Comparing Students in Architecture and Medicine: Findings from Two New Measures of Cognitive Style

Abstract

59 students in architecture and 50 medical students were compared using two questionnaire-defined measures of cognitive style. The Inquiry Mode Questionnaire (InQ) measured cognitive style according to five major dimensions: synthesist, idealist, analyst, realist and pragmatist. Your Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT)—Form C, now published as the Human Information Processing Survey (HIP Survey), measured preference for one of three main styles: a visuospatial, nonlinear, holistic, right-brain style; a verbal, analytic, sequential, left-brain style; and an integrated style involving an integration of the right and left styles. Significant differences were found for the two groups on the two questionnaires. Students in architecture favored the idealist style on the InQ and right-brain style on the SOLAT. Medical students favored the realist style on the InQ and the left-brain style on the SOLAT. Association between the InQ synthesist-idealist combined scores and the SOLAT inferred right-brain style and between the InQ analyst-realist style and the SOLAT left-brain style were observed.