Two Masters' theses, by Andrea Weiss and Melinda Welles, pursuing related questions were synthesized into a final report, "Field Independence-Dependence, Reflection-Impulsivity, and Problem-Solving Styles of Preschool Children," of which this interim report is a summary. The major purposes of both investigations were to determine: (1)…

The study compared the performance of severe and mild learning disabled children to normal children on a problem-solving task. The three types of children were assessed on the Matching Familiar Figures task. Results indicated that on the MFF, LD children, as a group, were more impulsive than normal children. (Author)

This paper presents a developmental study of the problem solving strategies of reflective and impulsive children. Subjects for the study were 30 nine-year-olds, 39 eleven-year-olds, and 23 thirteen-year-olds who had been classified as reflective or impulsive at ages 7, 9, and 11 and who had been followed longitudinally over a three year period.…

Two techniques were used to modify an impulsive conceptual tempo on a visual discrimination task. The subjects were 42 first grade white children who had previously been classified as impulsive or near-impulsive on the Matching Familiar Figures Test given to 82 children. These subjects, who had scored above the median on errors and below the…

The aim of the present study was to analyze the relationship between students' (100 children aged 8 to 12) help-seeking behavior and impulsivity. Help-seeking behavior was evaluated using a naturalistic experimental paradigm in which children were placed in a problem-solving situation and had the opportunity to seek help from the experimenter, if…

This study examines two questions: (1) are the natural environmental contingencies under which reflective and impulsive children operate different? and (2) if so, which, if any of these differences, predict the nature of behavior change? Forty impulsive and reflective children and their mothers were observed while solving discrimination problems…

This study examined children's problem solving strategies by testing the verbal and mathematical abilities of 52 second-grade and 51 fourth-grade students. After being identified as either reflective or impulsive, based on Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test, the children were given grade-appropriate mathematical and verbal reasoning problems…

Describes two experiments, one with undergraduates and one with high school students, that tested instructional strategies for teaching computer programing. The cognitive styles of impulsivity and reflection are examined, completion strategy versus generation strategy is tested, and results support a preferential model rather than a compensatory…

The major purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which cognitive style, as indexed by the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT), is related to the way in which children respond to problems with social or interpersonal content. Fifty-two reflective and 64 impulsive first- and second-grade boys were presented with a number of stories in…

The effects of different types of feedback in computer assisted instruction were studied in 30 college students with different cognitive styles. The program, written in Apple Pilot and administered on an Apple IIE microcomputer, consisted of 16 problem solving tasks; for each, a graphic display and a textual question were presented. Two feedback…