Okul Öncesi Dönemdeki Çocukların Bilişsel Stillerinin Bazı Değişkenler Açısından İncelenmesi

Bu araştırmanın amacı, okul öncesi dönemdeki çocukların 1 yaşlarına, 2 cinsiyetlerine, 3 kardeşsayılarına, 4 annelerinin 5 babalarının eğitim seviyelerine, 6 devam ettikleri okul türüne göre Kansas Okul Öncesi Çocuklar İçin Düşünsellik-İçtepisellik Ölçeğinin A formundan elde ettikleri hata sayısıve düşünme süresi puanlarının farklılaşıp, farklılaşmadığınıortaya koymaktır. Tarama modelinin kullanıldığıbu araştırmada okul öncesi dönemdeki çocukların Kansas Okul Öncesi Çocuklar İçin Düşünsellik-İçtepisellik Ölçeğinin A formundan elde ettikleri hata sayısıve düşünme süresi puanları, mevcut durumlarıve bazıdeğişkenlerle ilişkisi açısından betimlenmektedir. Araştırmaya okul öncesi eğitim kurumlarına devam eden 4-7 yaşarasıtoplam 1276 çocuk katılmıştır. Bu araştırmada verileri toplamak için Kansas Okul Öncesi Çocuklar İçin Düşünsellik-İçtepisellik Ölçeğinin A formu kullanılmıştır. Elde edilen veriler t testi ve variyans analizi kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda okul öncesi dönemdeki çocukların yaşa, cinsiyete, kardeşsayısına, ebeveyn eğitim düzeyine ve devam ettiği okul türüne göre, Kansas Okul Öncesi Çocuklar İçin Düşünsellik-İçtepisellik Ölçeği A formu hata sayısıve düşünme süresi puanlarının farklılaştığıbulunmuştur. Bununla birlikte bu farklılaşma daha çok düşünme sürelerinde değil, hata sayılarında ortaya çıkmıştır.

The Research Problem: According to Dinçer 1993 , cognitive style reflects the individuals’ attitudes towards the problems. The individuals’ cognitive style can be either impulsive or reflective one. Some individuals aim that they can reach the target taking the result at the minimum level but some aim that they should spend much time and they try to reach the exact result. Therefore, the previous group can be called as impulsive and the later group can be called as reflective. The researchers Fink and McCown, 1993 the impulsive individuals try to reach the result very quickly without thinking all the process but the reflective individuals control all the systems in the process and make process easy so they complete the process in the true way. These lead to having not success in impulsive individuals and affecting their learning process in negative way. It is important that to know about whether children have impulsive or reflective and benefit from the conclusions of the researches which will light curriculum developers and the practitioners to be able to develop a curriculum, selection of the teaching methods and techniques, and evaluating the curriculum Çakan, 2000; 2002 . Therefore, from the preschool period Turkish children should be identified and known whether they are reflective or impulsive, and should be examined for what kind of relationships between their personality feasibilities. The Aim of Research: The aim of this research is to examine reflective and impulsive cognitive styles of pre-school children and whether it changes or not according to their ages, sexualities, number of siblings, education levels of their parents and school kinds that they are being educated in. Method: Survey method was used in the research. With this method, the researchers aim identifying how the situation is in the past or in the present Karasar, 1984 . In this research reflective and impulsive cognitive style of pre-school children were examined from the point of personal parameters. The sample consists of children, who are being educated in the classes of the primary schools and the independent preschools which are responsible for Konya Local Education Authority. In addition to this, the sampling is made up of 4-7 aged total 1276 children who are chosen by the random sampling method. In spite of Kagan’s Matching Familiar Figure Test has being implied generally in many researches, another test was used in this research which was improved by Wright 1971 Kansas Reflection-Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers KRISP -Form A. In this research, KRISP-Form A was used which was developed by Wright 1971 to define the number of errors that children make and also to define their latency.KRISP-Form A test, consisting of five match-to-sample practice items followed by ten test items, was administered to the children. In content validity evaluation, opinions of experts have been taken into considerations well in KRISP-Form A Studies of validity, have been completed by rating validity, test retest and validity study of half split test. Findings: The findings can be ordered as the followings. 1. The findings related to the sub-problem: Although there are not significant differences between the latency of children enrolled in preschools on KRISP-Form A there are significant differences on error numbers made by the children. While children’s age increase, a decrease is observed on numbers of their errors and this decrease composes a significant difference on all ages group other than 6-7 ages groups. According to this result, it can be declared that the higher children’s age becomes, the more reflective they are. 2. The findings related to sub-problem: KRISP-Form A latency for the preschool boys and girls indicate similarities but the girls make less errors from the boys in terms of the number of the errors. It can be asserted that the girls are more reflective than the boys according to the result. 3. The findings related to the sub-problem. While the parameters of number of siblings do not change latency for KRISP-Form A, it causes differences on number of errors in a similar way. The children who have only one sibling make less error both than children that have more one sibling and the children have no siblings. Based on this result, lack of siblings or existence of more than one sibling can be said to affect the cognitive style of children in a negative way, in other words, it can be said that children who have single sibling are more reflective than the others. 4. The findings related to the sub-problem: When the education levels of the mothers of children are taken into consideration the latency and number of errors vary in KRISP-Form A. Latency of children of mothers who are graduated from higher education are higher than the children whose mothers are graduated from primary and secondary education programmes. Besides, children of mothers who graduated from primary schools make more errors than the children whose mothers graduated from higher education. According to this finding of the research, the higher the education level of mothers the more reflective cognitive style children have. 5. The findings related to the sub-problem: The education levels of fathers affect the number of errors in KRISP-Form A rather than latency. The higher the education level of fathers the lesser the number of errors children make. In other words, it can be said that the education level of children supports the development of children’s reflective cognitive style.6- The findings related to sub-problem. School species affect thinking durations according to the results of the KRISP-Form A. Latency of the preschool children are longer than the children who are educated in nursery but there are similarities among number of errors. It can be said that nurseries effected more than preschools on cognitive styles of the children based on the latest findings of the research. In other words, the children who have been educating in nurseries are more reflective than the children who have been educating in preschools. The following issues can be suggested according to the results in the research; 1. Education levels of the parents’ effects the extent of reflective–impulsive cognitive style of preschool children. Thus, in particular, the families which have low education level should be supported with family education programmes. 2. New researches should be made by adding parameters that have possible effect on the extent of reflective style of preschool children. 3. Curriculum of the preschool education should be reviewed and applications, that will improve the extent of reflective and impulsive style of preschool children, should be taken into consideration. 4. Education seminars should be given to the preschool teachers about reflective and impulsive cognitive styles. 5. Nursery curriculum and physical conditions should be reviewed by reconsidering that preschools affected the extent of reflective style of the children more than the children enrolled in nurseries have