Cognitive styles and search engine preferences

Abstract

Purpose -Cognitive style has been identified to be significantly influential in deciding users' preferences of search engines. In particular, Witkin's field dependence/independence has been widely studied in the area of web searching. It has been suggested that this cognitive style has conceptual links with the holism/serialism. This study aims to investigate the differences between the field dependence/independence and holism/serialism. Design/methodology/approach -An empirical study was conducted with 120 students from a UK university. Riding's cognitive style analysis (CSA) and Ford's study preference questionnaire (SPQ) were used to identify the students' cognitive styles. A questionnaire was designed to identify users' preferences for the design of search engines. Data mining techniques were applied to analyse the data obtained from the empirical study. Findings -The results highlight three findings. First, a fundamental link is confirmed between the two cognitive styles. Second, the relationship between field dependent users and holists is suggested to be more prominent than that of field independent users and serialists. Third, the interface design preferences of field dependent and field independent users can be split more clearly than those of holists and serialists. Originality/value -The contributions of this study include a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between field dependence/independence and holists/serialists as well as proposing a novel methodology for data analyses.

The influences of cognitive styles on individual learning and collaborative learning

“…Accordingly, several researchers have agreed that the SPQ provides a relatively quick and easy measure (Clewley et al, 2010(Clewley et al, , 2011Ellis, Ford, & Wood, 1993). Furthermore, incorporating the SPQ into the WBL system ( Figure 4) is easy so that students' cognitive styles can automatically be recognised by the SPQ when interacting with the WBL system.…”

“…In the past, such research mostly focused on Field Dependence/Field Independence proposed by Witkin, Moore, Goodenough, and Cox (1977). More recent works have attempted to shift to other dimensions of cognitive styles (Clewley, Chen, & Liu, 2010.…”

“…The differences between Holists and Serialists are listed in Table 1. In the past decade, several studies found that Holists and Serialists demonstrate different learning behaviours. Clewley et al (2010) investigated students' preferences for the use of search engines from a cognitive style perspective. It was found that Holists preferred multiple options but Serialists did not demonstrate such a preference.…”

A Cognitive Style Perspective to Handheld Devices: Customization vs. Personalization

“…Several dimensions of cognitive styles exist, including Holist-Serialist (Pask, 1976), Wholist-Analytical (Riding, 1991), and Field-Dependence/ Field-Independence (Witkin, Moore, Goodenough,& Cox, 1977). Among such dimensions, early research mainly emphasized on Witkin's Field-Dependence/ Field-Independence (e.g., Chen & Macredie, 2002) while recent studies shifted to examine Pask's Holism/Serialism (e.g., Clewley, Chen & Liu, 2010). These two dimensions of cognitive styles have conceptual links (Chen & Macredie, 2002).…”

“…More specifically, there are some similarities between Field Dependent users and Holists and between Field Independent users and Serialists. Clewley, Chen and Liu (2010) analyzed the relationships between Field Dependence/Independence and Holism/Serialism. Their results indicated that both Field Dependent users and Holists prefer to have lots of options that are available to them because they prefer to take a global approach.…”