Field Dependence-Independence

At the close of the first decade of the 21st century, where are we now in terms of our understanding of cognitive strategy instruction and its relationship and contribution to reading comprehension instruction? First, it seems as though cognitive strategy instruction has moved from its research origins into classroom practice. That move has been a rather bumpy one, and we believe that much of the fidelity of cognitive strategy implementation has been lost in the translation from research to practice. While there are a multitude of books, articles and pamphlets about strategy instruction, we are not sure that those efforts have resulted in effective strategy instruction in current classrooms today (Pressley, 2002).

Second, many researchers have

According to Witkin, field dependence-independence is value-neutral and is characterized as the ability to distinguish key elements from a distracting or confusing background. Field dependence-independence has important implications for an individual’s cognitive behavior and for his/her interpersonal behavior. Specifically, field independent people tend to be more autonomous in relation to the development of cognitive restructuring skills and less autonomous in relation to the development of interpersonal skills. Conversely, field dependent people tend to be more autonomous in relation to the development of high interpersonal skills and less autonomous in relation to the development of cognitive restructuring skills. In addition, according to (Witkin, Moore, & Cox, 1977), field independent persons tend to be intrinsically motivated and enjoy individualized learning, while field dependent ones tend to be extrinsically motivated and enjoy cooperative

One is the holist-analytic dimension. The holists tend to view a situation as a whole, while the analytics tend to view a situation as a collection of parts and often stress only one or two aspects at a time. Intermediates will have the advantage of both styles. The other is the verbal-imagery dimension, which has two basic effects: (a) how information is represented, such as verbally, imagery, or both, as well as (b) internal/external focus of attention. Generally, the imagers tend to be internal and passive, while the verbalizes tend to be external and stimulating. The latter type is related to sensory preference described later in this