ABSTRACT
A characteristic in which researchers and educators have become interested is the individuals' cognitive style, including the field-dependence-independence (FDI) dimension. This is a bipolar continuum with field-dependent (FD) individuals on one extreme and field-independent (FI) individuals on the other extreme. This chapter provides descriptions and procedures of formal and informal techniques to evaluate young children's cognitive style to individualize instruction in educational programs. There are a number of measures from which researchers on cognitive style can choose. The most frequent tests used to evaluate individual differences along the FDI dimension of perceptual functioning have been selected on the basis of their simplicity and effectiveness. Research has shown that the FDI dimension of cognitive style in pupils may affect their preference for learning techniques and the learning process. Cognitive styles describe the individuals' personality including their social and cognitive performance better than any intellectual test by itself could provide.
