Intellectual development and learning style in engineering education.

Palos, Ramona ; Drobot, Loredana

1. INTRODUCTION

There are many studies highlighting the relationship between the level of intellectual development of students and their preferences with regard to learning strategies. Those requirements that exceed his level of development in a particular moment can be considered as difficult, whereas tasks that are under this level can lead to a sentiment of frustration. Creating an optimal environment for learning that stimulates the potential of the student requires the individualization of training. The evolution towards superior levels can be facilitated through the manner in which educational experiences are designed and organized.

The purpose of our study was to capture the particularities of students in technical sciences, from the perspective of their level of intellectual development and their preference for particular learning styles and situations. Such an image enables us to design different types of learning activities (teaching, learning and evaluation activities) that shall facilitate the cognitive growth and development of these students.

During the '60-'70, W. Perry was designing a model that was turned into a useful framework for designing both teaching strategies and learning strategies. He was trying to explain the cognitive structures of students, considering that these are assumptions that act as filters over the way they perceive, organize and evaluate events from the environment and on the way they cope with them. Thus, the author was speaking about four major cognitive periods in the existence of a young man, namely: dualism, multiplicity, relativism and relativism engagement. Dualism is a stage of reception of knowledge, where the student perceives his/her role as a "notes taker" with the purpose of memorizing and reproducing assimilated information. Multiplicity is characterized from various points of view, and the role shifts towards thinking about how to find the right solution. In relativism, knowledge is contextual and question with regard to personal actions and values become important, and the role is to learn to assess solutions. Relativism engagement requires a thorough self-knowledge, an identifications of the principles that the person shall dedicate himself/herself to and the accomplishment of the whole potential is targeted. Access to multiplicity is stimulated by the projection of such tasks where problems allow multiple solutions alternative perspectives. By providing structured information that also allow different interpretations, by issuing personal ideas and comparing them with the ideas of the others as a result of dialogue facilitate the transition towards relativism. Critical reflections on what has been learned, projects that involve collaboration and cooperation stimulates the creation of knowledge and the identification of solutions to problems (Wankat & Oreovicz, 1993).

Knowing the preference of the student for particular learning situations (learning style) and the ways he/she processes information (cognitive style) proves useful in designing educational environment--by taking into account his/her needs and characteristics. There is a strong interrelation Relationship between the learning style and the cognitive style, as the first includes a cognitive dimension (the way of acquiring information), a conceptual dimension (the way of processing, organizing and memorizing information) and an affective dimension (influenced by motivation, values, emotions) (Witteman, 1997). People usually tend to use their favorite style, and in order to work efficiently with students the teacher must use a mix of activities in order to provide opportunities for each of them.

2. RESEARCH DESIGNING

2.1 Objectives and hypothesis of the research

The purpose of this pilot study was to capture the differences between students in technical and in human sciences in terms of their level of intellectual development and their learning style. The objectives were: to identify the level of intellectual development of the students as related to a number of tag-variables (field of study, year of study, type of study); to identify preferred learning styles for students in technical sciences. The sample consists of 62 students in technical sciences and 40 students in human sciences, aged 18 to 23 years. The test portfolio that has been used: Honey and Mumford questionnaire (1986); the questionnaire for the identification of the preferred learning environment, elaborated by us for this research, whose structure is based on the Perry's model of cognitive development.

2.2 Analysis and interpretation of the results

O1. Identification of the level of intellectual development of students as related to a number of tag-variables (field of study, year of study, type of study).

H1. There are differences between students in terms of their level of intellectual development in relationship with their domain of study. Following the statistical interpretation of data (by using SPSS 15.00 and AMOS 4.0) we have noticed several differences in the stage of cognitive development between students in technical and in human sciences (Tab. 1).

One can notice that for the technical profile, in our sample, the stage of multiplicity development is predominant. This means that these students are getting involved in building their own knowledge, are taking the responsibility of searching for correct information and solutions. The teacher is regarded as an authority who may not be always able to provide answers, and that is because the truth is not an absolute. The difference captured between students in human and in technical sciences can be due to the more pragmatic character of the second category. The need to search and find correct solution that can be immediately verified in practice, helps these students to achieve the leap in cognitive development more rapidly.

H2. Students in the first year of study are more "dualist" as compared to the students in higher years of study. Perry considered that upon the debut of university studies, most people find themselves in the dualist state of intellectual development. As they advance in their studies and are submitted to multiple educational experiences, they evolve, and pass successively into the multiplicity, relativist and, in the end of their studies, one can notice an engagement in relativism, considered to be a superior stage of intellectual development (Battaglini & Schenkat, 1987). Even the results of the studies are in accordance with theory, as students in the first year proved to be more "dualist" than those in the third year (Tab. 2). Consequently, they are focused on knowledge acquiring, knowledge that they expect to get from their teacher, regarded as the authority in the field, and preferring very clear and structured tasks that take place in a supportive climate. Moreover, one can also notice a negative correlation with age (r = -.260**, p=.002), which means that as they grow in age, people become a little less dualist, by modifying their perception on knowledge and on its role in the learning process.

H3. There are differences between students in terms of their level of intellectual development as related to the tag variable "gender". Perry's model was proposed following a research conducted on a sample of boys. Baxter-Magolda has verified the functioning of the model on a sample of girls and has noticed a series of differences in terms of behavioral patterns (Felder & Brent, 2004). In our case, we can notice the existence of certain differences between boys and girls in terms of the dualist level of their intellectual development (Tab. 3). Dualism is more obvious to boys, one of the explanations being that, although they do not like active ways of teaching, student-centered, they still ask more questions to the teachers in order to be sure that they have understood correctly. As for the girls, knowledge reception is made in a passive manner: they take notes, they listen and they interact little with the teacher (Felder & Brent, 2004).

O2. Identifying preferred learning styles for students in technical sciences.

H4. Students in technical sciences prefer theoretical and pragmatic styles of learning. Knowing preferred learning styles provides information on strong and weak points for this case and provides the possibility to select optimal opportunities for learning. In this respect, statistical data interpretation reveals a preference of students in technical sciences for the theoretical and pragmatic learning styles (Tab. 4). These are more interested about thorough analysis, they are logical, rational and objective, and they prefer a structured approach on problems. They also like to double their knowledge through a concrete verification of they know from theory.

2.3 Limits of the study

Among the limits of the pilot study we mention: uneven representation of the participants from the point of view of the tag-variables gender and specialization; the particularity of the test that have been used, which could generate a number of socially-desirable answers from the study.

3. CONCLUSIONS

Through our pilot study we have managed to capture, among a series of differences between students in different domains, an image of the student in technical sciences. This way, by corroborating the results, we are able to affirm that our student is in the multiplicity stage of his epistemological development, by admitting the multiple perspectives of approach for a problem, even if he doesn't manage to evaluate them correctly. As for the preferred teaching styles, we found the theoretical and pragmatic styles. These persons can be efficient learners if they are given time to explore relationships between ideas, events and situations, and the purpose of the activity is clearly specified. If all this knowledge is put into context and provides the possibility to verify its applicability, the efficiency of the learning process increases considerably.

Starting from this study, we have set as objective to design a training model (conceiving teaching activities, creating learning situation, designing evaluation tasks), a model that would put into value the potential of the students, while providing them in the same time with opportunities for achieving higher levels of intellectual development.

4. REFERENCES

Battaglini, D.J. & Schenkat, R.J. (1987). Fostering Cognitive Development in College Students-The Perry and Toulmin Models, available at http://www.ericdigests.org/pre925/perry.htm

Felder, R.M. & Brent, R., (2004). The Intellectual Development of Science and Engineering Students, In Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 93, nr. 4, pp. 269-277.

Honey, P. & Mumford, A., (1986). Learning style questionnaire-Scoring, In The Manual of Learning Styles, Maidenhead: Homey

Wankat, P.C. & Oreovicz, F.S., (1993). Models of cognitive development: Piaget and Perry, In Teaching engineering,

Wankat & Oreovicz (Eds.), pp.264-283, McGraw-Hill, N.Y., USA. Available free as pdf file: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE/AboutUs/Publications/ TeachingEng/index.html

Witteman, H.P.J. (1997). Styles of Learning and Regulation in an Interactive Learning group System, Nijgh and Van Ditmar Universitair, pp.13-23, ISBN 90-237-1174-2, Netherland

Tab.1. Differences from the point of view of the tag-variable
"field of study"

Intellectual Tag Mean Std. t p
develop. variable dev.
stage

Multiplicity Technical sc. 72.16 9.38 1.61 0.03
 Human sc. 68.10 9.05 1.62

Tab. 2. Differences from the point of view of the tag-variable
"year of study"

Intellectual Tag Mean Std. t p
develop. stage variable dev.

Dualism Year I 74.803 9.526 3.161 0.0
 Year 68.129 10.055 3.099 2
 III

Tab. 3. Differences from the point of view of the tag-variable
"gender"

Intellectual Tag Mean Std. t p
develop. stage variable dev.

Dualism F 71.581 9.772 -2.433 0.01
 B 77.175 11.187 -2.226

Tab. 4. Differences from the point of view of the tag-variable
"learning style"

Learning Tag-variable Mean Std. dev. t p
style

Theoretical Technical sc. 12.80 3.699 -2.009 0.04
 Human sc. 10.77 4.153

Pragmatic Technical sc. 12.67 3.871 -2.009 0.04
 Human sc. 10.84 3.216