author Received: April 11, 2017; Revision Received: May 14, 2017; Accepted: May 30, Nath I; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

2 Cognitive style is described as a personality dimension which influences attitudes, values and social interaction. Herman Witkin (1950) introduced the term cognitive style to describe the concept that individuals consistently exhibit stylistic preferences for the ways in which they organize stimuli and construct meanings for themselves out of their experiences and further suggested that these styles include variables within single dichotomy like global-holistic versus focus-detailed, field dependent versus field independent. It is a fact that these two styles have gained lots of popularity in terms of perceptual processes of persons. Paivio (1971) indicated that cognitive style assesses whether an individual tends to think in verbal terms, using sequential processing of information, or in visual terms, using parallel processing. Cornett (1983) described cognitive style as a predictable pattern of behaviour within a range of individual variability. Messick (1984) indicated that cognitive style deals with the manner in which people prefer to make sense out of their world by collecting, analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting data. Srinivasa Kumar (2011) defined that cognitive style has to be considered as a holistic process of cognition that begins with the perception, and mediated by information processing and the resultant retrieval; it varies from person to person and it is affected by various personality factors, such as, previous information, heredity and environment, interest, thinking, attitude, value system, intelligence, creativity, social and economic status and so on. All the students are unique in their inborn skills and innate approaches. The uniqueness varies according to the cognitive styles. The achievement of students mainly depends on cognitive style. Botkin (1974) categorized the cognitive style into two namely systematic style and intuitive style. An individual who typically operates with a systematic style uses a well defined step by step approach when solving a problem, look for an overall method or pragmatic approach, and then makes an overall plan for solving the problem. The individual with intuitive style uses an unpredictable ordering of analytical steps when solving a problem relies experience pattern characterized areas. Krishna Mohan P and M. Ravi Babu (2015) the present study describes the cognitive styles of secondary school students. Cognitive Styles refer to the preferred way individual processes information. Systematic Style and Intuitive style are the two cognitive styles. The study was conducted on 600 student teachers from Mahabubnagar district of Telangana State. The result revealed that Girls student teachers seem to be better than boys student teachers in Systematic Style and Girls student teachers seem to be better than boys student teachers in Intuitive Style. The result revealed that there was a significant difference in cognitive styles with respect to gender and location among student teachers The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN (e) ISSN: (p) 119

3 Aim of the study 1. To investigate the Systematic Styles among boys and girls graduate college students. 2. To search the Intuitive Styles among boys and girls graduate college students. Hypotheses 1. There is no significant difference in the Systematic Styles among graduate college students in relation to their gender. 2. There is no significant difference in the Intuitive Styles among graduate college students in relation to their gender. METHODOLOGY Sample The sample size of the study is 120 belongings to Aurangabad city, which includes college student. Among them 60 boys graduate college students and 60 girls graduate college students. The age range of subjects was years (Mean = 20.24, SD = 3.14). Non-Probability Purposive Sampling was used. Tools The tool used in this study was Cognitive-Style Inventory developed by Praveen Kumar Jha (2001). The CSI consists of 40 statements, half of which pertain to the systematic style and half to the intuitive style. Respondents evaluate each statement according to the degree to which they agree with it. Subsequently, the respondents transfer their responses to the scoring sheet, which yields a systematic score and an intuitive score. These scores are then transferred to the interpretation sheet, which allows them to determine to what degree they specialize in systematic and intuitive styles. Variable Independent variable Gender: i) Boys ii) Girls Dependent Variable 1. Cognitive Style 2. Systematic Styles 3. Intuitive Styles STATISTICAL ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION Mean Std. Deviation, Std. Error and t value of boys and girls graduate college students dimension Systematic and Intuitive Cognitive Style. Dimension Boys Girls Mean SD SE Mean SD SE DF t Systematic Styles ** Intuitive Styles ** The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN (e) ISSN: (p) 120

4 Systematic Styles Intuitive Styles 58 Boys Girls From the above table, the mean score obtained for boys college student is and girls college student was The obtained t value 9.70 with a df of 118 was found to be statistically significant. However, based on the mean scores, it found that girls college student found significantly better Systematic Style than the boys college. The mean of Intuitive Styles score obtained for boys college student was and girls college student was The obtained t value 6.91 with a df of 118 was found to be statistically significant. However, based on the mean scores, it girls college student found significantly better Intuitive Styles than the boys college. Similar result found that Krishna Mohan P and M. Ravi Babu (2015) The result revealed that Girls student teachers seem to be better than boys student teachers in Systematic Style and Girls student teachers seem to be better than boys student teachers in Intuitive Style. Acknowledgments The author appreciates all those who participated in the study and helped to facilitate the research process. Conflict of Interests: The author declared no conflict of interests. REFERENCES Botkin, J.W. (1974). An intuitive computer system: A cognitive approach to the management learning process. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge. Cornett, C. E. (1983) What you should know about teaching and learning styles Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN (e) ISSN: (p) 121

5 Keen, J.L. (1974). How managers minds work. Harvard Business Review, pp Krishna Mohan P and M. Ravi Babu (2015) A Study on Cognitive Styles of Student Teachers In Relation to Their Gender and Location. GLOBAL JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH ANALYSIS. Volume-4, Issue-8, August-2015 ISSN No Messick, S. (1984). The nature of Cognitive Styles: problems and promise in educational practice. Educational Psychologist, 19, Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and Verbal Processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart. Praveen Kumar Jha. (2001). The Cognitive Styles Inventory. Agra, Rakhi Prakashan. Srinivas Kumar, D. (2011). Introduction to Cognitive Styles and Learning Styles. Kuppam: Prasaranga, Publications Bureau, Dravidian University. Witkin, Herman A. Individual Differences in Case of Perception of Embedded Figures. Journal of Personality 19 (1950):1-15. How to cite this article: Nath I (2017), A Comparative Study of Cognitive Style among Boys and Girls Graduate College Students, International Journal of Indian Psychology, Volume 4, (3), DIP: / The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN (e) ISSN: (p) 122