Cognitive Complexity and Degree Planning: Student Perceptions of and Needs From Technology Tools

Research indicates that ratee job experience and performance variability can affect performance judgments and causal attributions (Leventhal et al., 1977; Fusilier & Hitt, 1983; Scott & Hammer, 1975). When prototype expectations concerning ratee characteristics are not met, raters reacting to the cognitive inconsistency may distort ratee performance information (DeNisi, Cafferty, & Meglino, 1984). Because cognitively complex raters view behavior in a multidimensional manner (Schneier, 1977), not through a simplified schemata, cognitive complexity's possible effect on rating accuracy under cognitively inconsistent conditions was investigated. In an initial pilot study, 147 undergraduate volunteers rated the expected performance variability of a professor with either zero, five, or ten years of experience. Experiment 1 utilized a Ratee Experience $\times$ Ratee Performance Variability $\times$ Rater Cognitive Complexity regression design. One-hundred-thirty-five undergraduate volunteers completed three cognitive complexity measures, six vignettes, six BARS, an attribution questionnaire, and a manipulation check questionnaire. Experiment 2 used a similar design with videotaped rating stimuli (three lectures) to replicate Experiment 1. The pilot study showed that subjects expect only inexperienced professors to have variable performance. Overall rating accuracy was lowest in the moderate variability condition and in the high experience condition. Accuracy component analyses (Cronbach, 1955) indicated that more variable performance was rated more accurately. Further, marginal evidence suggested that higher cognitive complexity is somewhat associated with greater differential elevation accuracy when experienced ratees have variable performance. Also, effort and chance attributions were strongest in the moderate experience condition. In Experiment 2, highly experienced ratees and those with moderate variability were rated more accurately than others. Cognitive complexity was not helpful to rating accuracy. In one case, it was associated with more underrating of highly experienced, highly variable ratees. General support was found for the contention that prototype expectations exist and affect rating accuracy. Very limited support was gained for cognitive complexity as a useful rater characteristic. In consistent experimental findings are discussed in terms of the salience of performance variability and cognitive processing of information. Implications for training raters to observe multiple performance dimensions and attend to the possible biasing affects of ratee characteristics are also discussed.

Cognitive complexity is a concept that allows scholars to distinguish unidimensional thinking from multidimensional thinking, which allows citizens to identify and integrate various perspectives of a topic. Especially in times of fake news, fact-free politics, and affective polarization, the news media would ideally foster such complex political understanding. The current paper introduces the method of cognitive mapping to measure cognitive complexity regarding citizens’ understanding of the financial crisis, one of the most pressing political issues of the past decades. Linking content-analytic data to panel-survey data, we examine how exposure to news about the crisis relates to cognitive complexity. A wide variety of news sources (print, television, and online) were analyzed to take the high-choice media environment into account. Results show that news consumption generally is related to a less cognitively complex understanding of the financial crisis. However, actual exposure to news about the crisis (combined measurement of content analysis and survey data) is positively related to cognitive complexity, particularly among less-educated citizens. In addition, the most prominent topics in news coverage were more frequently associated with the financial crisis, as reflected in the cognitive maps of less-educated citizens exposed to more crisis news. These findings demonstrate the potential of news media to increase citizens’ complexity of understanding, especially among the less educated.

Chapter 5 examines judges’ writing style variation over time. It focuses on the cognitive complexity, linguistic tone, and length of judges’ opinions. The chapter’s empirical analysis leverages the text of approximately 429,000 opinions written by courts of appeals judges from 1924 to 2019. The empirical results show that, as judges age, their opinions change in several ways. Declining abilities to reason result in opinions that are less cognitively complex and shorter in length. The readability of aged opinions is also reduced, as manifested in longer sentences. Consistent with theoretical expectations, older judges’ opinions are less emotional overall. Last, the results suggest older judges write opinions that are more inconsistent in their cognitive complexity than opinions authored by younger judges.

Two experiments were conducted to test hypotheses derived from complexity theory regarding the interactive effect of situational variables and cognitive complexity of a communicator on the informational value of written communications. Complexity theory suggests that cognitively complex encoders, utilizing more dimensions of judgment in recognizing differences, are better able than cognitively simple encoders to distinguish the intended meaning of a communication from all competing, but inaccurate interpretations. Further, evidence exists which indicates that affective bias toward the referent of communication may lessen differences due to cognitive complexity. Much controversy has developed over the specific form of the interaction effect. Results of the experiments indicate that the superiority of cognitively complex encoders over cognitively simple ones is not limited by affective stimulus valence.

Informed by the cognition hypothesis (Robinson, 2011), recent studies indicate that more cognitively complex tasks can result in better incorporation of feedback during interaction and, as a consequence, more learning. It is not known, however, how task complexity and feedback work together in computerized environments. The present study addressed this gap by investigating how cognitive complexity in face-to-face (FTF) versus computer-mediated communication (CMC) environments mediates the efficacy of recasts in promoting second language development. Eighty-four adult learners of Spanish as a foreign language at a mid-Atlantic university were randomly assigned to a control group or one of four experimental groups. The experimental groups engaged in one-on-one interaction and received recasts on the Spanish past subjunctive but differed according to (a) whether or not they had to reflect on another person’s intentional reasons during the task and (b) whether they interacted in FTF or CMC environments. Learning was measured with two production tasks and a multiple-choice receptive test in a Pretest-Posttest 1-Posttest 2 design. Results revealed that in the FTF mode, performing the cognitively complex task while receiving recasts led to the most learning. In the CMC mode, the cognitively complex task + recasts was not effective. Instead, the cognitively simple task led to the most development in CMC. The study also found that judgments of time on task were the only independent measure of cognitive complexity that held across mode.

The acquisition order of coherence relations: On cognitive complexity in discourse

Numerosity and Cognitive Complexity as Moderators of the Medium Effect

This paper presents the findings of a mail survey distributed to franchisees in two Ontario cities. This was a follow-up study to one conducted on franchisees in five Ontario cities in 1989. The purpose of the study was to look more fully at personality and attitudinal variables affecting franchisees' job-involvement levels. The three psychographic variables of Type “A” Behaviour, Innovativeness, and Cognitive Complexity appeared to be key predictors in defining franchisees' job-involvement levels, the findings further showed that the franchisees were job-involved, moderate Type ‘A’s, with innovative and cognitively complex profiles.

The present paper focuses on the acquisition of L2 constructions for the expression of motion from a typological (Cadierno, 2008; Talmy, 1985, 1991, 2000) and a psycholinguistic perspective with implications for pedagogy (Robinson, 2003a, 2007; Robinson & Gilabert, 2007a, 2007b). Specifically, we report the results of a cross-linguistic study which examined the extent to which the manipulation of pedagogic tasks in terms of cognitive complexity can facilitate the development of target-like lexicalization patterns and appropriate L2 ways of thinking-for-speaking for the expression of motion by adult L2 learners with typologically similar and typologically different L1s and L2s, i.e., Danish vs. Japanese L1 learners of English. The results of the study show that level of L2 proficiency, assessed using a cloze test, predicts more target-like reference to L2 motion across both L1 groups. Typological similarity between the L1 (Danish) and L2 (English) results in greater use of motion constructions incorporating mention of ground of motion compared to their use by Japanese L1 speakers. More cognitively complex tasks lead to production of more target-like lexicalization patterns, but also only for speakers of the typologically similar L1, Danish.

The purpose of this paper is to compare how peer learning and problem-solving skills are applied on two information problems with differing levels of cognitive complexity. We analysed how 49 high school students solved two information problems with differing levels of complexity which involved selecting and interpreting information. The results show that in the more cognitively complex task, the pairs of students showed higher performance levels in the information search, browsing and development skills. Plus, they also achieved higher levels of shared knowledge construction. However, the information scanning and presenting skills did not show higher performance levels. These results may contribute to improving the teaching of the information processing competence in secondary education.

Scholars of ethnomethodologically informed discourse studies are often sceptical of the use of interview data such as focus group data. Some scholars quite simply reject interview data with reference to a general preference for so-called naturally occurring data. Other scholars acknowledge that interview data can be of some use if the distinction between natural and contrived data is given up and replaced with a distinction between interview data as topic or as resource. In greater detail, such scholars argue that interview data are perfectly adequate if the researcher wants to study the topic of interview interaction, but inadequate as data for studying phenomena that go beyond the phenomenon of interview interaction. Neither of these more and less sceptical positions are, on the face of it, surprising due to the ethnomethodological commitment to study social order as accomplished in situ, not as something that pre-exists or goes beyond the situated interaction. This article, however, challenges not only the first, but also the second position and suggests that it is, after all, possible to do committedly ethnomethodological studies of focus group data that demonstrate how members of a focus group setting accomplish certain rational orders, and, significantly, how they do so by utilizing certain available resources.

Changes, disruption and innovation: An investigation of the introduction of new health information technology in a microbiology laboratory

BackgroundBetween 12,000 and 16,000 veterans leave incarceration every year, yet resources are limited for reentry support that helps veterans remain connected to VA and community health care and services after leaving incarceration. Homelessness and criminal justice recidivism may result when such follow-up and support are lacking. In order to determine where gaps exist in current reentry support efforts, we developed a novel methodological adaptation of process mapping (a visualization technique being increasingly used in health care to identify gaps in services and linkages) in the context of a larger implementation study of a peer-support intervention to link veterans to health-related services after incarceration (https://clinicaltrials.gov/, NCT02964897, registered November 4, 2016) to support their reentry into the community.MethodsWe employed process mapping to analyze qualitative interviews with staff from organizations providing reentry support. Interview data were used to generate process maps specifying the sequence of events and the multiple parties that connect veterans to post-incarceration services. Process maps were then analyzed for uncertainties, gaps, and bottlenecks.ResultsWe found that reentry programs lack systematic means of identifying soon-to-be released veterans who may become their clients; veterans in prisons/jails, and recently released, lack information about reentry supports and how to access them; and veterans’ whereabouts between their release and their health care appointments are often unknown to reentry and health care teams. These system-level shortcomings informed our intervention development and implementation planning of peer-support services for veterans’ reentry.ConclusionsSystematic information sharing that is inherent to process mapping makes more transparent the research needed, helping to engage participants and operational partners who are critical for successful implementation of interventions to improve reentry support for veterans leaving incarceration. Even beyond our immediate study, process mapping based on qualitative interview data enables visualization of data that is useful for 1) verifying the research team’s interpretation of interviewee’s accounts, 2) specifying the events that occur within processes that the implementation is targeting (identifying knowledge gaps and inefficiencies), and 3) articulating and tracking the pre- to post-implementation changes clearly to support dissemination of evidence-based health care practices for justice-involved populations.

This article describes an interactive and collaborative strategic planning process by a community college in which student retention and success became a focus of a re-accreditation endeavor. The underlying assumption of this strategic planning effort was that engaging all groups that have a stake in student retention at the beginning of the planning process would make it more likely that recommendations that came out of the planning effort would be comprehensive, and have the support of all stakeholders on the college campus. As a result of the involvement of faculty, students, academic and support staff, as well as persons from student affairs, a comprehensive approach rather than a piece-meal approach to student success was the result of the planning process. The holistic nature of the institutional changes that emanated from the planning process is linked to the collaborative and interactive model that was used in approaching the problem of student success.

One notable outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic was the increased availability of online learning opportunities for higher education students. Despite the increased access and flexibility, few studies have examined the impact of Latin* students’ academic outcomes. Using a mixed-methods design, this study utilized administrative and focus group data from students enrolled in a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) to examine the educational outcomes and experiences of Latin* undergraduates. Findings suggest that the impact was especially acute for Latina students, who opted to complete courses online rather than in-person, enrolled in fewer credits, and experienced lower grade point averages compared to other female students.