general population mean. In this study, the overall cognitive style mean score for females

was 91.49 (n=339), while the cognitive style mean score for males was 96.81 (n=170).

Therefore, classes with a larger percentage of females tend to have more adaptive mean

scores. Note that Class C was 72% male and had the most innovative total cognitive style

mean score (M=100.86) of the nine classes examined.

 In all classes, cognitive style construct mean scores were consistent for the

respective total score (Kirton, 1999). However, it is interesting to note that the efficiency

cognitive style construct was the most adaptive construct in Classes A, B, C, D, H and I.

Among these six classes the difference between the efficiency cognitive style construct

and the next most adaptive cognitive style construct ranged from .60 (Class H) to 2.00

(Class D).

 Non-response error limited the findings of this study as not every student

completed all four instruments. Particularly, non-response error may be higher in Class E

given that less than 50% of the students responded. The low response rate may be

attributed to the faculty member not providing extra-credit points to participating

students. No assessment for non-response error was conducted as explained in chapter 3.

 The KAI suffered a 29% mortality rate in this study. The KAI was scored by the

researcher with the guidelines presented by Kirton (1999). Many of these scores were

discarded as students tended to answer most of the items as easy or very easy indicating

that all tasks were easy to perform over a long period of time. This left few or no marks

to signify a specific task as hard or very hard to exhibit over a long period of time.

Because everyone has difficulty with some aspect of solving a problem, students marking