Education and Cognitive Diversity: Assisting Model for Teaching About Mental Preferences
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
EDUCATION AND COGNITIVE DIVERSITY: ASSISTING MODEL FOR TEACHING ABOUT MENTAL PREFERENCES Master Thesis Book Pouria Kh (Khademolhosseini) International Design Business Management Department of Design Aalto University Spring 2014 ABSTRACT How can educators help their students learn about cognitive diversity? That is to say, how can they help their students learn and appreciate how they tend to work, think, see, or even communicate differently? Everybody’s way of thinking and interpreting the environment differs. Some happen to do things in more similar ways, while at the same time they often contradict the approach of some others, and so, it is clear that mental preferences vary between which of us. Today’s trends suggest that we need to learn how to work more productively with each other; trends such as increasing complexity in the challenges we are facing, arguably lead to the use of more diverse teams in organizations. Therefore, we need to understand each other more than before. However, in current education setting, very little consideration —if any— is being made to present students with issues of diversity in team settings. This can even be said for programs aiming to teach students better collaboration skills. This thesis is part of an ongoing research project that aims to improve our interactions by learning about cognitive diversity. Consequently, this particular thesis book contributes to assist those educators who want their students to understand how diverse they may tend to make decisions and think about things. The extensive literature review conducted to date has led to the researcher’s development of a model for thinking preferences based on established studies: including Herrmann’s “Whole Brain” theory and the “Human Dynamics” framework by the Seagal et al. The proposed visual model aims to assist educators in easing the learning process and acts as a tool that outlines the essential factors that students can independently use later on in order to identify the thinking preferences of others. ii This work also includes an empirical component, which has conducted in two parts, using three qualitative methodologies. In the first part, a number of Aalto University educators were interviewed to better understand their needs in teaching about diversity; so as to clarify that such a need actually exists. In the second part two experiments were conducted on several student groups; one experiment for testing the validity of the proposing model and another one for testing its functionality in practice. Keywords: Thinking diversity, Whole Brain theory, Human Dynamics, Mental Preferences Model, Qualitative study, Education, Tool iii i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial – and error, change this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-‐confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of ” hope, progress. ~Bruce Barton, author It has been a privilege to study International Design Business Management at Aalto University. Because, it opened a window and provided me a better opportunity to proceed with my learning path to the desired fields and explore other possibilities that otherwise would be difficult. This short section is dedicated for extending my heartfelt thanks to all those who supported my project and me. I would like to thank my mentors, Peter McGrory, Daniel Graff, Matti Vartiainen, and Person Oscar for their guidance and also patience during challenging sessions with me. As well, I would like to thank Markku Salimäki and Kalevi Ekman for providing me support and working space. My deep gratitude also goes to Arthur Carmazzi who has been the source of my early inspiration, and then to Ashkan Shabnavard and Neda Farzam for their support and encouragement. As well, I would like to thank Mikko Koria, Olli Varis, Paula Siitonen, Antti Lehto, and Ari Laitala, who I used their insights. A big thank goes to Naoko Nakagawa, who marked one of my best moments when she informed me I am in IDBM. Last, and certainly not least, I want to thank my family. Thank you for accepting who I am, believing in what I do, and being supportive all the time. A special word of appreciation goes directly to my best friend and my wife Mahsa; I mentioned you at the end, so I could have more time with you. Thank you for your selfless support and warm hands. At the end, I wish to dedicate this work to those who thrive to create a better world, the actual purpose and driver of my work. ii LIST OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................ .................................................................. 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 SCOPE .................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................... 5 1.4 STRUCTURE ......................................................................................................... 6 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ................................ .............................................. 7 2.1 GENERAL THEORIES .......................................................................................... 8 2.1.1 DIVERSITY ..................................................................................................... 8 2.1.2 COGNITIVE DIVERSITY .............................................................................. 10 2.2 MODELS IN BRIEF .............................................................................................. 14 2.2.1 MYERS BRIGGS .......................................................................................... 14 2.2.2 BELBIN TEAM ROLES ................................................................................. 16 2.2.3 TEAM MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ................................................................. 17 2.2.4 BIG FIVE ....................................................................................................... 20 2.2.5 FIELD DEPENDENCE .................................................................................. 21 2.2.6 HEMISPHERE DOMINANCE ....................................................................... 22 2.2.7 TRIUNE BRAIN ............................................................................................. 23 2.2.8 ADDAPTION-INNOVATION TEHORY ......................................................... 24 2.2.9 COGNITIVE STYLE ANALYSIS ................................................................... 25 2.2.10 WHOLE BRAIN ........................................................................................... 26 2.2.11 HUMAN DYNAMICS ................................................................................... 34 2.3 MENTAL PREFERENCES MODEL ..................................................................... 46 2.3.1 DEVELOPMENT PROCESS ........................................................................ 48 2.3.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF MPM ..................................................................... 56 3. METHODS ................................ ........................................................................ 60 3.1 DESIGN AND PROCEDURES ............................................................................ 60 3.2 INTERVIEW ......................................................................................................... 60 3.3 CONDUCTED EXPERIMENTS ........................................................................... 66 3.1.2 EXPERIMENT No.1 ...................................................................................... 71 3.1.2 EXPERIMENT No.2 ...................................................................................... 75 4. FINDINGS ................................ ......................................................................... 78 iii 4.1 RESULTS OF INTERVIEW ................................................................................. 78 4.1.1 ASPECTS OF DIVERSITY ........................................................................... 78 4.1.2 COGNITIVE DIVERSITY .............................................................................. 80 4.1.3 TOOLS & METHODS ................................................................................... 81 4.1.4 NEEDING METHOD ..................................................................................... 82 4.2 RESULTS FOR VALIDITY ................................................................................... 84 4.3 RESULTS FOR FUNCTIONALITY ...................................................................... 91 4.3.1 EXPERIMENT GROUP A ............................................................................. 93 4.3.2 EXPERIMENT GROUP B ............................................................................. 94 4.3.3 EXPERIMENT GROUP C ............................................................................. 95 5. DISCUSSION ................................ ..................................................................... 97 5.1 OPPORTUNITY FOR EDUCATORS ................................................................... 97 5.1.1 CONSIDERING COGNITIVE DIVERSITY .................................................... 98 5.1.2 COMPARISON OF MODELS ..................................................................... 100 5.2 EVALUATION OF PROPOSED MODEL ........................................................... 102 5.2.1 EVALUATION OF VALIDITY