An Objective Scoring Procedure to Assess Cognitive Style from Open-Ended Verbal Responses: The Modified this I Believe Test

Abstract

An objective scoring procedure for paragraph completion tests of cognitive style is offered: the Modified This I Believe Test (MTIB). It consists of seven sentence stems soliciting beliefs about societal institutions. Judges were provided with a checklist for the three structural properties of the response: differentiation—i. e., the number of dimensions used; articulation—i. e., the complexity of each dimension; and integration—i. e., the interrelatedness of the separate aspects of the response. These properties were taken to represent structural aspects of the respondent’s cognition. The scores ranged from 0 to 7 for each variable. Interjudge reliabilities were 0.84, 0.90, and 0.85, respectively, for the first week of testing. The interjudge reliabilities for the second week of testing were, in order, 0.92, 0.92, and 0.90. The respective test-retest stability coefficients between the first and second weeks of testing for the variables were 0.64,0.66, and 0.69. Although explained variances were low, significant correlations in the expected directions were found between the three measures of the MTIB and Wyer’s (1964) measures of differentiation (Dl) and integration (II). The MTIB-based measures were not significantly affected by verbal fluency (Word Endings Test, Fwl).