Question

Children explore and react differently to their environment and experience according to

Kagan (1971). What behaviors might one observe in an impulsive child and a reflective child? Or a field-independent child and a field-dependent one?

Answer 1

Jerome Kagan used the dimension reflection/impulsivity in order to describe individuals' cognitive styles. He hypothesized that individuals differ in terms of how they approach a problem-solving task; those who are relatively slow and highly accurate in their work use the reflective style, while those who work both quickly and with errors use the impulsive style. One can observe different behaviors in an impulsive child and a reflective child. When it comes to reading, for example, reflective children take their time to sound out words and read accurately. On the other hand, impulsive children tend to slide over unfamiliar words and passages, show lower levels of comprehension.

Another dimension of cognitive style includes the field-dependent/independent model. Individuals with a field-independent style tend to separate details from the surrounding context, while individuals with a field-dependent style are unable to distinguish details from other information around it. For instance, field-independent students are able to carry out independent activities such as reading and writing with relative ease, while field-dependent students tend to rely on their teachers or peers for support in classroom activities and assignments.