Rhodes Ashley E, Rozell Timothy G
Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas; and
Department of Animal Sciences and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2017 Sep 1;41(3):375-382. doi: 10.1152/advan.00119.2016.
Cognitive flexibility is defined as the ability to assimilate previously learned information and concepts to generate novel solutions to new problems. This skill is crucial for success within ill-structured domains such as biology, physiology, and medicine, where many concepts are simultaneously required for understanding a complex problem, yet the problem consists of patterns or combinations of concepts that are not consistently used or needed across all examples. To succeed within ill-structured domains, a student must possess a certain level of cognitive flexibility: rigid thought processes and prepackaged informational retrieval schemes relying on rote memorization will not suffice. In this study, we assessed the cognitive flexibility of undergraduate physiology students using a validated instrument entitled Student's Approaches to Learning (SAL). The SAL evaluates how deeply and in what way information is processed, as well as the investment of time and mental energy that a student is willing to expend by measuring constructs such as elaboration and memorization. Our results indicate that students who rely primarily on memorization when learning new information have a smaller knowledge base about physiological concepts, as measured by a prior knowledge assessment and unit exams. However, students who rely primarily on elaboration when learning new information have a more well-developed knowledge base about physiological concepts, which is displayed by higher scores on a prior knowledge assessment and increased performance on unit exams. Thus students with increased elaboration skills possibly possess a higher level of cognitive flexibility and are more likely to succeed within ill-structured domains.
认知灵活性被定义为吸收先前所学信息和概念以生成解决新问题的新颖方案的能力。这项技能对于生物学、生理学和医学等结构不良领域的成功至关重要，在这些领域中，理解一个复杂问题需要同时运用许多概念，然而该问题由在所有例子中并非始终使用或需要的概念模式或组合构成。要在结构不良领域取得成功，学生必须具备一定水平的认知灵活性：依赖死记硬背的僵化思维过程和预先包装好的信息检索方案是不够的。在本研究中，我们使用一种名为“学生学习方法”（SAL）的经过验证的工具评估了本科生理学学生的认知灵活性。SAL通过测量诸如精细化和记忆等构念来评估信息处理的深度和方式，以及学生愿意投入的时间和精力。我们的结果表明，在学习新信息时主要依赖记忆的学生，通过先前知识评估和单元考试衡量，其关于生理学概念的知识库较小。然而，在学习新信息时主要依赖精细化的学生，其关于生理学概念的知识库更完善，这表现为在先前知识评估中得分更高以及在单元考试中成绩提高。因此，精细化技能提高的学生可能具有更高水平的认知灵活性，并且更有可能在结构不良领域取得成功。
