Conceptual Matching Models and Interactional Research in Education

Conceptual Matching Models and Interactional Research in EducationAuthor(s): Alan MillerSource: Review of Educational Research, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Spring, 1981), pp. 33-84Published by: American Educational Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1170250 .

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Review of Educational Research

Spring, 1981, Vol. 51, No. 1, Pp. 33-84

Conceptual Matching Models and Interactional Research in Education

Alan Miller

University of New Brunswick

In recent years, considerable attention has focused on student-environment interactions in classroom settings. Numerous attempts have been made to depict the processes involved, often in terms of attribute-treatment interactions (A TI's). Opinions differ about the net result of these efforts. On the one hand, there are those who note that few A TI's have been reliably demonstrated, and point to inadequacies in both the theory and method being used. In contrast, there is a body of opinion which asserts that adequate theory and method already exist, within the framework of Conceptual Systems Theory (CST), and that there is sufficient empirical evidence to support this view. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the latter contention by undertaking a critical evaluation of both the theory and the educational research carried out within its framework. A number of theoretical problems are raised which, however, do not appear to detract from the overallframework but merely point to areas that need development and to pitfalls that can be avoided by the prospective researcher. An evaluation of experimental design issues leads to the development of an index of design adequacy which is used to rank studies. The majority of studies reviewed exhibit numerous design problems with a reasonable degree of adequacy being apparent only in a small group of "superior" studies. Thus, the consistent support afforded theoretical expectations by the majority of studies needs to be viewed with caution, although greater confidence can be placed in the substantial support for the matching model provided by the better studies. It is noted that the Conceptual System matching model has yet to be adequately tested under genuinely pedagogic conditions and that this is especially true of the developmental match. The paper ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical issues that face the researcher who may wish to undertake such a test, and it is concluded that the theory offers a promising frameworkfor interactional research in education.

This is a paper about interactionist approaches to the teaching-learning process and, in particular, about the potential usefulness of Conceptual Systems Theory (CST), a cognitive personality theory, in dealing with the question of student- environment interactions.

In recent years, considerable attention has been focused on student-environment interactions in classroom settings. Numerous attempts have been made to depict the

processes involved, often in terms of attribute-treatment interactions (ATI's). Opin- ions differ about the net result of these efforts. On the one hand are those who note

Preparation of this article was supported by the Canadian Heart Foundation.

33



ALAN MILLER

that few ATI's have been reliably demonstrated and point to inadequacies in both the theory and methods being used (Berliner & Cahen, 1973; Bracht, 1970; Cronbach & Snow, 1977; Goldberg, 1972; Mitchell, 1969; Salomon, 1972; Shulman, 1970; Tobias, 1976). The general impression conveyed is that considerable improvements in both the conceptualization and operationalization of the components of interactions are needed and that this may take some time to achieve. In contrast, there is a body of opinion that asserts that adequate theory and method already exist, most notably within the framework of Conceptual Systems Theory (Brophy & Good, 1974; Goldstein, 1978; Harootunian, 1978; Hunt, 1971, 1975a, 1975b, 1977, 1978, Note 1; Stuempfig, 1975). The potential of this latter approach has been explored in a variety of educational settings, but to date no critical evaluation of these studies is available. This paper offers such an evaluation and is divided into two main parts: a brief introduction to theoretical issues, followed by a critical analysis of pertinent research.

Conceptual Systems Theory

Conceptual Systems Theory is a personality theory that focuses on individual differences in social cognition within a developmental framework. It shows some similarity to the theoretical schemes of Loevinger (1976) and Kohlberg (1969). Following the original statement by Harvey, Hunt, and Schroder (1961), a considerable body of theory and research has developed (Hunt & Sullivan, 1974; Schroder, Driver, & Streufert, 1967; Streufert & Streufert, 1978), critical evaluations of a portion of this literature being available elsewhere (Miller, 1978; Miller & Wilson, 1979). The most useful introductions to the educational applications of the theory are to be found in Hunt and Sullivan (1974) and Schroder, Karlins, and Phares (1973). Much of this work has been carried out in the interactionist mode, following the Lewinian formulation, which states that behavior is a function of an interaction between personality and environment. It will be useful, therefore, in reviewing the theory, to discuss each component separately before turning to the interaction hypotheses that have been developed in CST.

The Person

The person, be it student or teacher, is characterized in terms of the structure and, to a lesser extent, content of his/her conceptual system. The term "structure" refers to the formal aspects of a system, in this case to the composition and arrangement of cognitive units into an organized and complex whole. It refers to "how" a person construes or thinks. On the other hand, "content" refers to "what" a person thinks, to the meaning of cognitions rather than to their form. Thus, two persons may believe in the virtues of communism but with different degrees of complexity in their supporting arguments. They would be said to be similar in content (belief in communism) but differ in the structure of their belief. The emphasis on structural variables in describing conceptual systems is unusual in personality theory. Propo- nents argue that the structural properties of any system can be described in terms of a limited number of generic concepts, whereas the content of cognition may vary endlessly. Structural descriptions, therefore, add a degree of parsimony unattainable with content descriptions alone.

34



CONCEPTUAL MATCHING MODELS

Structure

The number of concepts developed by an individual (degree of differentiation) and their interrelations (degree of integration) jointly define the level of "conceptual complexity" attained. High levels of both differentiation and integration are assumed to be prerequisites of high levels of conceptual complexity. However, the relationship between the two components is far from clear. Recently, Streufert (Note 2) has argued that high levels of integration may only be achieved in the presence of moderate differentiation and, indeed, high differentiation may actually hinder the development of integrative skills. The implication of this is that there may be different kinds of conceptual complexity, in addition to the version offered in CST.

In all of the studies evaluated here, conceptual complexity is presented as a trait, a cognitive predisposition with assumed generality across time and situation. The problem is whether this is consistent with the rejection of trait approaches to personality which is implicit in the interactionist stance taken in CST. Theorists use three arguments to substantiate their views on the matter. First, they claim limited generality for their conception of a trait, that is, conceptual complexity is defined within the social domain and predictions of behavior in the nonsocial domain are made with caution. Second, they recognize that situational influences, such as stress, influence the expression of complexity. Third, and perhaps most important, is the proposition that conceptual complexity be viewed as a "genotypic" trait, that is, one which reflects basic cognitive processes. Because genotypic traits are seen as having a variety of phenotypic expressions, depending on situational factors, then inconsistencies in outcome can be accommodated. This, however, leads to some difficulty in attempting to validate the concept.

It has proved difficult to develop conceptualizations of differentiation and integration to the point where conceptual complexity can be measured with some degree of confidence (Miller & Wilson, 1979). The difficulty lies in the fact that the number of concepts (degree of differentiation) applied in a given judgmental situation is a function of the degree of integration the person chooses to apply at the time (Langley, 1971). This integral relationship between the two processes is further exacerbated by the problem of distinguishing between a conceptual structure that shows lack of differentiation and one that exhibits integration. The basic measures commonly used to assess structural variables, therefore, are indirect in the sense that the components of structure are not examined. The degrees of differentiation and integration are not assessed directly. Rather, the basic assumption is made that individual differences in the complexity of conceptual systems are reflected in the ability to cope with conflict, so that most operations take on the aspect of conflict resolution tasks. All of the educational studies reported here accept these theoretical and operational assumptions without further comment. Further discussions of these and other measurement issues are available elsewhere (Miller, 1978; Miller & Wilson, 1979).

Content

The content of conceptual systems refers to the kinds of meanings developed and the information considered salient by the individual. In recent years, the content aspects of cognitive functioning have received relatively little attention (Streufert, Note 2; Schroder, Note 3), unlike the early versions of the theory (Harvey et al., 1961), where the assumption was made that certain meanings are salient to all

35



ALAN MILLER

individuals at specified points in their development and that these patterns of

meaning can be used to classify individuals. The central theme used to depict the content of conceptual systems is that of a

dependence-independence conflict. Basically, a developmental shift is said to occur from an external, dependent posture to a more internal, interdependent orientation.

During this process, the individual is said to move from a conception of social rules as absolutes, and as mandatory guidelines for behavior, to a more complex under-

standing of their nature and function. As a consequence, the more interdependent the person, the more he/she is said to be capable of autonomy in interpersonal relations. As such, there is nothing particularly controversial about these views on content, since they are consistent with other cognitive-developmental models (Kohl- berg, 1969; Loevinger, 1976). Controversy arises in the attempt to establish systematic relationships between structure and content. A typical example of this is Hunt's

(1975a) use of the term "Conceptual Level" (CL), which comprises conceptual complexity (structure) together with interpersonal maturity (content) and self-other

understanding (content). This kind of classification is said to provide a way of

distinguishing individual differences in the ability to process information, to work

independently, and to cope with conflict, all in the social domain. The problems that have arisen with this conception involve the way in which structure and content have been related in the formulation of "conceptual types" and might best be discussed under that heading.

Conceptual Types CST is, essentially, a typology. Most theorists assume some form of covariance

between structure and content. The resulting developmental dimension is depicted as a "concrete-abstract" continuum, with the concrete types (low CL) showing conceptual simplicity and external, dependent orientations to interpersonal affairs. Abstract

types (high CL) are said to exhibit conceptual complexity and internal, interdependent orientations. A major controversy has arisen in CST about the wisdom of this

proposed link between structure and content. The problem is whether or not the

development of conceptual complexity is invariably associated with the prescribed changes in content, or interpersonal orientation. A detailed discussion of the issue, together with pertinent evidence, is available in Miller (1978). One of the conse-

quences of this controversy has been the development of two approaches to assessment, differing in the degree to which "content" criteria are incorporated into scoring procedures. For example, virtually all of the studies evaluated later use a version of the Paragraph Completion Method (Hunt, Butler, Noy, & Rosser, 1978; Schroder et al., 1967; Schroder & Phares, Note 4), a semi-projective device scored mainly on structural criteria. Content criteria are reduced to a minimum. On the other hand, the "This I Believe" test of Harvey (Note 5), and its derivatives, include both structure and content criteria but emphasize content criteria. The problem that ensues is that, if one adopts a classification of subjects based mainly on structural criteria and eschews matters of content, then it follows that only structural hypotheses should be generated in research studies.

In summary, there are two main problems at issue in the conceptualization of the Person in CST: (1) whether the relatively indirect methods of assessment have some degree of validity or whether there is a need to develop more discriminating forms

36




of direct measure, with all the conceptual problems that would arise; and (2) the validity of the postulated relationships between structure and content variables.

The Environment

Proponents of CST maintain that one of the virtues of the theory is the way in which both person and environment are couched in compatible terms (Hunt, 1975b), so facilitating the development of interaction hypotheses. The question addressed here is whether this is, in fact, the case. In discussing this issue, it will be convenient to deal separately with the social and task aspects of the environment.

The original formulation of the social environment by Harvey et al. (1961) has changed little in the intervening years (Cross, 1966, 1970; Goldstein & Blackman, 1978; Harvey & Felknor, 1970). Three dimensions are used to depict its salient features: unilateral-interdependent, reliable-unreliable, and protective-informational. The unilateral-interdependent distinction contrasts situations in which there are relatively few simple, social rules rigidly imposed by parents with ones in which social rules are generated or discovered by the child within a cooperative, exploratory context. The dimension appears to refer to the degree of choice made available to the child. The remaining two dimensions reflect the degree to which parents and teachers intrude on the learning process. Thus, "reliable-unreliable" refers to the consistency with which ready-made social rules are imposed on the child, whereas "protective- informational" refers to the style of manipulation attempted. A protective style is one in which parents act as models, protecting the child from the consequences of his or her actions and cooperating in the learning of rules. The informational mode is one in which parents and teachers hover in the background, adjusting the situation where necessary but letting the child experience the consequences of his or her actions. Based on these three dimensions, Harvey et al. (1961) proposed four environmental types: (1) reliable unilateral (consistent imposition of externally formulated social rules), (2) unreliable unilateral (inconsistent demands to conform to external rules), (3) protective interdependent (cooperative development of an

understanding of social rules), and (4) informational interdependent (independent exploration of social processes within flexible limits). More recently, Schroder et al. (1967) have suggested that the four environmental types can be arranged along a continuum of "developmental potential." This might be seen as analogous to the concrete-abstract continuum used in the description of the person in CST.

The point at issue here is the extent to which the person and environmental dimensions are based on compatible principles. It will be recalled that the person is

conceptualized in terms of structural (conceptual complexity) and content (dependence-independence orientation) dimensions. One would expect that comparable descriptions of the environment would include the number and organization of social rules and norms (structure) together with the degree of dependence-independence allowed (content). It is clear that the three basic environmental dimensions represent attempts to do this, but with rather limited success. Thus the "unilateral-interde-

pendent" dimension emphasizes parental control of social behavior with little indication of the number and complexity of social rules involved in the training environment. Similarly, the "reliable-unreliable" and "protective-informational" dimensions are concerned with forms of social control, with little indication of a structural component. Current notions of environmental types, therefore, comprise

37



ALAN MILLER

a mixture of structural and content elements, heavily weighted in the direction of "content" statements (dependence-independence orientation) and dealing largely with the issue of social control. This is in contrast to conceptions of the person which

emphasize structure. In both cases, however, the same uneasy link has been proposed between structure and content.

Because the conceptualization of the social environment has not reached the level of sophistication achieved in viewing the person, it is not surprising to find a virtual absence of standard methods for assessing environmental types. As we shall see, a

great variety of operations are used in practice, many of which are without conceptual foundation. This relatively impoverished state of affairs reflects a more general condition in personality theory (Pervin, 1978; Endler, Note 6).

The task aspects of the environment have received some attention, in CST, particularly in connection with the experimental study of game simulations. Struc- tural variables are usually emphasized, notably information load, together with the amount of punishment and reward received in the execution of the task (Schroder et al., 1967). All three components comprise the task complexity of the environment, although there are some disputes about the nature of the relationships involved (Streufert, 1970). However, these are not of concern here. Of more significance is the

potential usefulness of these ideas for conceptualizing academic subject matter in terms that facilitate its incorporation into the theoretical framework provided by CST. The attempts to do so are encouraging (Barker, 1974; Schroder et al., 1967; Suedfeld & Borrie, Note 7) but have not reached the stage of classroom application.

In summary, the conceptualization and measurement of the environment, in CST, has not reached the level achieved in viewing the person. Some minimal degree of success has been achieved in couching both in compatible terms, the relationship between structural and content components being a persistent problem. A number of other issues remain to be resolved. For instance, the conceptual relationships between the social and task components of the environment have received little attention. This is particularly important in light of the numerous attempts to manipulate the social climate of the classroom. It is not clear how one can predict the consequences of this on academic achievement. Perhaps the most significant issue that requires attention, however, is the question of whose viewpoint is to be used in characterizing the environment. A learning environment defined as informational interdependent by a teacher might be seen as unreliable unilateral by a student. Further, Bryson and Driver (1969) found that conceptually simple and complex subjects obtain different amounts of information from the same stimuli. Observer-defined estimates of environmental structure and content, therefore, may not represent the experience of the student. This matter has not been addressed to any extent in CST and has only recently been raised (Hunt, 1978, Note 1).

Behavior

The kinds of behavioral outcomes which have been of interest in CST are consistent with the assumptions made about the conceptual structure of the person and his/her response to a complex social environment. Thus, the theory focuses on the conceptual and behavioral strategies used in coping with conflict and ambiguity in the social environment, particularly those behaviors that reflect dependence- independence orientations. For example, response to authority; self-other discrimi-

38




nations; empathy and the ability to process social information have all been examined

(Harvey, 1966; Miller, 1978). Outcome measures which attempt to operationalize these conceptions would have theoretical and criterion relevance. It follows that

predictions about the effects of person and environment on such outcomes can be made with some confidence. However, the implementation of this principle in educational settings has created a number of problems that reflect on the validity of the studies reviewed below.

Because CST is a developmental theory, the outcomes of interest are commonly those that reflect change. Ideally, some attempt would be made to examine change in conceptual level (CL) as an outcome of person-environment interaction. However, CL is seen as a generic trait in CST. Hunt and Sullivan (1974) make the point that

changes in generic traits such as CL take some time to occur and cannot be easily demonstrated in the classroom. This kind of developmental goal, therefore, may be

inherently unattractive in contrast to more short-term, easily detected achievement

goals. It is possible that the difficulty in detecting developmental changes in the short term, is a major reason for the absence of empirical investigations of change in CL. The time-scale of educational research appears to make this unrealistic. Only two

longitudinal studies have been found that use CL as an outcome (Hunt, 1971; Tomlinson, Note 8).

A number of CST theorists (Hunt & Sullivan, 1974; Schroder et al., 1967) argue that the hypothesized differences between individuals in their ability to deal with

complex, ambiguous situations can be detected only when the outcome measure used allows such differences to be exhibited. Simple tasks which emphasize speed or

repetition are not thought to engage the more integrative skills of the high CL individual. This presents something of a dilemma for the experimenter because, in

seeking to demonstrate the effects of person-environment interactions, one needs outcome measures that are sensitive to both variables. In other words, it can be

hypothesized that when one assesses a low CL person on a task that requires high levels of integrative skill, any environmental manipulation might be masked by difficulty experienced by the subject with this form of outcome measure. Presumably, the ideal strategy would be to include outcome measures that vary in complexity, as one sees in the work of Hunt and associates (Hunt, Joyce, Greenwood, Noy, Reid, & Weil, 1974; McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Noy & Hunt, 1972).

It has been noted earlier that CST does not deal with nonsocial stimulus domains such as academic achievement. Further, the relationship between social and nonsocial domains awaits theoretical development. It follows that predictions of nonsocial outcomes cannot be adequately made within the theoretical framework provided by CST. The use of outcome measures that assess academic achievement is, therefore, theoretically unfounded and, to a large extent, theoretically irrelevant. However, many studies do explore academic achievement. Unfortunately, it is not clear how such studies can be used to evaluate the interaction hypotheses generated in CST. In addition, because "academic achievement" is not couched in theoretically relevant terms, the results obtained may be of little use in extending the theoretical structure of CST.

In summary: the outcome measures of most theoretical relevance in evaluating interaction hypotheses are those that reflect the subject's ability to cope with conflict and ambiguity in the social environment. All other outcome measures are of dubious

utility.

39



ALAN MILLER

Person-Environment Interactions

To reiterate some of the points made earlier, an interactionist position is taken in CST in which the complexity of behavior is seen as a function of the level of

conceptual development of the person and the structural complexity of the environment. Differential consequences are predicted when the person is exposed to different environments. These interaction hypotheses have been incorporated into educational

matching models, most notably by Hunt (1966, 1971, 1975b, 1978). A "match" refers to a particular person-environment combination, based on

hypotheses about expected outcomes. A "matching model" refers to a systematic presentation of hypotheses about matches and their consequences. Two fundamen-

tally different kinds of matches have been identified by Stern (1970): those that

satisfy and those that stimulate. The implication is that conceptual development occurs only when the person experiences conceptual conflict or ambiguity. Hunt (1971, 1975b) has developed these notions further by recognizing two kinds of

matching procedures. A contemporaneous match is one in which the person can cope with environmental demands using currently available skills and without the need to

develop new concepts or strategies. A developmental match, on the other hand, requires that new concepts and strategies be developed. Implicit in this distinction is the assumption that the level of environmental structure which is considered optimal for a contemporary match would be sub-optimal for development.

Hunt has expressed these ideas in two forms, a simplified matching hypothesis and a more elaborate matching model. The former states: "Low-CL learners profit more from high structure and high-CL learners profit more from low structure, or in some cases, are less affected by the variation in structure" (Hunt, 1971, p. 44). This

principle would appear to apply to both contemporaneous and developmental matches. Hunt's (1966) matching model (Table I) focuses primarily on developmental matching and indicates the degree of structure required at each conceptual level to assure development to the next stage. More refined predictions can ensue from this

matching model, in contrast to the matching hypothesis, taking into account as it does the curvilinear relationship between environmental and behavioral complexity. This curvilinear relationship is of singular importance in educational research using matching principles. One form of the relationship, which has been demonstrated in the experimental study of complex simulation games (Schroder et al., 1967; Streufert, 1969, 1970, 1972; Streufert, Streufert, & Castore, 1969), is depicted in Figure 1. The precise nature of these relationships in a classroom setting is unknown, although there is evidence to suggest that something akin to Figure 2 might pertain (Cartwright, 1974) when the environment is extremely aversive to the high-CL students, that is, high structure with emphasis on speed and repetition of simple tasks.

These curvilinear relationships create a number of problems in the kind of research needed to test matching hypotheses in the classroom. Typically, researchers use two levels of environmental complexity: low and high structure. It can be readily appreciated that the behavioral consequences of matching low- and high-CL subjects to "low" and "high" environmental complexity will depend on the location of these treatments on the environmental dimension. Thus, in Figure 1, treatments A and B would result in a near zero slope for low-CL subjects with a positive slope for high- CL subjects. In contrast, a slight shift of conditions to positions A' and B' would result in exactly the opposite findings. A researcher testing Hunt's general matching

40




TABLE I Hunt's Developmental Matching Model

Present' Environment Match/Mismatch Expected Outcome Stage

Sub I Clearly organized within norma- Optimal Open I tive structure

Normatively unclear or inconsist- Sub-optimal Closed Sub I ent

Emphasis on autonomy Super-optimal Closed Sub I

Stage I Emphasis on autonomy within Optimal Transition to II normative structure

Clearly organized within norma- Sub-optimal Closed I tive structure

Highly autonomous Super-optimal Transitional arrestation

Stage II Highly autonomous with low nor- Optimal Open II mative pressure

Clearly organized within norma- Sub-optimal Closed II tive structure

Emphasis on mutuality Super-optimal Closed II

Note. From "A Conceptual Systems Change Model and its Application to Education" by D. E. Hunt, In O. J. Harvey (Ed.), Experience, Structure, and Adaptability, 1966. Copyright 1966 by Springer Publishing Company, Inc., New York. Reprinted by permission. a The three stages listed represent the lower levels of the concrete abstract

continuum, which, in its complete form, ranges from Sub I to Stage IV.

hypothesis might assume that conditions A and B produce results which disconfirm this hypothesis, whereas A' and B' confirm this hypothesis. In fact, both sets of results would appear to be consistent with more specific hypotheses based on curvilinear

assumptions. Similarly, those who seek a disordinal interaction as the sole criterion for validating the matching hypothesis might only achieve this end if they are skillful

enough or lucky enough to achieve conditions C and D (Figure 2). A number of conclusions might be drawn from this: the matching hypothesis

(Hunt, 1971, p. 44) is too simple, representing as it does only a part of the story; the

matching model (Hunt, 1966) provides a more adequate basis for the generation of

hypotheses; by ignoring the curvilinear relation between environmental and behavioral complexity, authors may produce false negative results; more than two treatment conditions are needed if environmental complexity is to be adequately represented; ideally, some attempt should be made to establish the nature of the curvilinear relations that pertain in the learning situation at hand (e.g., Kirk, 1970).

Matching Studies

The 29 studies included in Table II have been selected from the larger body of

empirical work in CST because of their relevance to matching procedures in the classroom. Additional research on teaching styles and CL, not included in Table II, is discussed in the text. Other educationally relevant research on CL and attitude

41



ALAN MILLER

high B A B' A

rE "~ '" // 'N^highCL

/ owC , low I O W L

low high Environmental complexity

FIGURE 1. Differential effects of treatment conditions on behavior in relation to conceptual level of subject, based on the curvilinear relationships proposed by Schroder, Driver, & Streufert

(1967). Levels A and B, A' and B' represent treatment conditions that may result in ordinal interactions of two kinds.

high

D

E

C low

low _________ ____________lo.L

low high Environmental complexity

FIGURE 2. A hypothetical set of relationships between environmental complexity and task

performance in which the lower levels of environmental complexity are highly structured, or otherwise aversive to high conceptual level subjects. Levels C and D represent treatments that may result in disordinal interactions.

42




change, information processing, and creativity is reviewed elsewhere (Harvey, 1966; Streufert & Streufert, 1978).

A substantial number of statistically significant effects are apparent in the studies under review, amounting to 19 main effects of CL, 14 treatment effects, 12 ordinal interactions, and 9 disordinal interactions. The theoretical significance of these findings, however, can only be ascertained after an evaluation of the design of the studies involved. There follows a detailed outline of empirical findings followed by an analysis and review of design issues.

Empirical Findings

Interaction of CL and Instructional Mode

In these studies, the subject is exposed to contrasting instructional modes, which vary in the rules governing his/her access to, and interaction with, the task at hand. The task itself is of secondary importance, the point of the exercise being to examine interactions between CL and style of instruction, rather than content of instruction. The kinds of tasks employed vary from sensitivity training, through literary analysis to academic subject matter and vocational decision making.

Differences in instructional mode are conceptualized in terms of degree of social structure maintained, which is seen as the amount of direction or autonomy afforded the learner. This is a popular distinction, commonly labeled discovery-didactic, teacher-student directed, and so on. Cronbach and Snow (1977) note that, despite extensive investigation of these related modes, few main effects have been established under genuinely pedagogic conditions. It would seem, therefore, that in addition to interactions any main effects due to CL and/or treatments are of interest. For convenience, the studies included below are further grouped according to the behavorial outcomes measured.

Social cognition and behavior. (Brill, 1978; Gardiner, 1972; Heck, 1971; Hunt et al., 1974; Reid, 1975; Rosenthal, 1975; Stein & Stone, 1978).

Brill investigated the usefulness of the CST matching model in coordinating youthful offenders with treatment settings. This involved assigning 43 male delin-

quents, of low and moderately low CL, to two residential treatment programs. The

high-structure program was treater-controlled with a focused content and set of

expectations, whereas the low-structure program was more open to staff-youth negotiation. Program logs were maintained over the 2-year duration of each program and independent ratings established consistent differences in program structure. Match-mismatches were established by placing both low-CL and medium-CL youths in each treatment group. The treatment outcomes assessed were the number of

problem behavior incidents and days out of program, together with some pre-post measures of attitude change. Of interest here are the significant ordinal interactions for both behavioral measures. The most significant matching effect was shown by low-CL subjects, with less problem incidents and days out being evident in the matched (high-structure) program. Differential treatment effects were not apparent on the behavior of medium-CL youths, although some attitude changes were noted. In the absence of certain crucial pieces of information, only a limited evaluation of this study is possible. No details of the CL scores for either group are given, which makes it difficult to ascertain the range of conceptual systems involved in the study. One might guess that a very low CL range would be involved. The problem is

43



TABLE II

Empirical Investigations of Matching Hypotheses

Matching Components Author

Person Environment Behavior

1. PCM 2. (<1.0) (1.0) (>1.0) 3. 297 gr. 4-7 Ss., 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. No scores given 3. 43 delinquents, m. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (1.0-1.3) (2.1-2.5) 3. 63 college Ss, mf. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. Interpersonal discrimination 2. No scores given 3. 24 outpatients, mf. 4. Yes 5. Homogeneous 1. PCM 2. (<1.5) (>1.5) 3. 40 graduate Ss, mf. 4. None 5. Not applicable

6. Classroom instruction 7. Open vs. closed 8. Academic subjects 9. Ongoing program

10. Low 6. Training school 7. Teacher vs. learner control 8. Residential therapy 9. 2 years

10. Moderate 6. Classroom instruction 7. Autonomy vs. social 8. Social psychology 9. 4 weeks

10. Low 6. Counseling process 7. Patient-therapist match 8. Conceptual differentiation 9. 12 weeks

10. High 6. Counselee CL 7. Low-High CL 8. Conceptual differentiation 9. <2 hours

10. Moderate

Allen (1977) (3)

Brill (1978) (5)

Butler (1976) (2)

Carr

(1970) (5)

Davis et al. (1977) (4)

11. 12. a, b, c 13.-

11. c 12. a 13. -

11. - 12. a 13. -

11. da 12. - 13. -

11. - 12. b 13. -



1. PCM 2. (<1.5) (>2.0) 3. 69, gr. 12 Ss, mf. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCT 2. (<4.0) (>6.0) 3. 64 high school Ss 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCT 2. No scores given 3. 30 teacher trainees, f. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (X = 1.3) (X = 2.2) 3. 40 graduate Ss, mf. 4. None 5. Not applicable 1. PCM 2. (<1.0) (>2.0) 3. 228, gr. 9 Ss. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (X = 1.0) (X = 1.9) 3. 120, gr. 7 & 9 Ss, mf. 4. Yes- 5. Homogeneous

6. Vocational counseling 7. Standard vs. amplified 8. Vocational choice 9. 1 hour

10. High 6. Conceptual training 7. 1 vs. 2 concepts 8. Personnel selection 9. 1 hour

10. High 6. Sensitivity training 7. Low-high structure 8. Communication skill 9. 20 hours

10. High 6. Counselee CL 7. Low-high CL 8. Conceptual differentiation 9. <2 hours

10. Moderate 6. Teacher personality 7. Low-High CL 8. Academic subjects 9. 1 year

10. Low 6. Classroom instruction 7. Models of teaching 8. Literary interpretation 9. 1 and 3 hours

10. High

11. -

12. - 13. c

11. a,b 12.- 13.-

11. no sign effects 12.- 13. -

11. a,c 12.- 13.-

11. - 12.- 13. a, c

11. - 12. b 13. a

Eggert (1978) (3)

Gardiner (1972) (4)

Heck (1971) (5)

Heck & Davis (1973) (4)

Hill (1969) (3)

Hunt et al.

(1974) (6)



TABLE II Continued



King (1974) (4)

Kirk

(1970) (5)

McLachlan (1972) (5)

McLachlan (1974) (5)

McLachlan & Hunt

(1973) (6)

Noy & Hunt

(1972) (6)

1. PCM 2. (<1.0) (1.0-1.63) 3. 37 secondary Ss, mf. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCT 2. No scores given 3. 60 college Ss, m. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (<1.5) (>1.5) 3. 92 alcoholics, mf. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (<1.5) (>1.5) 3. 92 alcoholics, mf. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (X = 1.16, 1.21) (X = 1.86) 3. 64 gr. 11 Ss.,mf. 4. Yes 5. Homogeneous 1. PCM 2. (X= 1.19) (X = 1.83) 3. 64, gr. 12 Ss, mf. 4. Yes 5. Homogeneous

6. Classroom instruction 7. Student vs. teacher directed 8. Vocational subjects 9. Ongoing

10. Low 6. Decision instruction 7. Differentiation vs. mediation 8. Decision skills 9. 1 hour

10. High 6. Group therapy 7. Patient-therapist match 8. Interpersonal skills 9. 26 hours

10. Moderate 6. Patient after-care 7. Patient-treatment match 8. Counseling support 9. 12 months

10. Low 6. Classroom instruction 7. Lecture vs. discovery 8. Biographical interpretation 9. 10 minutes

10. High 6. Programmed instruction 7. Student vs. system directed 8. Biographical interpretation 9. 30 minutes

10. High

11. b 12. a, b 13. b

11. 12. -

13. a

11. a,c,d 12. - 13. -

11. da 12. - 13. -

11. - 12. - 13. a,b,c

11. 12. - 13. a, b



1. This I believe 2. Extreme groups 3. 1180, gr. 5 & 6 Ss, 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM (Older) 2. Means 4.32-5.43 3. 150 college seniors 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM (Older) 2. (X = 2.3)(X = 3.8) 3. 80, gr. 6 Ss, mf. 4. Yes 5. Homogeneous 1. PCM 2. (<1.7) (1.8-2.0) (>2.1) 3. 58 teacher trainees, mf. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (<1.5) (>1.5) 3. 84 high school Ss, mf. 4. None 5. Homogeneous 1. PCM 2. (X = 1.4) (X = 1.73) 3. 56 counseling trainees, 4. None 5. Heterogeneous

6. Teacher CL 7. Concrete vs. abstract 8. Academic subjects 9. Ongoing program

10. Low 6. Academic instruction 7. Disciplinary areas 8. Academic subjects 9. Ongoing program

10. Low 6. Teacher personality 7. (<2.7) (>2.7) 8. Academic subjects 9. 30 minutes

10. High 6. Teacher training 7. Guided vs. independent 8. Basic teaching skills 9. 3 weeks

10. Moderate 6. Classroom instruction 7. Lecture vs. discovery 8. Art interpretation 9. 80 minutes

10. High 6. Counseling training 7. Self vs. guided vs. brief 8. Confrontation skills 9. 6 hours

10. Moderate

Phillips (1972) (4)

Pohl & Pervin

(1968) (3)

Rathbone

(1970) (6)

Reid (1975) (4)

Robertson (1973) (4)

Rosenthal

(1975) (4)

11. a 12. da 13.

11.- 12. - 13. da

11. a,c 12. - 13.-

11. a,b 12.- 13.-

11.- 12. b, c 13. a, b

11. b,c 12.- 13. -



TABLE II Continued



Santmire (1969) (2)

Stein & Stone (1978) (5)

Streufert (1975) (4)

Tomlinson & Hunt (1971) (6)

Tuckman & Orefice (1973) (4)

Zampogna (1975) (3)

1. PCM (older) 2. (<1.3) (1.3-1.7) (>1.7) 3. 78 high school Ss. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (0.67-1.67) (2.17-2.83) 3. 48 college Ss., mf. 4. None 5. Not applicable 1. PCM 2. (<1.55) (>1.55) 3. 107 college Ss, mf. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (1.27-1.30) (2.26-2.30) 3. 120 gr. 11 Ss.,mf. 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. Interpersonal Inventory 2. Extreme groups 3. 112 business majors 4. Yes 5. Heterogeneous 1. PCM 2. (<1.42) (1.4-1.87) (1.88>) 3. 154 high school Ss, mf. 4. None 5. Heterogeneous

6. Classroom instruction 7. Reflective index 8. History 9. 6 weeks

10. Low 6. Counseling interview 7. Low vs. high structure 8. Self-disclosure 9. 40 minutes

10. High 6. Vocational counseling 7. Didactic vs. experiential 8. Vocational decisions 9. 32 hours

10. Moderate 6. Classroom instruction 7. Low, moderate, high, structure 8. Concept learning 9. 20 minutes

10. High 6. Instructional modes 7. Self, programmed, lecture 8. Accounting 9. 4 weeks

10. Low 6. Classroom instruction 7. Traditional vs. adaptive 8. Foreign languages 9. 2 semesters

10. Low

oo

11.- 12. -

13. d

11. c 12. d 13.-

11.- 12. - 13. a, c

11.- 12. - 13. a, c

11. - 12. b, d 13.-

11.- 12. d 13. a,d



Note. The design index (0-10) is listed under the author's name. Items I to 13 indicate significant aspects of each study: 1 = measure used to assess conceptual level or abstractness 2 - number of subject groups and constituent scores 3 = number, kind, and sex of subjects 4 = steps taken to control person variables other than CL 5 = constitution of subject groups (where applicable) 6 = general nature of treatment 7 = treatment levels 8 = treatment content 9 = treatment duration

10 = extent to which extraneous variables are controlled 11 - social cognition and behavior assessed 12 = affective response assessed 13 = achievement assessed PCM = Hunt's version of Paragraph Completion approach PCT = Schroder's version

The notation in items 11, 12, and 13 indicate the outcome assessed in a particular study. Presence of a letter indicates a significant effect (a = CL effect, b = treatment, c = ordinal interaction, d = disordinal interaction). Presence of a dash indicates that no outcome was assessed in that category. a The way in which data are presented in the published account makes interpretation of findings difficult.



ALAN MILLER

whether this truncated sample would offer a genuine test of the high-CL, low- structure match. It is also apparent that subjects were not matched1 on intelligence, which reduces the credibility of accounting for effects due to CL. In addition, pretreatment levels of problem incidents would seem to be important but were

possibly unavailable if the subjects had been newly committed. The absence of a differential response of the "higher" CL group on the behavioral measures might be due, in part, to a limited range of environmental complexity. It is unlikely that

ongoing programs in a training school would be very unstructured, with the possibility that two structured programs were actually being compared. Finally, there is no indication of the extent to which participating staff knew about the nature of subjects and experimental goals., Expectancy effects might or might not have been operating.

Gardiner (1972), using two forms of conceptual training, sought to enhance the

conceptual complexity of, and to reduce the amount of prejudice expressed by, a

group of high school students. Sixty-four, paid students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, two training groups and a control group. The Schroder version of CL measurement was included as one of a number of pretreatment measures. There is no mention of ability matching or sex of subject. Conceptual training involved subjects in a personnel selection task in which they were required to choose one of four videotaped stimulus persons for the post of ombudsman in the school government. Two stimulus persons were white and two were black. In the

one-concept training condition, subjects were required to form one job-related concept for each stimulus person, whereas in the two-concept condition, two concepts were required. This concept formation procedure involved the subject in producing a written impression of the stimulus person in the role of an advocate (one-concept condition) or an advocate and conciliator (two-concept condition). The outcome measures of relevance here were two versions of the PCT, modified to reflect the

specific stimulus domains being manipulated. An analysis of covariance, using pretreatment scores on the PCT as a covariate, revealed significant treatment effects on "conceptual level," with the two-concept training group showing greater gains then the remaining conditions. A post-hoc attempt to examine the effects of matching was carried out on the two-concept group, which was separated into medium- and

high-CL subgroups. The latter showed greater prejudice reduction on a measure derived from the Thematic Apperception Test. This is one of the few attempts, amongst the studies reviewed here, to modify CL directly. Both the training conditions and modifications of CL measurement are particularly interesting. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the study was not originally organized to evaluate the matching hypothesis and, further, that neither ability nor sex of subject was controlled.

Heck (1971) examined the effect of CL and two forms of sensitivity training on the

interpersonal communication skills of 30 female teacher trainees. A median-split of scores on the PCM resulted in low- and "relatively high"-CL subject groups, members from each of which were randomly assigned to the two treatment conditions, resulting

1 The reader will note that the use of the term "matching" in discussing design issues differs from its use in referring to matching models in CST. In the former case, "matching" refers to

attempts to control contaminating variables by equating subjects, on such variables, across

experimental groups. The sense in which it is used in CST is, of course, to imply person- environment pairing. As far as possible, the two usages are clearly separated in this section.

50




in four experimental groups. A no-treatment control group, composed of two levels of CL was also constituted from a separate pool of subjects. The treatments comprised a standard sensitivity group (low structure) contrasted with a series of programmed, dyadic exercises (high structure). Total treatment time was 20 hours. The behavioral outcome assessed (both pre- and posttreatment) took the form of a communication task involving a role-playing exercise, which required the experimental subject to use the perspective of another in teaching a concept to that person, that is, to display empathic skills. Role-playing performance was rated by trained, independent raters. A significant training effect was found in comparison with the no-treatment group, but no main effects for either CL or treatment were apparent. No significant interaction between CL and treatment occurred, although nonsignificant trends in the expected direction (low CL would benefit from high structure, high CL from low) were evident. In the absence of details about CL scores, it is not clear how high the "relatively high" CL group was, which may account for the nonsignificant effects of CL. Further, the omission of ability matching of the experimental groups is particularly unfortunate in light of the dependent measure chosen. It has also been found that behavioral outcome measures may not detect some of the more subtle changes which occur in high-CL subjects.

Hunt et al. (1974) report two matching experiments in which the effects of CL and three teaching models on a variety of achievement, attitude, and interpersonal behaviors were determined. In the first study, two groups of seventh-grade students (mean low-CL score of 1.0, high-CL mean of 1.9), matched for sex and ability, were exposed to three teaching models: synectics, role playing, and inductive. It was presumed that these models differed in structure but it is not clear to what degree. Students were taught for 1 hour in each mode by the same teacher, with no indication

given of the familiarity of the teacher with the CL of treatment groups. The teaching content involved biographical information of the life of Hemingway. A second study repeated these procedures using smaller groups, one teaching method, and a longer teaching period (3 hours). No significant interactions were found, but some main effects of CL were apparent. Of interest here are the interpersonal behaviors of

subject-groups during the final phase of the inductive treatment. When left to pursue nondirected study, the two low-CL groups sought to elect a leader, to establish formal procedures, and tended to use inductive methods in a routine, mechanical fashion. The two high-CL groups rejected the idea of a chosen leader and used the methods being taught as heuristic devices, to be dispensed with at will. That is, all

groups conformed to expectations based on CST. There seems to have been an

adequate range of CL represented in these studies, while the control of ability should have allowed a more confident interpretation of main effects. The absence of

significant interactions is presumably related to other problems in design, which include: (1) the structure of each teaching model was not adequately determined; (2) the instructional periods were extremely brief and artificial; and (3) the effect of teacher expectancy was not controlled or considered.

Reid (1975) investigated the use of matching principles in training teachers in basic communication skills. Three groups of male and female elementary teacher trainees were assessed on the PCM (<1.7, 1.8-2.0, >2.1) and randomly assigned to guided (class discussion and supervision) and independent (brief instruction with out-of- class assignments) study programs, as well as to a no-treatment control group which was used to determine pretreatment levels of communication skills. Treatment groups

51



ALAN MILLER

were assessed only after the training programs had been completed, which latter extended over 3 weeks and involved up to 12 hours of training in the use and

acquisition of basic communication skills. Of particular interest was the extent to which trainees were able to vary the degree of control exerted over students, as well as their skill in varying the conceptual level of the discourse. The acquisition of skills was assessed in a micro-teaching situation in which the trainee taught three eighth- grade students (of mixed CL) for 1 hour. Performance data were derived from an interaction analysis of the videotaped session, carried out by a single coder. It was

hypothesized that high-CL trainees would show higher levels of communication skills, and would be more capable of learning such skills, compared to the other CL

groups. Significant main effects were found, notably the effect of training on the

frequency and diversity of questioning, and of CL on the use of conceptual and theoretical communications. No significant interactions were demonstrated. The absence of matching of experimental groups on ability throws some doubt on the

significance of the CL main effect. The absence of interactions may be due, in part, to the limited range of CL among subjects. In fact, the low-CL group (up to 1.7) would, in other studies, be seen as medium or even high CL. There is also reason to believe that subjects were aware of the nature of the study and, as the author points out, the low-CL trainees were determined to show that they could cope with the low- structure conditions.

Rosenthal (1975) looked at the effect of CL and three modes of counselor training on the acquisition of confrontation skills by 56 counseling students. Representatives of low-CL (mean of 1.4) and high-CL (mean of 1.73) groups were randomly assigned to the three treatments, with no apparent matching of groups on verbal ability or level of skill. There is no mention of sex of subjects. The two training sessions, of 6 hours duration, involved the individual use of a training manual (self-instruction) and supervision in class (guided instruction). The third treatment comprised a brief- instruction control conducted immediately prior to the posttreatment test. Two

dependent measures were obtained: a behavioral assessment of skill in confronting a client with his/her inconsistencies (in a role-playing task) and pre-post questionnaire responses to discrepancies in client behavior. A significant program effect was obtained in comparison with the brief instruction control, together with a significant ordinal interaction, on the questionnaire data, but no interaction was apparent in the behavioral data. Guided instruction was more effective in teaching confrontation skills than self-instruction for low-CL subjects. No differences between the high-CL trainees were apparent on either of the dependent measures. Rosenthal attributes the relative paucity of demonstrated effects to a tendency for subjects to try to help, rather than confront, the client in the role-playing task; an excessively complex questionnaire procedure; a high-structure condition which was not structured enough to make it uncongenial to high-CL subjects; some difficulties in defining structure; and the absence of any attempt to control the CL of trainers.

An additional study, one that does not include training conditions, but which is of interest here, is that of Stein and Stone (1978) who examined the effect of CL and interview structure on the behavior of clients. Using high- and low-CL students, in high- and low-structured interviews, the authors were able to demonstrate a variety of effects due to matching on client participation, self-awareness and satisfaction. For instance, clients in the high-CL, low-structure condition showed significantly greater self-awareness and satisfaction then those in the high-CL, high-structure

52




condition. Similarly, those in the high-CL, low-structure condition showed greater participation, self-awareness, and satisfaction than those in the low-CL, low-structure condition.

Affective response. (Allen, 1977; Butler, 1976; King, 1974; McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Robertson, 1973; Tuckman & Orefice, 1973; Zampogna, 1975).

Allen studied the effect of classroom architecture, program openness, and CL of student and teacher on the self-esteem and affective reaction to school of 297

elementary students. Ongoing programs in five schools were selected for differences in physical design of the classroom (open-closed), two levels of program openness- closedness, two levels of teacher CL and three levels of student CL. Subjects were not allocated to experimental groups but were taught in mixed classes, being grouped subsequently for purposes of analysis. The CL categories established among the students (less than 1.0, 1.0, and above 1.0) indicate a predominance of relatively low- CL students in the study. The teacher CL categories, on the other hand, were

relatively high (1.0-1.9 and 2.0-2.9), particularly those of the high-CL group. The outcome measures took the form of questionnaire examination of students' self- esteem and "school sentiment." Significant main effects were found for CL and

program openness but not for the physical design of the classroom. That is, low-CL

subjects tended to have more negative attitudes and lower self-esteem under all combinations of program openness, classroom type and teacher CL, than did the

higher CL groups. In addition, students were generally more positive to the closed

program condition regardless of CL. A significant ordinal interaction was found between CL of students and program openness, with low-CL children showing no difference in attitudes of self and school in either kind of program, whereas the moderate and high-CL children showed significantly lower attitude scores in the

open program. These latter findings are contrary to expectations derived from CST. In this type of field study, there is little or no control over a number of important variables. For instance, there was a major technical problem in determining the CL of teachers in the open program. Because this was team-taught, a variety of conceptual levels was present. An uneasy compromise was achieved by using the mean CL of all teachers operating in the open condition. However, students were not exposed to a "mean" CL. Further, the disparity in range of CL between students (relatively low) and teachers (relatively high) raises doubts about the nature of the matches achieved. The absence of ability or achievement matching adds to the difficulties in the

interpretation of these data. The openness-closedness of teaching programs was based on teachers' estimates, but there is little information given on the extent to which this distinction was actually established or sustained. The significant treatment effect due to openness-closedness of programs suggests that subjects experienced some differences between treatments, but whether this can be accounted for by "structural" differences is a matter for debate. In addition, the author accounts for the unexpected behavior of the higher CL children by arguing that the hypothesized intellectual alertness of these children might bring them into conflict with teachers in the open condition, resulting in diminished enjoyment of these supposedly unstructured teaching situations.

Butler (1976) examined the effects of two teaching techniques and student CL on

expressed satisfaction with and perception of instructional modes. The personal variables involved were defined in terms of Hunt's (1971) accessibility characteristics, one of which was CL. The section of the study pertinent here involved 63 pre-

53



ALAN MILLER

dominantly male business students, from which low-CL (1.0-1.3) and high-CL (2.1- 2.5) extreme groups were selected. There was no matching of experimental groups on

ability, achievement, or sex of subject. The two teaching models included an

autonomy condition (Ss selected teaching mode and were involved in course planning) and a social condition (Ss were expected to become involved in a socially interactive teaching mode). The learning task comprised a 4-week module in social

psychology. There were some difficulties in establishing a controlled design because of the dispersion of subjects to different classes, over which the experimenter had no

jurisdiction. However, the latter was allowed to assign classroom conditions. A quasi- experimental design was developed in which six teachers taught either with their own style (control condition) or alternative modes in the same class (experimental condition), that is, 2 weeks of the autonomy condition, followed by 2 weeks of the social condition, and vice-versa. Outcomes were assessed by questionnaire and involved determining the degree of autonomy and social interaction being experienced by students, how much they preferred, and their satisfaction with, each mode. Because of limitations in time, the author was only able to examine the effect of CL in the autonomy condition. Of interest here is the significant increase in satisfaction of low-CL subjects after exposure to the autonomy condition, and the nonsignificant change by high-CL subjects. This is contrary to expectations derived from CST. The numerous design problems in this study make it difficult to estimate the theoretical

significance of this finding, however.

King (1974) explored the effect of CL and degree of classroom structure on the

self-conception, social behavior, and achievement of vocational secondary school students. The latter comprised 37 students, both male and female, from two schools for relatively slow learners, who were homogenous in social class (lower) and intelligence (mean IQ = 76.6) and represented the lower half of the CL range (level A = below 1.0, level B = 1.0-1.63). Two treatments were established differing in level of structure, which was defined in terms of degree of teacher direction. Estimates of structure were obtained from both teachers and students with a high degree of agreement being achieved about the actual level present. Subsequently, students'

perceptions were used to define classroom structure. This is the only study reviewed here where this procedure is used. The experimental procedure involved 43 teachers instructing 206 students in regular classes in reading and vocational training, among which the 37 experimental subjects were dispersed. A variety of outcomes were assessed, including changes in self-esteem, locus of control, achievement, and behavior in class. A significant main effect of CL on locus of control was demonstrated, but no effect on self-esteem, the latter being of interest here. In contrast, a significant treatment effect was established on all dependent measures, with low structure appearing to benefit all subjects. No significant interactions were evident. The first point to note in evaluating this study is that both CL groups were in the low range and would be classified as low CL in many studies. An adequate test of CST matching principles is difficult under these circumstances. However, the CL groups were matched on intelligence, which is a procedural advantage. The occurrence of a consistent treatment effect, together with student-teacher agreement on differences in treatments, suggests that adequate structural differences were achieved between programs. The dispersion of experimental subjects across so many classrooms, interacting with so many teachers, introduces many uncontrollable variables into this field study. For instance, in addition to the usual problems of a social desirability

54




response bias on questionnaires, it is not clear to what extent requests for estimates of structure alerted students to the nature of the study and its expected outcomes. More of a problem is the fact that the same teachers estimated both degree of structure of the classroom as well as providing information for outcome measures. The author also notes that (and this is more significant for the next section) teachers are unwilling to give poor grades or low behavioral ratings to any student in case this jeopardizes the student's job prospects. Because of these and other design problems, endogenous to field studies, one would hardly expect strong main or interaction effects.

McLachlan and Hunt (1973) attempted to determine the effect of CL and structure of teaching method on achievement on, and affective response to, an art interpretation task. Sixty four subjects were selected from a pool of 175 1lth-grade students, forming four experimental groups, which were composed of equal numbers of male and female students. Mean CL scores for the two low groups were 1.21 and 1.61, whereas both high groups had the same mean score of 1.86. Experimental groups were matched on verbal aptitude but not on prior achievement in art interpretation. In the high structure condition (lecture), students received a lecture designed to clarify and structure the meanings to be derived from a series of slides on the painting "Guernica." In the low-structure condition, students were required to develop their own meanings from the same material. Both treatments lasted about 10 minutes each. In addition to a number of intellectual outcomes (which will be discussed later), student attitudes to different degrees of structure were assessed on a dimension

composed of responses to "The best way to learn" and "The most important thing in

teaching." Significant differences between correlations of these preference scores with CL were found under lecture and discovery conditions. That is, the negative correlation under the lecture condition implied a low-CL preference and a high-CL dislike for the treatment. The opposite is implied by the positive correlation apparent under the discovery condition. The authors conclude that student preferences might well be explored further, a step which is undertaken in a replication study by Robertson (1973) discussed below.

Robertson (1973) examined the effects of CL and three instructional modes (lecture, discussion, and discovery) on attitude towards and understanding of two works of art. The study is similar to that of McLachlan and Hunt (1973), differing in the exposure of all experimental subjects to two teaching methods. This represented an attempt to replicate the diversity experienced by students in actual learning situations. The subjects were 84 junior high school students, of both sexes, with a mean CL of 1.2 and a range of 0.7 to 2.7. High- and low-CL Ss were classified using a 1.5 cutoff point. There was no apparent matching of experimental groups on ability or achievement. The lecture and discovery treatments were identical to those of McLachlan and Hunt (1973), whereas the discussion condition involved slide presentation plus a nondirected discussion. Four treatment groups, containing both low- and high-CL Ss, were exposed to selected pairs of treatment conditions. The

dependent variables of interest here were students' expression of liking for, estimated

learning from, and preference for, each method. The total duration of treatments and outcome assessment was 80 minutes. A significant ordinal interaction effect was found on liking for method, with low-CL students liking combinations which included the lecture rather less than the discovery-discussion (relatively unstructured) condition. High-CL students showed a similar pattern but with a greater and

55



ALAN MILLER

significant difference between liking for treatments. An additional interaction appears to have been demonstrated in which high-CL subjects expressed higher estimates of

learning in the unstructured condition. However, the author reports this as a main effect of CL. Finally, a treatment effect was shown on preference for methods, with a general tendency for all subjects to prefer discovery-discussion over the lecture condition. The major design problem in this study appears to lie in treatment differences. Although the three conditions are thought to differ in structure, it is

apparent that they differ also in level of subject interaction, level of information available in the situation, amount of reinforcement experienced, and degree of involvement of a teacher. It is not clear, therefore, what aspects of the treatment

produced the significant effect noted above. Tuckman and Orefice (1973) looked at the effect of four instructional modes and

conceptual abstractness on achievement and preference for teaching method. One hundred and twenty community college students were assessed on the Interpersonal Topical Inventory, divided into conceptually concrete and abstract groups, matched on reading attainment, and randomly assigned to the treatment conditions. The four

teaching modes were assumed to differ in their degree of structure, ranging from self- instruction via tapes and booklets to two programmed treatments in a classroom

setting and, finally, a traditional lecture-discussion format. Each treatment was incorporated into the first 4 weeks (8 meetings) of an accounting course. The outcome measures of interest here are method preference and time spent on learning. A

significant main effect of treatment on preference was found, with all subjects preferring lesser amounts of control (structure). A significant interaction effect indicated that abstract subjects preferred the flexible, self-directed study methods over the highly structured lecture-text format, whereas concrete students preferred least one of the most flexible methods (text by itself). In terms of time spent on a particular method, a significant treatment effect indicated that all subjects spent more time on the conventional format (lecture-discussion). A significant ordinal interaction was also found, which reflected the fact that concrete students spent least time on the programmed text and most on the conventional method, whereas abstract students spent equal time on all three nontraditional methods and most on the conventional format. This is one of the few studies which used conceptual abstractness as an independent variable, making it difficult to compare with the other work reviewed here. In addition, the authors use an unconventional scoring procedure in allocating subjects to a conceptual group, and it is interesting to note that relatively few highly abstract subjects were evident in this sample. Once again, as in previous studies, one detects a variety of uncontrolled variables in the treatment conditions. While some differences in structure were apparent, it is also clear that differences in interpersonal contact, level of information exchange, reinforcement, and response to isolation may all influence outcomes. Treatment effects were found but it is not clear how one might interpret them.

Zampogna (1975) determined the effect of CL and classroom environment on the acquisition of foreign language skills. The subjects comprised 154 high school students, of both sexes, in Spanish and French classes. Three approximately equal CL groups were established (<1.42, 1.42-1.87, >1.88), with no indication of the matching of experimental groups on ability, achievement, or sex of subject. All subjects were exposed to one semester of adaptive (a variety of teaching activities, small groups, student participation in planning and evaluating learning activities)

56




and selective (unilateral, teacher-dominated, standardized) environments. The se-

quencing of exposure to each environment was counterbalanced in a 3 x 2 factorial design. Outcomes were assessed on pre- and posttest of language proficiency (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) together with the determination of preference and need for each kind of teaching mode. The latter outcomes are of interest here, most notably the demonstration of a significant disordinal relationship between CL and preference-need. High-CL students indicated a significantly greater preference and need for the low structure (adaptive) environment, whereas low-CL students showed a greater preference and need for the high structure (selective) condition. The design problems associated with this study will be dealt with in the next section, when effects on achievement are discussed. Of interest here is Zampogna's findings that students distinguished between their preference and need for a particular mode. In the absence of demands for achievement many low-CL students prefer a low- structure situation, while realizing that they learn more effectively in a high-structure class.

Academic achievement. It is convenient to divide the following studies into two

groups: those that explore academic achievement in areas containing some social content, such as literary criticism and social history (Hunt et al., 1974; McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Noy & Hunt, 1972; Robertson, 1973; Santmire, 1969; Streufert, 1975; Tomlinson & Hunt, 1971), and those that deal with nonsocial disciplines such as vocational shop courses (Kirk, 1970; King, 1974; Pohl & Pervin, 1968; Zampogna, 1975).

In a study described above, Hunt et al. (1974) were concerned with the effect of CL and different teaching modes on, among other things, achieving an understanding of Hemingway's life from biographical materials. The dependent variables included recall, causal inference, integrative labeling, and selection of analogies. No significant treatment or interaction effects were found, although some interesting CL effects were evident. High-CL students showed significantly higher scores on causal inference, concept labeling, and analogy selection. This superior performance of high-CL subjects on the more complex achievement variables is consistent with CST, as is the

significant relationship between verbal ability and recall. One of the main principles in CST is that high-CL persons should be able to deal more effectively than low CL with complex cognitive tasks, whereas there is likely to be little difference between

conceptual levels on relatively simple cognitive tasks. McLachlan and Hunt (1973) report the effect of CL and discovery-lecture class-

room modes on achievement in the interpretation of modern art by grade 11 students. Details of the study were described earlier. The dependent variables of interest here reflect increasing levels of sophistication in cognitive skills, from recall, through comprehension to integration. A marginal treatment effect on recall was found, with achievement at this level being better under lecture conditions. Once again, the absence of a CL effect on recall is consistent with theoretical expectations. Although no significant effects of CL and treatment on comprehension were demonstrated, trends in the expected direction were evident. However, when integration was assessed, significant CL, treatment, and interaction effects were found, all of which were consistent with expectations derived from CST. Cronbach and Snow (1977) have suggested that, because of the small cell sizes and the near-zero slopes for boys, this marginal ordinal interaction is of dubious relevance. However, the interaction is consistent with a compensatory interpretation of matching, in which the deficiences

57



ALAN MILLER

of low-CL subjects are compensated for by high structure. It leaves unresolved the

persistent question as to why high-CL subjects should perform less adequately in

high structure when, theoretically, they should be able to adapt. The replication of this study by Robertson (1973) confirmed most of these findings, with the following exceptions: a significant CL effect on comprehension was found, together with the absence of the CL and interaction effects on understanding.

Noy and Hunt (1972) examined the effect of CL and two instructional modes on

learning from a biographical data bank. Sixty-four 12th grade students were allocated to high-CL (mean 1.83) and low-CL (mean 1.19) groups on the PCM, while

intelligence, but not prior achievement, was partialled out during the subsequent analyses, and sex of subject was included as an independent variable. Subjects were allowed differential access to a data bank containing information about the life and times of Freud and were required to form an impression of Freud under either self- or system-controlled conditions. In the former, students were free to ask whatever

questions seemed appropriate, whereupon an information card was provided. In the

system-controlled treatment, the student was given the same sequences of information cards received by a paired subject in the free condition. After 30 minutes of data collection, all subjects were required to write a short essay incorporating their

impressions of Freud. Additional achievement tests were also carried out. The outcome measures assessed knowledge (recall, themes), comprehension (impressions, adjective categories), and synthesis (integration). Unfortunately, the authors appear not to have been interested in the question of interaction and do not report pertinent data, mentioning only that it is a question that might be pursued subsequently. However, a number of significant CL effects were noted, with high-CL subjects scoring higher than low CL on recall, comprehension, and synthesis. Once again, this is consistent with a number of the findings of McLachlan and Hunt (1973) and Robertson (1973). The occurrence of only a single treatment effect on "themes" confirms the impression that the two experimental conditions might actually differ little in structure and might not have presented subjects with clearly different modes. The positive relationship between high CL and knowledge is not consistent with

previous findings, nor with theoretical expectations. Otherwise the study adds support to contentions about differences between conceptual levels.

Santmire (1969) studied the effect of CL and teacher-radiated environment on achievement in History. Seventy-eight high school students, registered in a summer course in American History, were allocated to high-CL (1.7 or above), medium-CL (1.3-1.7), and low-CL (below 1.3) groups according to the older scoring system of Hunt. All the subjects in this study would be classified as low CL by the currently prevailing system. Intelligence, but not prior achievement, was used as a covariate. There is no mention of sex of subjects. Experimental subjects were dispersed throughout five ongoing classes taught by separate teachers whose teaching style was assessed by two independent judges. Teachers were allocated a "reflective index" which indicated the degree to which they encouraged student participation or guided and directed the students' learning. Three outcome measures were used: a teacher

prepared test, a final course grade, and the New York State Regents Examination. For purposes of analysis, a post-hoc grouping was carried out, in which high-CL students were matched with teachers of high reflective index, and so on. The

hypothesis offered was to the effect that matched students would achieve higher grades than unmatched students. An analysis of covariance revealed no differential

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effects on either the teacher-prepared test or final course grade. However, a significant matching effect was evident on the Regents examination, particularly for students in the classes of teachers of low reflective index. A further analysis indicated that when

intelligence was held constant, matched students achieved higher scores on the

Regents examination. In view of the extremely narrow CL range it is surprising that

any effect due to this variable was found. However, interpretation of those that were found requires some caution. It is interesting that the strongest matching effect was in classes taught by teachers who showed a low reflective index. Evidence to be

presented shortly suggests that such teachers would be operating at a low conceptual level and would have some difficulty in adjusting to the demands of different kinds of students. In such a case match-mismatch effects would be marked. One of the main shortcomings in the study, however, is the absence of any attempt to equate experimental groups on prior achievement in History.

Streufert (1975) was interested in the effect of CL and the structure of teaching modes on the vocational decision-making process. A median split of 87 male college students (mean 1.59, range 0.83-1.59) at 1.55 produced low-CL (43 Ss) and high-CL (44 Ss) groups. There was no matching of experimental groups on the basis of

intelligence or achievement. However, pretreatment, vocational-choice certainty was used as a covariate. Subjects experienced a relatively long (16 x 2 hrs) course on vocational choice taught by eight graduate students. The content involved such matters as the meaning of work, work and values, and so forth. Two teaching modes were established: experiential (in which subjects took responsibility for the learning process, being only guided by the instructor) and didactic (in which the instructor controlled all aspects of the process). The four outcome measures reflected the quality of students' decision processes and were derived from a modified version of the PCM. Included were vocational conceptual level, choice complexity, choice differentiation, and stage of decision making. A 3x 2 multivariate analysis of covariance was used with a wait-control as the third treatment. No significant main effects or interactions were found. A number of exploratory univariate analyses were tried, subsequently, which the author acknowledged as tentative. Of interest here was the

significant interaction of CL and treatment on the stage score and the significantly greater choice complexity scores of high-CL subjects. However, such findings are of little relevance to the present concerns. The absence of consistent findings may be due to a number of design problems. Most notably is the possibility that the treatments did not differ appreciably, with the ostensibly high-structure condition

being ambiguous and confusing (according to Streufert). In addition, the CL of the instructors was not controlled and, as we shall see later, there is reason to believe that certain kinds of individuals (low CL) cannot teach in an unstructured manner.

Consequently, it cannot be assumed that the subjects were exposed to treatments which differed on criterion-relevent variables.

Tomlinson and Hunt (1971) examined the effect of CL and structure of teaching method on concept attainment. A sample of 120 grade 11 students (reduced to 60 in the final analysis) were separated into low-CL (mean of 1.29) and high-CL (mean of

2.27) groups on the PCM. Sex of subject was incorporated as an independent variable and verbal intelligence was partialled out in the analysis of results. There is no mention of prior achievement on or knowledge of the concept attainment task. The latter involved the subject in learning a definition and examples of the concept "cognitive dissonance," and was composed of two parts: (1) the definition or rule

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and (2) a short narrative containing a fictional description of two college students.

Subjects were exposed to the task at three levels of structure. In the high-structure condition, the rule was explained before subjects scanned the narrative (10 minutes) for illustrative examples. The intermediate condition reversed the order of presentation and subjects read the narrative first before having this exchanged for the rule. In this condition subjects were instructed to look for recurring instances of similar

types of personal experience. The low-structure condition was similar to the intermediate but with the exclusion of any mention of the rule. Following the treatments, all subjects were exposed to the same summarizing lecture. Posttreatment tests were administered after 1 and 7 days, in which subjects were required to define cognitive dissonance, as well as give samples from the narrative and from their own experience. Written materials were scored on four variables: cognitive elements, contradiction, discomforting tension, and attempted resolutions. A composite concept learning score was derived. A main effect of CL was found with high-CL subjects showing higher scores than low CL. An ordinal interaction between treatment and CL also appeared, with low-CL subjects obtaining higher scores in the high-structure condition, com-

pared with intermediate and low-structure condition. No differences were apparent among high-CL groups. The major design problems with this study are the absence of control of prior knowledge of cognitive dissonance and the very low experimental cell numbers.

Turning to those studies which examined achievement in areas with relatively little social content, one finds Kirk (1970) who explored the effect of CL and decision-

training on decision-making capability. Sixty male college students were segregated into low- and high-CL groups on the Schroder PCT and randomly assigned to two treatment and four control conditions. Unfortunately, no CL scores are given. Intellectual ability was used as a covariate. Both training conditions were designed to modify the conceptual complexity of subjects. The differentiation treatment

required the subject to extract a fixed amount of information from a decision task

(a betting situation) and then communicate this to the experimenter. In mediation

training, the same procedure was followed with the additional requirement that three

strategies for making a final decision be also communicated, that is, the subject had to select and evaluate information. The decision tasks were selected from the Townsend-Smith tests of decision making, which provided decision latency, quality, and confidence as outcome measures. Relatively few significant effects were obtained, which is consistent with the apparent criterion irrelevance of the outcome measures. However, a CL effect on the latency scores was evident, with high-CL students

showing greater latency of decisions than low-CL students. In addition to the criterion irrelevance of outcomes, there appears to have been a problem with the excessive complexity of the decision tasks and, as the author notes, the high risk levels may have faced subjects with an information overload. Kirk is one of the few authors who proceeds to use the curvilinear notions of Schroder et al. (1967) to

explain his results. In another study, reported above, King (1974) was interested in the effect of CL

and classroom structure on achievement in reading and vocational shop classes. Grades allocated by participating teachers were used as dependent variables. The

hypotheses that matched conditions would result in higher grades than found in mismatched classes, and that the higher CL groups would attain higher grades than the lower CL groups were not supported. No significant interaction of CL effects on

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achievement were found. As noted earlier, this study has a number of design problems, most notably the extremely low range of CL used, the confounding of teachers' grading with knowledge of experimental conditions, and the unwillingness of teachers to jeopardize students' job prospects by allocation of low grades.

Pohl and Pervin (1968) correlated CL scores with the grade point averages of 150 college seniors from a variety of faculties. Using the older scoring method of Schroder et al. (1967), which has a range of 1-7, the following meaning scores were obtained: Engineering (4.32), Natural Science (4.98), Social Science (5.00), and Humanities (5.43). All mean scores are relatively high indicating a relatively complex sample. In correlating CL scores with mean, grade point average on major departmental courses, verbal and mathematical abilities were partialled out. A significant negative relation was found between CL and achievement in Engineering, while a significant positive relationship was found in Social Science and Humanities. If one can assume differences in the structure of courses in these different academic areas, then such findings are consistent with the matching hypothesis.

In Zampogna's (1975) study, described earlier, the acquisition of foreign language skills was also examined. Three CL groups were exposed to two levels of classroom structure, and the effects on foreign language proficiency tests (listening, reading, writing, speaking) were assessed. Pre- and posttreatment tests in Spanish and French established "gain" scores. A single CL effect on speaking skills was shown, with high- CL students making greater gains then low-CL students. Two significant interactions

appeared on both reading and speaking skills. The former (reading) was contrary to theoretical expectations, with high-CL students making greater gains in a high- structure condition and low-CL students benefiting more in the low-structure mode. On the other hand, high CL students made greater gains in speaking in the adaptive condition, with low-CL students achieving more in the high-structure, selective environment. Comments on the design of this study have been made earlier.

Interaction of Students and Teacher CL

Two groups of studies are of interest here, those that look directly at student- teacher matching (Allen, 1977; Hill, 1969; Phillips, 1972; Rathbone, 1970) and an

analogous group in the clinical/counseling area (Carr, 1970; Davis, Cook, Jennings, & Heck, 1977; Heck & Davis, 1973; McLachlan, 1972, 1974).

One might speculate, with some grounds, that if student and teacher are of the same CL a most satisfactory matching of styles may be achieved. Relatively few

attempts have been made to explore these possibilities, for reasons that are not clear. Such matching studies seem to be the obvious thing to try. In addition to the numerous design problems discussed at length earlier, the question of homogeneous groups is particularly salient here. The ideal situation for testing this kind of matching hypothesis is one in which the teacher is faced with a homogenous student group, composed of one level of conceptual structure. If a teacher were to be faced with a

group, heterogeneous in CL, the interaction of matched and unmatched students in the same class would produce effects which confound those under examination. In

practice, however, it is difficult to achieve some degree of control over the allocation of students to experimental groups.

In a study described earlier, Allen (1977) matched two levels of teacher CL (low, high) with three levels of student CL (low, medium, high). However, the reader should be reminded that whereas the range of teacher scores placed them in a

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relatively high conceptual level, all student scores were in the low range. The kind of

matching achieved, therefore, is open to question, because there were no truly high- CL students among those tested. In addition, experimental subjects were dispersed into different classrooms in a variety of schools. Hence, little control was achieved over many of the contaminating variables that might influence the post-hoc matching. In light of these difficulties, the two significant interaction effects on self-appraisal and school attitudes might be viewed with caution. Thus, the low-CL students did not appear to respond differently to the two kinds of teachers, whereas the high-CL students showed significantly higher scores in response to low-CL teacher. This is

contrary to expectations derived from CST. In contrast, scores on the school sentiment index followed a pattern which supported the idea of matching students and teachers with similar need for structure. The ordinal interaction showed more positive attitudes

among students under matched conditions. Hill (1969) attempted to analyze the effect of teacher-student matching on ninth-

grade students by assessing an ongoing teaching situation involving teachers in

English, Social Studies, and Science. No control over the classroom situation was

possible, with the result that classes were heterogeneous for CL, ability, and sex.

Matching was established in a post-hoc manner for purposes of analysis. Students (228) were identified as low and high CL on the basis of an early CL measure of Hunt, which was scored on a 4-point scale. Low-CL students were identified as below 1.0 and high as above 2.0. A different assessment procedure was used for teacher (7- point scale) with low CL (below 3.0) and high CL (above 3.0) being identified. Because of differences in scaling procedures, it is not clear how adequate were the matches so established. The experimental treatments comprised one year of instruction by classroom teachers. Behavioral outcome was assessed by the Iowa Test of Educational Development and involved pre-and posttreatment scores on rote mem-

ory and interpretation. A significant main effect of CL on interpretive items was obtained, with high CL showing greater gains than low CL. In addition, greater gains on interpretive items was in evidence in matches of high-CL students with high-CL teachers compared with the mismatch between low-CL students and high-CL teachers. The major design problems in this study revolve around absence of control over the teaching situation which would involve: differences in ability and sex; interaction between students differing in CL; various teaching styles and variation in academic content. These and other issues will be discussed later.

Phillips (1972) investigated the effect of teacher and student CL on student perceptions of their classroom environment. The study involved 1,180 fifth- and sixth-grade students and 52 teachers in 12 schools. Level of abstractness was derived from the "This I Believe" test in the case of teachers and a modification of the same procedure for students. A selection of students was made from the larger sample to test the effects of matching. There is no mention of sex of subjects. It appears from the description by Phillips that two extreme groups of 200 concrete and 178 abstract students were identified, although his procedures are difficult to follow. Matching involved a post-hoc pairing of students and teachers of like (match) and unlike (mismatch) conceptual structure. The students' perception of classroom environment was ascertained by a questionnaire on scales of involvement, humanism, autonomy, morale, equity, and resources. It was hypothesized that there would be a significantly higher number of positive responses across environmental dimensions by those students whose conceptual systems were similar to their teacher's than under the

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mismatched condition. An analysis of variance provided support for this contention. The high levels of statistical significance achieved in Phillips' study ameliorates, to some degree, the apprehensions one might have about the wisdom of studies based on post-hoc matching and heterogeneous classroom groups.

The aim of a study by Rathbone (1970) was to determine the effect of grouping students and teachers by CL on the information handling behavior of the teacher. Twenty volunteer teachers were divided into low CL (mean 2.3) and high CL (mean 3.8) on the PCM scored by the older system of Hunt. The relatively low scores on a possible range of 0-7, indicates a relatively concrete group of teachers. From an initial pool of 204 sixth-grade students, 40 pairs were formed, matched on intelligence, but with disparate conceptual levels. The latter, also determined on the PCM, involved a median split at 2.7 in a range of 0.3-5.0. Few students were at the highest level of conceptual abstractness. Both sexes were approximately equally represented in both the teacher and pupil samples. The author found no significant differences between the mean CL scores of males and females, concluding that sex was not a confounding variable in the study, a conclusion which is open to debate. A 2 x 2 factorial design was established in which teachers instructed homogeneous groups of four students for up to 33 minutes. Each teacher was allocated a packet of instructional material and told to teach anything from its content in any way desired.

Recordings of each lesson were rated for the degree of "interdependentness" on four scales: information handling, sanctioning, procedures, and maintenance behavior.

Essentially, high proportions of interdependentness were said to be shown by teachers who allowed students to express themselves, raise questions, and hypothesize, whereas low proportions were envinced by teachers who asked precise questions, drew conclusions for subjects, and gave out a great deal of information. Rathbone found that the proportion of interdependentness was significantly greater for high-CL teachers than for low-CL teachers, and that high-CL students influenced teachers to use an interdependent approach to a greater extent than low-CL students. The

highest interdependentness was observed in the high-high matches, whereas the lowest was found in the low-low combinations. It appeared, in the case of mismatch-

ing low-CL teachers with high-CL students, that such teachers were either unwilling or unable to change their level of interdependentness to any significant degree. In contrast, high-CL teachers reduced their level of interdependentness with low-CL students to a significant degree. These findings are consistent with predicted differences between individuals differing in CL as well as offering considerable support for the matching hypothesis. Rathbone's study has relatively few design problems, the only problems being with a narrow CL range in both teachers and students, absence of control over sex of subjects, and lack of control over treatment content.

Of the clinical-counseling studies, that by Heck and Davis (reported in two

separate papers, Heck & Davis, 1973; Davis et al., 1977) is most pertinent to education. Forty graduate students in counseling were separated in low-CL (mean of 1.3) and high-CL (mean of 2.2) groups on the PCM. There is no mention of verbal

intelligence, although the groups were found to be similar in age, sex, and experience. The matching task, which comprised a simulation of a high- and low-CL client, took the form of two sets of client statements which had been previously assessed for CL

by experienced, independent judges. The experimental subjects were presented with each set of statements and required to simulate an interview situation in which they responded to the client's statements. The 24 responses from each subject were rated

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by the authors in terms of empathy for client (1973 paper) and attractiveness of client (1977 paper). On both measures, a main effect of CL was found, with high-CL counselors showing greater empathy to both clients than the low-CL counselor and all counselors being more attracted to the high-CL client. An ordinal interaction was also noted, with a matching effect on empathy. Most interesting was the higher empathy in the high-high match compared with the high-CL counselor, low-CL client mismatch. The major problem with this study is the absence of attempts to control for verbal intelligence, a particularly crucial step in light of the behavioral outcome which involves the subject in the interpretation of verbal statements and in

producing written responses. The studies by Carr (1970) and McLachlan (1972, 1974) are of indirect interest to

education and are included here as a further illustration of matching procedures. For instance, Carr matched adult outpatients (neurotics) with psychiatric trainees in a 12-week therapy program. Matched patients, that is, those with similar levels of

conceptual differentiation to that of the therapist, showed significantly greater improvement on both patient perception and "objective" estimates of symptom reduction. In McLachlan's studies, which constituted a treatment (1972) and follow-

up (1974), adult alcoholics were exposed to group psychotherapy directed by profes- sional therapists who differed in CL. Significant interactions were found between

patient and therapist CL, with greater improvement occurring under matched conditions, that is, high-CL patient with high-CL therapist and low-structure regime.

Summary of Empirical Findings

Main effects of CL

Social cognition and behavior. High-CL subjects compared with low-CL subjects show significantly more prejudice reduction (Gardiner, 1972); more empathy (Heck & Davis, 1973); more internal locus of control (King, 1974); longer decision latencies (Kirk, 1970); greater use of nondirective styles (McLachlan, 1972) and autonomy (Phillips, 1972); more interdependent styles (Rathbone, 1970); and superior communication and information processing skills (Reid, 1975). On the face of it, all these effects are consistent with, and support, predictions based on CST.

Affect. The relationship between CL and affect has received some attention in CST (Miller, 1978). However, predictions can only be made in quite specific terms about affective reaction to confirming or refuting information and experiences. It is difficult to see how predictions can be made about a more global response to school-life or a whole treatment package. Thus, it is virtually impossible to derive some meaning from the finding that high-CL pupils have a more positive attitude toward school (Allen, 1977) and show a more positive change in attitude during a treatment program (Brill, 1978). More amenable to interpretation is Butler's (1976) finding that high-CL students show less satisfaction with an autonomy (low structure) condition than do low-CL students, although this would appear to be contrary to expectations based on CST.

Achievement. No adequate theoretical basis is available for hypothesizing about the relationship between CL and academic achievement. Studies which use the latter as the behavioral outcome must, therefore, be seen as exploratory. As one might anticipate, there is considerable variation in findings. High-CL students have been shown to be superior in dealing with the more complex forms of cognitive activity,

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such as interpretive and integrative test items (Hill, 1969; Hunt et al., 1974; Mc- Lachlan & Hunt, 1973; Noy & Hunt, 1972; Tomlinson & Hunt, 1971), complex vocational choices (Streufert, 1975), and in learning to speak a foreign language (Zampogna, 1975). However, less easy to interpret is the demonstration of superior performance of high-CL students in the lower level skills of knowledge and comprehension (Noy & Hunt, 1972; Robertson, 1973).

Treatment Effects Social cognition and behavior. Only one treatment effect has been demonstrated, a

marginally significant effect of independent study on the questioning behavior of teacher trainees (Reid, 1975).

Affect. Affective response to treatment conditions seems to be, in part, a function of age. Thus, Allen (1977) found that with younger children, all pupils preferred the more structured condition. On the other hand, the low-structure condition was

preferred, or favored, by older subjects (Davis et al., 1977; Hunt et al., 1974; King, 1974; Robertson, 1973; Tuckman & Orefice, 1973).

Achievement. The effect of treatment on achievement appears to be a function of the complexity of responses assessed. Thus, higher grades and higher levels of

cognitive learning are apparent under low structure (King, 1974, Noy & Hunt, 1972), whereas recall appears to be facilitated by high structure (McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Robertson, 1973).

Interaction Effects Social cognition and behavior. The ordinal interactions are of two kinds, those with

a near zero slope for high-CL subjects and an effect due largely to treatment differences among low-CL subjects (Brill, 1978; Rosenthal, 1975), and vice-versa (Heck & Davis, 1973; Rathbone, 1970; Stein & Stone, 1978). These findings are consistent with the argument made earlier that slight shifts in the position of treatments on the environmental complexity dimension (Figure 1) will produce apparently contradictory results, some of which appear to support the matching hypothesis and some which do not. McLachlan (1972) was able to demonstrate a disordinal interaction effect of counseling treatment and CL on patient symptoms. In a later study (McLachlan, 1974), a similar result is evident, although the limited

published details allow only a tentative conclusion about his findings, which is also true of the information provided by Carr (1970).

Affect. Two ordinal interactions with a near zero slope for low-CL subjects and treatment effects on high-CL subjects were demonstrated by Allen (1977) and Robertson (1973). Disordinal interactions were found by Stein and Stone (1978), Tuckman and Orefice (1973), and possibly by Phillips (1972).

Achievement. Of the five ordinal interaction effects on achievement, three showed near zero slopes for high-CL students (Eggert, 1978; McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Tomlinson & Hunt, 1971) and two for low-CL subjects (Hill, 1969, Streufert, 1975), although in Hill's case the negative slope for low CL might be more accurately described as nonsignificant. Disordinal interactions were found by Santmire (1969), and Zampogna (1975). The pattern of significant correlations between CL, academic

discipline, and grade point average found by Pohl and Pervin (1968) is also suggestive of a disordinal relationship.

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Evaluation of Experimental Designs

An evaluation of the adequacy of the experimental designs used in the above studies will provide some guidelines for determining how much credence can be

placed in their findings. The main components, person, environment, behavior, and

matching procedures, will be discussed separately.

The Person

In all cases, individual differences in conceptual structure are operationalized in terms of conceptual level, using the assessment methods of Hunt et al. (1978) and Schroder et al. (1967), or in terms of conceptual abstractness, using the various

procedures of Harvey (Note 5). Hunt's "Paragraph Completion Method" and Schroder's "Paragraph Completion Test" are similar in conception, format, and

scoring and are essentially identical. There is a minor difference in the range of scores used to depict CL, with the former (PCM) using 0-3 and the latter (PCT) using 1-7. Some caution is needed, therefore, in comparing studies to ensure that experimental groups are constituted on a similar basis. Hunt et al. (1978) recommend standard

ranges of scores for the designation of groups as low CL (0-1.0), moderate CL (1.2- 1.9), and high CL (2.0+). However, because of practical exigencies, most authors select experimental groups on the basis of median splits or extreme scores. As a result, the composition of experimental groups differs from one study to another, even though similar labels may be applied to such disparate groups. For instance, the

high-CL group of Allen (1977) has a lower mean score than the low-CL group of Reid (1975). There is virtually no overlap between the two distributions. Within a

study, one needs to look at range and absolute level of scores. An adequate testing of matching hypotheses requires that some reasonable degree of separation is achieved between experimental groups. If both groups are low, or both high CL, then a false negative result may ensue. Among the studies with an adequate range and level of CL scores are Butler (1976), Hunt et al. (1974), McLachlan (1972, 1974), Robertson (1973), and Zampogna (1975). Problems with low range and level can be detected in Allen (1977), Brill (1978), Pohl and Pervin (1968), Reid (1975), Santmire (1969), and Streufert (1975).

Sex of subject is an important variable in the formation of experimental groups, particularly in light of Hewitt's (1972) conclusion that women may respond differently than men to measures of CL. Presumably the most efficient way to deal with this is to include sex as an independent variable (e.g., Eggert, 1978; Noy & Hunt, 1972), use

only one sex (Brill, 1978; Heck, 1971), or include equal numbers of male and female

subjects in each group (Hunt et al. 1974). The majority of studies, however, include an ad hoc mixture of the sexes, or do not report sex of subjects.

In attempting to control for variables which may confound the effect of CL on behavior, the relationship between CL and verbal ability is troublesome. Both Schroder et al. (1967) and Hunt et al. (1978) report that the correlations between CL and verbal ability measures range from 0.12 to 0.45, over a variety of samples. If one is to demonstrate that CL has an effect over and above that of verbal ability, it would seem necessary to match experimental groups on the latter, otherwise false positives may ensue. The control of verbal ability, or pretreatment achievement levels, is particularly important in those studies which observe the effect of matching on

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achievement. Approximately one half of the studies reviewed here attempt to control these variables.

One of the many extraneous variables that impinge on an experimental subject is the behavior of others in treatments which involve group interactions, as in a classroom situation. Stager (1967), for instance, has shown that the heterogeneity of

group members, in terms of CL, is an important variable in small-group decision

making. Some degree of control might be achieved by using homogeneous groups, a procedure that few attempt (Carr, 1970; Hunt et al., 1974; Rathbone, 1970; Robertson, 1973). A more common procedure is to randomly assign both low- and

high-CL subjects across treatment groups. The use of these heterogeneous groups may well increase the possibility of false negative results.

The Environment

Two aspects of the learning environment are commonly used as treatment conditions: instructional mode and teacher/counselor personality.

Instructional mode. The following components are of interest in assessing the

adequacy of the conceptualization and operationalization of instructional modes: treatment dimensions, level and range of treatments, adequacy and maintenance of treatment differences, content of treatments, and the duration of treatment conditions.

Ostensibly, most authors appear to deal with environmental structure in terms of an autonomy-control dimension, that is, in terms of the unilateral-interdependence structural dimension. Little attention is paid to the other theoretically relevant dimensions of "unreliable-reliable" and "protective-informational." Environmental structure, therefore, is defined in terms of degree of teacher control over classroom

activity. It is assumed that a unilateral condition is one in which the teacher controls some largely, unspecified aspects of the classroom, whereas the interdependent condition involves more student participation in the decision process. Two levels of treatment are usually posited, with such familiar labels as "discovery-didactic" and

"guided-independent." However, because of the limited descriptions of treatments

accompanying many studies, it is difficult to ascertain the actual nature of the sub- dimensions on which treatments are varied. A few studies provide adequate descriptions, usually in the form of a classroom "interaction analysis." The most satisfactory is that used by Hunt et al. (1974), which assesses teacher-student interactions on 15 dimensions grouped in terms of structuring behavior (teacher-student negotiations), informational activity (teacher talk, student questioning), and sanctioning (positive and negative sanctions imposed by the teacher). Similarly, Santmire (1969) attempts to specify the constituent components of her version of "teacher control" in distin-

guishing between a high "reflective index" (teacher helps students theorize, express themselves, and participate in class decisions) and a low index (teacher provides information and concepts, establishes procedures and questions for precise answers). Other studies which provide a reasonably detailed description of their treatments are

King (1974), Kirk (1970), Phillips (1972), Reid (1975), Rosenthal (1975), Streufert

(1975), and Tuckman and Orefice (1973). It would seem that two aspects of teacher control are being recognized here, control

of the interpersonal behavior of students and control of the intellectual content of classroom activity. Ideally, an experimental design might take cognizance of both, at least to the extent of controlling that aspect of least interest to the researcher.

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However, in the studies reviewed here, the two aspects of teacher control are seldom

explicitly recognized, with the result that the intellectual content of tasks varies across treatments. The most satisfactory resolution of these problems has been achieved by Hunt and his associates (e.g., Noy & Hunt, 1972). It is also apparent that treatments differ on a number of dimensions in addition to those on which they are said to vary. In the case of "field studies" (e.g., Allen, 1977) carried out with ongoing programs in schools, treatments have to contend with extraneous variables due to differences between schools, classrooms, teachers, and subject matter. Even in the more "controlled" studies, however, a number of confounding variables would appear to intrude. This is particularly true of those that contrast independent and guided instruction (i.e., the majority of studies). Researchers would need to consider the

divergent effects of isolation compared to group activity. In other words, motivational issues arise in relation to the kinds of situations in which an individual will persevere. Thus, Stuempfig and Maehr (1970) demonstrated differences in persistence between low- and high-CL subjects under personal and impersonal conditions. Wiederanders and Harvey (1977), in replicating this study, demonstrated that intrinsic motivation varies with level of conceptual abstractness, but not in a linear fashion. It is clear, therefore, that the treatments used in most of the studies reviewed here vary on dimensions other than teacher control of interpersonal interactions in the classroom.

Given that some attempt was made to manipulate treatment in terms of structure, it is important to determine the actual extent of difference between treatment

comparisons. On the interpersonal dimension, the degree of choice offered students in classroom settings appears to be strictly limited, in all the studies reported here. Classroom interactions are stringently controlled, even in the ostensibly low-structure condition. The kind of choices offered to students involved relatively minor features of interaction such as being encouraged to ask questions, organize some of their own time, negotiate on ways of approaching predetermined goals, and when to study. Student choice does not extend to questioning of the teacher's values or authority, presumably for practical reasons. This is particularly true of the task aspects of the environment where goals, intellectual content, and methods of evaluation are not a matter of choice. As a consequence, the majority of studies entail a contrast between treatments, both of which are relatively high in structure. The exceptions are those studies which involve counseling procedures where low structure seems to have been offered in group interactions. The researcher is in somewhat of a quandary over this issue. Classroom research, if it is to be both realistic and experimentally rigorous, cannot involve the freedom of choice one finds in a sensitivity group. However, pursuit of realism and experimental rigor seems to have led to treatments that differ little in degree of structure.

One of the salient features of any research is whether the treatments are applied consistently and treatment differences maintained throughout the course of the study. This might be assumed to be the case where experienced teachers are used, well- versed in the teaching mode being used, as in Hunt et al. (1974). However, in some cases (e.g. Streufert, 1975), inexperienced instructors (graduate students) are involved. The extent to which the latter can assume a particular style of instruction and maintain this consistently is an empirical issue. A similar problem arises when experienced teachers are required to present both treatments, which assumes that all teachers are equally capable of switching to, and are competent in, alternative teaching modes. There is reason to doubt this supposition. Rathbone (1970), for

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instance, has found that low-CL teachers cannot adopt more "interdependent" styles, even though they may wish so to do. One might assume from this that, in studies where teachers are required to offer both treatments, only high-CL teachers should be used, because they appear to have the necessary competence and flexibility. However, Rathbone (1970) also found that high-CL teachers are more susceptible to "student pull," which suggests that in a mismatch condition the treatments being offered would regress to the mean. One way to ensure that different treatments are

applied and maintained is to include an independent rating of treatments in the

experimental design. A number of studies involve ratings of treatments by students and teachers (Allen, 1977; Butler, 1976; Gardiner, 1972; King, 1974; Phillips, 1972; Rathbone, 1970; Reid, 1975; Tuckman & Orefice, 1973; Zampogna, 1975). This

provides useful information on the differences experienced by participants but is influenced by both the students' and teachers' assumptions about the intent of the

study. Only Brill (1978) seems to have dealt with the problem of independent ratings satisfactorily by his use of periodic evaluation of treatment logs by independent raters.

In evaluating the content of treatments it should be borne in mind that CST is concerned with individual differences in social cognition. The purpose of matching is, presumably, to enhance the skills of the individual in this regard. It follows that the content of treatments should involve some form of social-interpersonal activity, if the matching hypotheses are to be adequately tested. More particularly, tasks of relevance to this issue would involve the student in the resolution of ambiguous social information, with the added engagement of some form of dependent-interdependent behavior in which the subject is placed in a situation of conflict with peers or teachers. A number of studies fill the informational aspects of this requirement (Brill, 1978; Carr, 1970; Eggert, 1978; Gardiner, 1972; Heck, 1971; McLachlan, 1972, 1974; McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Tuckman & Orefice, 1973). However, no study in a classroom setting deals satisfactorily with the dependence-interdependence aspect of instructional content. The closest approximations are to be found in the counseling studies of Heck (1971) and Rosenthal (1975).

The selection of a satisfactory treatment duration raises some interesting issues. It is clear that changes in CL involve a time scale estimated in terms of years (Hunt, 1971), which is probably why few studies use CL as a dependent variable. However, the component skills that make up CL appear to be influenced in shorter periods of

time, the question being: How short? In practice, treatments range from 10 minutes

(Robertson, 1973) to 2 years (Brill, 1978). Very brief treatments, under an hour, would seem to be too short for any conceivable effect to be established. However, both CL and treatment effects have been demonstrated under such conditions (e.g. Noy & Hunt, 1972; Robertson, 1973; Tomlinson & Hunt, 1971). On the other hand,

long treatments stretching over a period of years would appear to run the risk of

gradual change in treatment conditions. The most suitable way to evaluate treatment duration is in relation to the dependent variable used. Thus, brief treatments may be seen as satisfactory when achievement is of interest, whereas changes in social

cognition and/or interpersonal behavior would seem to require longer treatments. Teacher personality. A few studies use different levels of teacher/counselor CL as

the treatment condition (Allen, 1977; Carr, 1970; Hill, 1969; McLachlan, 1972, 1974;

Phillips, 1972; Rathbone, 1970). Because teacher and student CL can be assessed in the same way, this procedure

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allows a more precise matching than can be achieved in using instructional mode as the environmental variable. However, teacher-student matching is based on the assumption that teachers who differ in CL display consistent differences in teaching style. The assumption seems warranted in light of available evidence. For instance, differences in the level of control exerted on a classroom have been found to be related to the CL of teachers (Harvey, White, Prather, Alter & Hoffmeister, 1966; Harvey, Prather, White, & Hoffmeister, 1968; Coates, Harvey, & White, Note 9). Two teaching styles were identified: "dictatorialness" (need for structure, rule orientation, control of procedures, and use of unexplained rules) and "fostering exploration" (encouragement of diversity, involvement, participation, and responsibility). The more conceptually abstract the teacher, the greater was the use of "fostering exploration." Further support for these differences is provided by Spring, Koenings, & deCharms (1974) and Eggleston (1977).

Teachers of different CL have also been shown to differ in the level of empathy displayed, that is, in the capacity to construe events from the perspective of another and to organize teaching around that perspective. Teaching styles that might be viewed as empathic have been identified by Hunt and Joyce (1967), Murphy and Brown (1970), and Rathbone (1970). In all cases, a significant positive relationship was found between CL and use of empathic styles. Further support, from clinical studies, is provided by Heck and Davis (1973) and Goldberg (1974). Finally, the flexibility and adaptability of teaching style has been found to be positively related to CL (Joyce, Lamb, & Sibol, 1973; Oswald, 1971; Osofsky & Hunt, 1972).

In summary, there is reasonable support for the contention that teacher CL is related to consistent differences in teaching style, which adds credence to the strategy of teacher-student matching.

Behavior

The effects of matching can be demonstrated only if the dependent measures are theoretically appropriate, that is, criterion relevant. Several issues are significant in evaluating the criterion relevance of the measures used here. First, it has been repeatedly noted that CST deals with individual differences in social cognition, that the relationship between cognition and affect is less well developed, and that between social cognition and academic achievement not at all. It follows that measures of social cognition are the most appropriate as dependent variables. Whether this latter conclusion might be extended to include measures of social behavior is a moot point. Certainly CST attempts to predict social behavior on the basis of CL, with some success. In this regard, Brill (1978) was able to demonstrate treatment differences on measures of social behavior, but not on questionnaire measures of social attitudes among low-CL subjects and vice-versa. Likewise, Rosenthal (1975) detected CL and treatment effects on social cognition but not on overt behavior. Similarly, Heck (1971) was unable to demonstrate any effects in a micro-teaching situation. In contrast, Reid (1975), using a behavioral measure of teaching skills, did succeed in demonstrating CL and treatment effects. In the face of this ambiguity it is possible only to offer an impression: changes are easier to demonstrate on written tasks, if such tasks incorporate some of the other criterion relevant aspects noted below.

Secondly, the dependent measure should engage theoretically relevant aspects of conceptual structure and content. These have been noted previously as the processing of ambiguous and conflicting information about personal-social matters (structure)

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and activities which tap the orientation of the subject to authority and power (content). The most interesting attempts to deal with both of these aspects of social

cognition are Rosenthal's (1975) confrontation task and Heck's (1971) communication task.

Finally, differences due to CL can be detected only if the dependent measures

engage the skills predicted at each level of conceptual functioning. Thus, high-CL students are thought to be superior with the more complex cognitive tasks, whereas differences due to high CL may not be detected among relatively simple tasks. It follows that studies which use either complex or simple cognitive tasks, but not both, as dependent measures, do not provide the means for detecting differences due to CL. A satisfactory solution is to include a variety of measures that vary in level of complexity, as one finds in Hunt and his associates (Hunt et al., 1974; McLachlan & Hunt, 1973; Noy & Hunt, 1972; Robertson, 1973; Tomlinson & Hunt, 1971).

Matching The level of sophistication achieved in the conceptualization and measurement of

instructional mode appears to limit the precision of the matches established. This

problem is less apparent where teacher-student matches have been based on CL. In neither case, however, do authors distinguish between contemporaneous and devel-

opmental matching. One can only surmise that the majority intent has been to examine contemporaneous matches and mismatches.

None of these studies take into account the curvilinear relationship between environmental complexity and behavior which has been demonstrated by Schroder et al. (1967). Indeed, only one author (Kirk, 1970) uses this area of theory in

discussing the anomalies in his results. One cannot but conclude that the variations which have been found among the ordinal interactions are integrally related to the issue of position of treatments on the curvilinear slopes (see Figure 1).

Adequacy of Designs The most useful way to present conclusions on design adequacy is to incorporate

the numerous design issues which have been raised into some form of design index. There are a large number of possible items, including: Person (representativeness of

range of CL in experimental groups, adequacy of separation of experimental groups, control of sex of subjects, control of extraneous variables such as verbal ability, prior achievement, knowledge of intent of study, level of openness to change, and for the more clinical-counseling studies, seriousness of clinical problems, and prior hospi- talizations); Environment (adequacy of conceptualization and measurement of environmental variables, explicitness of criteria for measurement, actual differences between treatments, degree to which treatments were successfully implemented, treatment maintenance, treatment duration, and control of extraneous variables such as heterogeneity of treatment groups, variation in academic content, control of extra- classroom influences); Behavior (criterion relevance of outcome measures, adequacy of measurement of outcome, number and complexity of outcome measures, objectiv- ity of raters and teachers in outcome assessment, use of pre- and postmeasures); and

Matching (explicitness of matching intent, precision of matches achieved, awareness of curvilinear relations in selection of more than two treatments and an appropriate level of environmental complexity, and use of curvilinear notions in explaining results).

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If the design index is to be of practical utility, it is necessary to make a selection of items from this extensive list. Such a procedure runs the risk of misrepresenting design issues, and no doubt, the reader may wish to establish a different order of

priorities. However, for my purposes here, I prefer to use a relatively truncated design index composed of 10 items which, I believe, would constitute the basic elements of an adequate design: adequacy of CL range and separation; control of sex of subjects; control of other person variables (e.g. verbal ability); range of treatment structure; appropriate treatment duration; control of extraneous environmental variables (e.g. heterogeneity of groups); criterion relevance of outcome measures; number and

complexity of outcome measures; awareness of curvilinear relations; and explicitness of intent of matching. A subjective estimate has been made of adequacy on each count, with one point being allocated for a reasonable attempt to fulfill the criterion. A score of 10 would indicate a good design, one that dealt in a reasonably efficient

way with basic design requirements. The design index, which is reported for each

study in Table II, ranges from two to six with the mode being four. It is clear from these ratings that the majority of designs are simply not adequate, a conclusion which limits the validity of their experimental findings. However, a small number of studies were reasonably well-designed (e.g. those with a design index of six), and it is possible to suggest that their results be viewed with some confidence. The resulting group includes Hunt et al. (1974), McLachlan and Hunt (1973), Noy and Hunt (1972), Rathbone (1970), and Tomlinson and Hunt (1971). Of the five studies, five show main effects due to CL, three studies show a treatment effect, and three show interactions. In all cases, these findings support predictions based on CST and, in

particular, support the contemporaneous matching hypothesis. The ordinal interaction demonstrated by McLachlan and Hunt (1973) is consistent with the matching hypothesis but is more adequately interpreted by reference to Figure 1 and the reasonable assumption that their treatments occupy positions A and B.

What might be concluded from this evaluation? One obvious conclusion is that neither the matching hypothesis nor the matching model have been adequately tested. Because few of the available studies are free from conceptual and design problems, the consistent support afforded CST by the majority of these must be viewed with caution, and it is only the few relatively well-designed studies which can be said to point, with some confidence, to the predictive validity of CST matching principles. However, a more unequivocal decision on the matter awaits more adequately designed studies carried out under genuinely pedagogic conditions. To be fair to the authors whose work is reviewed here, such studies are extremely difficult to implement. This is due, in part, to practical problems, unrelated to the nature of CST, which plague any attempt to look at classroom practice. There are, however, a number of unresolved issues, more intimately related to CST, which may affect the extent to which the matching model can be implemented in practice and these are discussed in the next section.

Implications for Educational Research

The basic question posed in this paper is whether CST provides an adequate framework for research on person-environment interactions in educational settings. In evaluating this question, a number of conceptual and empirical issues have been raised, each of which poses both a challenge and an opportunity to those interested in the educational applications of CST. In what follows, a few general comments on

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the implications of the above analyses for educational research will preface a more detailed discussion of unresolved issues.

One of the more unfortunate aspects of interactional research in general has been its piecemeal nature. Harootunian (1978), for instance, has noted the apparent futility of an atheoretical search for ATI's. A major advantage of CST, in this regard, is that it offers a coherent framework which specifies both the nature of, and interaction between, the components of person-environment interactions. In so doing, it provides a direction for and promises the possibility of programmatic research. In addition, by focusing on generic aspects of cognitive processes, that is, differentiation, integration, and conflict resolution, the authors have founded their theoretical framework on variables that are clearly nontrivial and that appear to have considerable influence on many aspects of cognition. Further, the fact that all components of the person- environment interaction can be described in theoretically similar terms, facilitates both the process of matching and the selection of appropriate (criterion relevant) outcome measures. The latter is a particularly intractable problem for those who work outside of a theoretical framework. Considerable support for the predictive validity of the CST matching hypothesis was provided by the studies under review, particularly those identified as having better experimental designs. However, a number of problems have been identified which require further comment, paying particular attention to the extent to which each might limit the usefulness of CST in educational research as well as the opportunities they provide for refinement of the theory.

The Person

Current conceptions of CL propose a developmental dimension composed of structural (conceptual complexity) and content (interpersonal orientation) components. The complexity aspect of the dimension is seen to vary in accordance with the degree of differentiation and integration achieved by the individual. Low-CL persons are said to exhibit low levels of both differentiation and integration, whereas high CL is characterized by high levels of both. As we have seen, however, a number of doubts have been raised about the simplicity of this proposed scheme (Streufert & Streufert, 1978), doubts which revolve around the orderly and coordinated increase in both differentiation and integration as one proceeds from low to high CL. While the low-low and high-high combinations have been shown to occur (Miller, 1978), it is not at all clear that this exhausts all significant combinations. There is a need here for some conceptual clarification, as well as an opportunity to modify the prevailing conception of CL so as to accommodate certain kinds of individual differences which, at present, cannot be characterized on the CL dimension. For example, it is a common observation that some students seem to be preoccupied with and possibly overwhelmed by detail, whereas other students exist in a world of generalities, the foundations of which are often obscure. It could be argued that the first kind of student, in social situations, would be able to detect (differentiate) social cues but miss the more subtle, underlying point of the interaction. In the academic sphere, such a person may amass a large quantity of factual information, but be unable to utilize it in a coordinated way, being unable to extract themes or form superordinate conceptions. The second kind of individual may react to social situations with a "sense" of the proceedings but is unable to specify the precise cues to which he/she

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is reacting. In academic terms, such a person might be able to extract the main themes from a body of material but is short on remembered detail. In CST terms, the former could be characterized as showing high differentiation and low integration, whereas the latter exhibits low differentiation and relatively high integration (i.e. whatever details are known are well integrated). In its present form, CST cannot

easily accommodate these combinations of differentiation and integration. Further, current methods of measurement would most likely classify the high-low combination as low CL (because of the emphasis in measurement on integrative capability) and the low-high person as high CL. Presumably this misclassification diminishes the

efficiency of matching, since it can be argued that the high differentiation, low

integration person does not benefit from exposure to the highly structured detail which constitutes a match for low-CL students. Instead, some form of integrative training would seem to be required. Similarly, the low differentiation, high integration individuals would appear to need some emphasis on detail rather than being faced with the unstructured, nondirective teaching methods thought to benefit high-CL students. If these cognitive "types" actually exist to any significant degree, as I believe

they do, then both the conceptualization and measurement of CL would need to be modified accordingly. This does not appear to be an insurmountable task.

A second area of CST that provides food for thought is that of the postulated relationship between cognitive structure and content. At one pole, the CL dimension is composed of cognitive simplicity associated with a dependent, interpersonal orientation. In early versions of the theory (Harvey et al., 1961) low-CL "types" were characterized as showing "authoritarian" behavior. More recent work by Harvey (Harvey, White, Prather, Alter, & Hoffmeister, 1966; Harvey, Prather, White, & Hoffmeister, 1968) also emphasized the directive, controlling, dictatorial teaching styles of the more concrete (low CL) teacher. In contrast, the opposite pole of the CL dimension is said to be characterized by conceptual complexity and an interdependent orientation (autonomy, empathy, mutuality). In Harvey's work, teachers at this level showed a willingness to foster exploration, diversity, participation and responsibility on the part of the students. It is also clear from the original statement of Harvey et al. (1961) that the high-CL (abstract) person is seen as evincing a more liberal, humanitarian posture. Two questions arise from these views. First, current conceptions of CL do not allow for the possibility or existence of significant combinations of structure and content, other than those postulated. For example, CST does not

accept the possibility of a complex authoritarian, only cognitively simple authoritar- ians are possible. The question is whether this does justice to what one can see in

history and in the classroom. More important, however, is the question of the value

judgments implicit in the very conception of the CL dimension. Whereas it is true that most researchers are careful to avoid the more pejorative labels that can be so easily attached to cognitive "types," the CL dimension remains one which expresses clear preferences for certain kinds of cognitive development. High CL is the preferred state, one that matching actively seeks to promote and is not an inevitable or "natural" outcome of development. In this regard, CST is not unusual in the values expressed, showing considerable similarity to the developmental dimensions of Kohlberg (1969) and Loevinger (1976). The point at issue, however, is that research within the CST framework will involve the researcher in promulgating a value position, one which, as we shall see, is not acceptable to all segments of society.

Descriptions of the Person in CST have emphasized social cognition at the expense

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of other salient features of individual functioning, notably academic abilities and motivation. Whether this is seen as a serious limitation depends on what one expects of a theory. It is legitimate for theories to deal selectively with human functioning and unusual to find comprehensiveness. However, the particular omissions mentioned do result in some practical problems. For instance, the question of the generality of conceptual complexity across stimulus domains has yet to be satisfactorily resolved, but it is reasonable to work on the assumption that the level of complexity achieved in the social domain may not be related to that exhibited in the academic domain. It is possible, therefore, that many individuals vary in their level of complexity in the two domains, which makes matching on only CL (social) a partial or incomplete procedure. On the basis of CL matching, little can be said about the ability of students to deal with different levels of complexity in academic subject matter. In the studies under review, a few attempts have been made to match subjects on academic achievement and on verbal ability. Although this is a laudable attempt to deal with the problem, it is unsatisfactory, due to the lack of criterion relevance of the measures used. What is needed is a measure of "academic CL" which reflects the student's degree of differentiation and integration (structural complexity) and orientation to subject matter (attitude to authoritative statements, style of dealing with opposed views, and style of dealing with views that contradict personal beliefs). Some interesting steps toward this end have been taken by Barker (1974) and Suedfeld and Borrie (Note 7).

Individual differences in values and interests complicate the matching process. One can see this most clearly in developmental matching where it is assumed that, given an appropriate learning situation (in cognitive terms), the student will develop in the prescribed way. However, this is by no means an invariable outcome, because some students simply resist. They may be unwilling to accept the challenge offered by the matching environment and, indeed, may not wish to change. CST and, in

particular, the matching procedures are relatively mute in the face of this problem, few practical suggestions being offered for dealing with the situation. To be fair, however, student resistance is not a phenomenon that is uniquely applicable to CST. The most interesting attempt to deal with motivational issues is found in Hunt's (1971) modified version of the matching model, in which the Person is viewed in terms of accessibility channels, two of which are CL and motivation. However, this work has received relatively little attention and is used as a basis for describing the Person in only one of the studies reviewed here (Butler, 1976). At least one reason for this would seem to be the extent to which subject selection is complicated by the extensive measurement required in this modified approach.

One final point should be raised about descriptions of the Person in CST. In

practice, little attention is paid to sex as a variable. Only in the better studies have the sexes been segregated or equally represented in experimental groups. However, even in these cases, the sexes are treated as interchangeable, that is, the same

predictions are made for each sex. It is assumed that women exhibit the same kinds of cognitive structure, with the same dependence-independence conflicts, as men and that the developmental sequences of both sexes are identical. This is doubtful in light of Hewitt's (1972) suggestion that prevailing measures of CL do not adequately represent the cognitive structure of women. The possibility that women may not conform to the theoretical formulations of CST suggests another interesting and

necessary area of research.

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The Environment

The conceptualization and measurement of the classroom environment is similar in emphasis to that found in descriptions of the Person. Thus, only the social environment is attended to, in the form of instructional mode and teacher personality, whereas the academic or task environment is given only a cursory glance. Similarly, measurement of the social environment appears to be the most advanced, with the methods of Coates et al. (Note 9), Hunt et al. (1974), and Harvey et al. (1966, 1968) being the most satisfactory. Measurement of the task environment is, as one might expect, relatively undeveloped. As we have seen, however, this need not be the case, since interesting preliminary work is readily available to those who wish to pursue the matter; for example, Hunt's use of biographical data banks (Noy & Hunt, 1972), the simulation exercises of Schroder et al. (1967), the structured decision tasks of Kirk (1970) and Streufert (1975), and the structural analyses of Barker (1974) and Suedfeld and Borrie (Note 7).

For those interested in developing the conceptualization of the classroom environment, within a CST framework, there are a number of unresolved issues which deserve attention. For instance, the interaction of students as a component of the social environment, is not recognized in many of the studies reviewed. In most cases, the effects of this interaction are obscured by the use of heterogeneous experimental groups. For experimental purposes this is not satisfactory, and as we have noted in the design index, some control of the influence of other students is necessary, either in the form of homogeneous experimental groups or by exposing the students to experimental conditions individually. This need to control the interaction of students also has practical implications for the feasibility of matching in the classroom. It is difficult to envisage how a single teacher could provide matching conditions for a heterogeneous class. Similarly, individual instruction is likely to be impractical in most cases. In practice, therefore, matching may be possible only with homogeneous groups. Hunt's (1966) early work on homogeneous classroom groups indicated the promise of this approach in that teachers were able to select and utilize teaching methods appropriate to the CL of the group in question. What is of interest here, however, are the research questions that this strategy raises. For instance, would students in a group, homogeneous in CL, tend to sustain each others conceptual and interpersonal styles, even in the face of the teacher's attempts to implement, for instance, a developmental match? Would such a group of students exert a cohesive pressure ("student pull") on the teacher to modify the classroom environment to suit their wishes, rather than those of the teacher? If this is so, what happens to plans about matching? In addition, homogeneous groups lack the diversity of modeling behavior found in a mixed group. Thus, a low-CL group would not be exposed to the behavior or antics of high-CL students. The interesting question is how this might affect their willingness to try new learning methods. Finally, the practicality of grouping students according to CL would need to take into account the effects of labeling which always arises when children are classified in some way as well as the potentially adverse reaction to any strategy which resembles ability grouping.

Another interesting research problem revolves around the flexibility of the social environment and the implications of this for the feasibility of matching in classroom settings. Flexibility might be conceptualized as the degree to which teachers are willing and/or able to change their teaching styles in response to the CL of students. For instance, teachers who differ in CL have been shown to use different instructional

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modes. Particularly interesting is the finding that low-CL teachers do not, or cannot, adapt their teaching style to match the CL of the students being taught, whereas high-CL teachers appear to be more flexible. If this difference can be verified, the implications for matching are rather sobering, for it would seem that low-CL teachers could not be allocated to any group of students and be expected to adjust their teaching styles accordingly. It may be necessary to have low-CL teachers matched only with students relatively low in CL. Bearing in mind the relative absence of high-CL teachers in many of the studies reported, who then is to teach the high-CL students? In addition, if low-CL teachers are as inflexible as it seems, how could one expect from them the steps needed to establish a developmental match? One

consequence of this would be that low-CL teachers would tend to develop a

contemporaneous match with low-CL students, with the result that both remained at the same developmental level. The point being made is that the relative inflexibility of some teachers places a limit on the extent to which the environment can be manipulated and on the practicability of matching.

It is a common classroom practice to manipulate the task environment (i.e. academic content) but to maintain the social environment relatively constant (i.e. by using the same teaching method). However, the implication of the CST matching model is that the social environment should also be manipulated, resulting in a concurrent change in both the social and task environments. The obvious question is: What are the consequences of this dual manipulation? To date, none of the studies reviewed have addressed this issue, with the exception of a preliminary attempt by Kirk (1970). For example, in working with biographical data, Noy and Hunt (1972) maintained a constant level of task complexity while changing instructional mode. One would anticipate that the manipulation of both aspects of the Environment would present the student with excessively high levels of complexity. The interesting research question is whether the effects of such manipulations are in some sense additive, or whether there is a more interactive effect on the complexity of the Environment. Schroder et al. (1967) have explored this issue and propose an additive model of environmental complexity. In more practical terms, one would like to know whether the CST matching procedures can be implemented if both social and task environments are manipulated concurrently.

Underlying all these research questions, however, is the fundamental issue of whose viewpoint should be used to depict the Environment, that of the student or the teacher/researcher? Only in one of the studies reviewed (King, 1974) was the students'

viewpoint considered in establishing the independent variables. In all other cases, the Environment was described from the viewpoint of an observer (teacher, re-

searcher). As we have seen, however, Bryson and Driver (1969) have shown that

complex and simple subjects extract different amounts of information from the same stimulus array. Thus, subjective estimates of environmental complexity by the student are likely to differ from those generated by an observer. (Note also that observers who differ in CL would also produce different estimates of environmental complexity unless they adhered closely to some "objective" assessment procedure.) The implication of all this is not that students would be totally idiosyncratic in their descriptions of the classroom environment, nor that the "objective" nature of the classroom would not affect their judgments. Rather, it suggests that an accurate assessment of the effect of any environment on a student should include both the student's subjective views of the situation as well as that of some external, "objective" observer. In King's

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(1974) study, student and teacher estimates of environmental structure were similar, but this is unlikely always to be the case. In such an event, the interesting question is whose viewpoint should be paramount. In other words, how are the two estimates of environmental structure to be combined?

Behavior

Matching can be adequately tested only when dependent measures are criterion relevant, that is, when they assess theoretically relevant aspects of conceptual structure and content. Despite the importance of this principle, relatively few of the studies reviewed pay much attention to the issue. For instance, we have noted the use of academic achievement, as an outcome, usually couched in terms that are criterion irrelevant. In addition, few authors include a range of outcome measures which vary in the degree of complexity required for completion and, in so doing, fail to provide an adequate test of the effects of matching. However, there are more than enough examples of adequate outcome measures which might serve as models for future research (Heck, 1971; Hunt et al., 1974; Rathbone, 1970; Rosenthal, 1975). Rather than looking at these more technical issues, therefore, it might be more useful to examine a number of ethical and "political" issues which affect the selection of outcome measures.

The most persuasive way to demonstrate the effects of student-environment matching would be to use change in CL as an outcome. Because CL is a generic trait, one that changes slowly, it might be anticipated that the effects of matching could only be demonstrated after a lengthy treatment, one that extended over a period of months. If this is so, then the use of CL as an outcome would be impractical for

many matching studies. However, both Gardiner (1972) and Streufert (1975) were able to demonstrate changes in CL after relatively brief treatments, although in both cases the posttreatment measures of CL appear to have been modified to fit

experimental needs and, as a result, were situation-specific. This means that they probably do not represent the generic CL dimension depicted by Hunt (1971). Nevertheless, this work raises the possibility that CL can be directly modified by relatively short periods of training and thus deserves replication.

A more immediate problem is how one can justify matching research using CL as an outcome. Given the likelihood that longitudinal studies should be implemented and that these would incorporate mismatching conditions, there are ethical arguments against subjecting students to situations designed to retard their social development. To date, only Brill (1978) has used such a lengthy procedure and it should be noted that he worked with delinquent subjects. How, then, does one proceed? One possible justification for such matching studies is the realization that current teaching prac- tices, involving one teacher with a heterogeneous class, invariably involves mismatching for periods of years. Matching research, therefore, is certainly no worse than current practice and promises to identify ways of improving the situation.

The CL dimension is used in CST to represent a desired form of development, with high CL as the preferred outcome of matching. As such, high CL becomes the major educational goal within this framework. It was noted earlier, however, that this may not be a universally acceptable aim. I recollect submitting a paper to a science journal, some years ago, which outlined the CST matching model, only to have the manuscript returned with the somewhat peevish comment by the editor that there were far too many of "my" high-CL people around and that they were clearly

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the cause of many of society's ills. Thus, the CL dimension is seen by many as one that promotes disagreeable social attitudes and beliefs. For some, matching can be interpreted as coming close to "interfering" with basic aspects of a student's personality; always a tendentious issue. Proponents of CST argue that their emphasis on structural goals obviates this problem to some degree, but this disclaimer may not be accepted by parents and teachers. The point being made here is that research on matching, particularly the selection of CL as an outcome measure, involves the researcher in more than purely technical issues.

Person-Environment Interactions

Matching, in CST, is conceptualized in terms of two guiding principles: the matching hypothesis and the more elaborate matching model. The latter (Table I) is based on the assumption of a curvilinear relationship between matched components and is described in rather general terms, in which the curvilinear aspect is represented as three treatment levels at each conceptual stage. This provides rough guidelines for research but is far from adequate. For this reason it is unfortunate that the extensive theoretical and empirical work of Schroder et al. (1967) and Streufert and Streufert (1978) has not been more widely used in the studies reviewed. Some form of integration between the work of Hunt and Schroder would provide a more adequate basis for interaction research in educational settings. Even without this theoretical development, however, a number of simple steps could be taken to explore the curvilinear nature of interactions. For instance, the simple expedient of including more than two treatment conditions in matching studies (e.g., Tuckman & Orefice, 1973) would allow researchers to establish the nature of this relationship in a

particular learning situation. Because there are so many potential combinations of CL, instructional mode and task content, it would be sensible for researchers in this area to concentrate on a few standard situations. This could be achieved if those who were interested in CST matching adopted some standard taxonomy of teaching situations; for example, Joyce and Weil's teaching models, an example of the

application of which can be found in Hunt et al. (1974). By far the most intriguing problem with matching research, however, is whether

developmental matching can be adequately evaluated, or even implemented, in

practice. It will be recalled that developmental matching involves placing a student in a teaching situation which is slightly more complex and demanding than that to which she/he may be accustomed. In other words it places the student in a situation of some stress. Or one could look at it less dramatically and simply see it as presenting the student with a challenge. This apparently innocuous procedure has a number of

problems associated with it, however, which may account for the fact that developmental matching has yet to be tested. For instance, it is difficult, given the prevailing level of sophistication in measurement of both the Person and Environment, to obtain the precision of matching required to separate a contemporaneous from a developmental match. Progress in this area awaits developments in the conceptualization and measurement of components. Second, as noted earlier, some students may simply resist the challenge offered and prefer the level of demands consistent with a contemporaneous match. One strategy that might overcome this problem would be to establish a contemporaneous match with a group of students, so as to create

rapport, and to gradually move toward a developmental situation. Third, the occurrence of student resistance, especially if vocalized, is going to affect the teachers

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involved in the matching exercise. Where a researcher is using an analog situation with "simulated" teachers, negative reactions on the part of students might be tolerated. In practice, however, it is not clear how one would persuade a classroom teacher to persist with levels of demands that might elicit a negative response.

To close on a personal note, the implementation of developmental matching in

practice is to me the most intriguing issue generated by CST. Although further refinements of both theory and method are needed, and no doubt will be forthcoming, unless teachers, students, and parents can be persuaded to accept developmental matching both in principle and practice, then such refinements will produce a theory which has limited practical utility. Perhaps this is why Hunt (1978) has, in recent

years, directed his attention to this very issue.

Conclusions

The purpose of this paper has been to evaluate the contention that Conceptual Systems Theory (CST) provides a theoretical and operational framework within which to investigate student-environment interactions in the classroom. An evaluation of both the theory and related empirical findings has been undertaken. CST

appears to be one of the more coherent and comprehensive personality theories available. Its cognitive and interactive emphases make it pertinent to the issue at hand. The numerous theoretical issues raised do not detract from the overall framework but merely point to areas that need development and to pitfalls that can be avoided by the prospective researcher. Only a small portion of the large body of research within CST has dealt with educational issues. The majority of the latter studies have a relatively low level of design adequacy. This suggests the need to interpret such studies with caution. However, much of what has been demonstrated is in support of theoretical predictions. This is particularly true of the small group of superior studies which clearly support the contemporaneous matching hypothesis. Only three studies (Allen, 1977; Butler, 1976; Zampogna, 1975) produce effects that are clearly contrary to theoretical expectations. In addition, the CL effects on achievement noted by Noy and Hunt (1972) and Robertson (1973) are difficult to interpret. However, these are relatively minor anomalies in an otherwise confirming body of findings. One might reasonably conclude, therefore, that Conceptual Systems Theory offers a promising framework for interactive research in classroom settings, but that further conceptual development is needed and its matching principles need to be more adequately tested under genuinely pedagogic conditions.

Reference Notes

1. Hunt, D. E. Responsiveness, reciprocality and reflexivity in person-environment interaction. In Interaction ofpersonality development and varying types of educational environments within college and university settings. Symposium presented at the meeting of International Con- gress of Applied Psychology, Munich, 1978.

2. Streufert, S. Complexity theory and congruity theory: The developmental view. Paper presented at a conference on "Developing Cognitive Complexity," University of Augsburg, Germany, April, 1977.

3. Schroder, H. M. Developing adaptability to complexity. Paper presented at a conference on "Developing Cognitive Complexity," University of Augsburg, Germany, April, 1977.

4. Schroder, H. M., & Phares, J. Structural scoring manualfor Paragraph Completion Test. Princeton University, 1974.

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5. Harvey, O. J. Information on the use of the "This I Believe Test" (1973 version). Unpublished manuscript. (Available from [O. J. Harvey, Psychology Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80302]).

6. Endler, N. S. Situational aspects of interactional psychology (Report No. 80, Psychology Department Reports). Toronto: York University, 1979.

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Paper presented at annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Quebec City, June, 1979.

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9. Coates, C., Harvey, O. J., & White, J. B. Observation scales of classroom atmosphere and student behavior: A replication and refinement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March, 1970.

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AUTHOR ALAN MILLER, Associate Professor, Psychology Department, University of New

Brunswick, Bag Service No 45444 Fredericton, NB. Canada E3B6E4 Specialization: Personality; cognitive development; interdisciplinary and environmental education.

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Conceptual Matching Models and Interactional Research in Education

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