THE INFLUENCE OF GLOBAL-LOCAL PROCESSING STYLES ON ACADEMIC RISK TAKING

Abstract

Research has shown that academic risk taking—the selection of school tasks with varying difficulty levels—is important in education. In two experiments, we explored the role of cognitive processes—specifically, global versus local processing—in students’ academic risk taking tendencies. Participants first read a short passage, which provided the context for their subsequent academic risk taking decisions. Following which, participants undertook the Navon’s task and attended to either global letters or local letters only. The effects of global-local processing on academic risk taking were then assessed using a perception-based measure (Experiment 1) and a task-based measure (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 provided preliminary evidence, which Experiment 2 confirmed, that globally-focused individuals took more academic risk than did locally-focused individuals after controlling for participants’ need for cognition. The theory of predictive and reactive control systems (PARCS) provides a cogent account of our findings. Future directions and implications in education are discussed.