RATIONALE FOR STUDY TWO (A)

On the basis o f the results obtained from study two, it was hypothesised that the use of accessible reasoning was positively related to an interviewer's ability to reach a high quality understanding of a teacher's presenting problem situation. However, correlation does not imply causation, and the observed significant increase in accessible reasoning, and the associated improvement in problem-analysis quality could have been related to other factors. For example, Elstein et al (1990) and Goodyear (1997) summarise research which has shown that people's personality characteristics are correlated with how they go about the process of inquiry.

It could be that the degree to which EPITs are willing (or able) to use accessible reasoning during initial interviews, when so taught, might be related to the degree to which they are sociable, open to new ideas, independent, risk takers, and the degree to which they focus upon detail, apply themselves, and perceive themselves as open communicators, empathetic and supportive. These various factors can be grouped together under the headings of personality and communication style characteristics (Costa & McCrae, 1987, 1992; McManus et al, 1997).

The rationale for undertaking study two (a) was to investigate whether participants' personality and personal communication style characteristics added anything to our understanding of the factors related to an interviewer's ability to gain a high quality understanding o f a teacher's problem. Information was also collected on the relationship between participants' personality and communication style, and their perceptions o f the interview task, self-ratings of their problem-analysis quality and the use of various interview strategies, derived from study two. This was done to investigate whether such factors influenced a participant's ability to form accurate perceptions of their own

behaviour.

5.1.1. Personality and communication style as explanatory variables

Within psychology those studying individual differences can be divided into two main groups, those who investigate individual differences with regard to psychological processes such as problem-solving and information processing (as seen in study two), and those who focus upon studying a range of personality traits and communicative styles. These two strands have, until recently, worked in isolation using different methodologies and theoretical perspectives. Recent developments within cognitive psychology have indicated that individual differences in social perception and information processing may offer another way of viewing personality, that is, as a set o f "cognitive information processing styles" (Sternberg, 1995).

Research from cognitive psychology suggests that people use a number of cognitive strategies to try to make sense o f interpersonal encounters. Often these strategies are not particularly rational nor are they applied systematically. The evidence suggests that people interpret the same information in different ways, in part because everyone uses slightly different strategies to process and construct meaning. Sternberg (1995) refers to such strategies as 'cognitive styles'. The difference between cognitive style and personality is that cognitive style can represent a strategy that can be defined in terms o f some outcome, where as personality is usually seen as a more global description. For example, a person who consistently employs an impulsive rather than reflective style during information gathering and processing tasks could be viewed by a personality psychologist as having an impulsive personality. Cognitive styles are seen as being more flexible and amenable to change, whereas personality is seen as a fixed disposition. Within this chapter communication style is seen as being related to personality dispositions. However, as with the distinction between cognitive style and personality, a person's communicative style is more open to modification and change.

One o f the main challenges to cognitive style research is that it has tended to be descriptive rather than explanatory, and to have weak predictive validity. Although the research has identified a range of cognitive strategies which people use during information processing, there is little discussion as to why they use particular approaches.

and whether people can be effectively taught different ways o f responding. In the field o f educational psychology, there have been successful attempts to teach children to be more reflective than impulsive in their approach to learning tasks, as a reflective approach appeared to be related to positive school attainments (Brunas-Wagstaff, 1998; Jamieson, 1992).

Personahty psychology proposes explanations in the form of the processes, which underlie the various classifications of personality traits. In this study two measures were used which were consistent with this approach because the explanatory model used in study two was from the other strand - information processing and cognitive psychology. The challenge with these approaches is that a lot of this research can appear overly deterministic, in that it implies that an individual's disposition to respond in particular ways is "set" from birth.

5.1.2. Measuring personality characteristics and communication style

Despite conceptual differences there is a growing body o f research, which highlights a consistent set of personality factors derived from factor analytic studies. There appears to be a consensus within the literature that five factors may provide the best description of human personality (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Though the labelling o f these factors differs slightly from study to study, the five factors are extroversion (or assertiveness or impulse expression), agreeableness (or warmth or docility), conscientiousness (or will to achieve), emotionality (neuroticism) and intellect (or openness to experience). McCrae and Costa (1992) developed a measure of these, which is commonly called the "Big- Five" Personality Inventory (NEO-FFPI).

All trait-based models assume that personality dispositions are consistent and stable over time. The assumption is that if you know someone's personality, you should be able to predict the probability that certain approaches will be adopted. For example, an extrovert would tend to be more sociable, impulsive and sensation-seeking than a more introverted personality. We would not expect, within this model, for an introvert to be extrovert in some contexts and not in others. For personality to have any real value as a predictor o f behaviour, consistency is crucial. It is important because it has implications for how useful the assumption is that a stable set o f personality variables

explains performance rather than employing more cognitive or behavioural explanations (as used in study two). From a training perspective it may be more helpful to view personality as a background variable which may or may not make learning particular cognitive skills (such as problem-analysis, interviewing and accessible reasoning) more or less difficult.

McCrae and Costa (1992) believe that earlier criticisms o f personality trait psychology as being either "simplistic descriptions" of little applied use or "cognitive fictions" are now refuted, in part because of biological evidence regarding the heritability o f personality traits. However, the Big Five still fails to provide compelling causal explanations for human behaviour and experience, and it disregards the context and conditional nature o f human behaviour. Despite these reservations the Big-5 measure and the trait framework it embodies is the most widely used measure in the field of personality and occupational psychology. There is also an impressive amount of research on the relationship between a wide range o f behaviours and the Big-Five dimensions (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1996; Buss, 1992; Hart & Hare, 1994).

To many lay people it makes perfect sense to think that the personality o f an interviewer could well predict their performance during an interview and in any subsequent analysis they may make about a client's problem. The central question o f research in this area has been to find out what personality characteristics actually predict, for example, health and longevity (Friedman et al, 1995), personality disorders and mental illness (Costa & Widiger, 1994), and occupational behaviour (Fumham, 1994). An example o f the latter type of enquiry is the research of Barrick and Mount (1991) where they looked at the relationship between the five dimensions o f the Big-Five Personality Inventory (Extroversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness) with three types of job performance (job proficiency, training proficiency and personnel data). The results showed that Conscientiousness was a constant predictor o f job performance and Extroversion was associated with jobs involving social interaction and training proficiency. They concluded that personality characteristics were valid predictors of work-related behaviour though the correlations are almost always small.

In Fumham, Cmmp and Whelan's view (1997) some personality characteristics "are good predictors of job proficiency, but not all are" (p.669). They argue that there are

at least three reasons for this. Firstly, different personality characteristics are associated with different behaviours and if a characteristic is unrelated to a particular behaviour then it is not likely that they will correlate, secondly not all measures are equally psychometrically sound. Thirdly, Fumham et al state that poor correlations may result because of the weakness o f measures used to assess occupational behaviour.

Within applied fields, such as medicine, there has also been a growing realisation that effective doctor-patient communication is essential to improving medical practice and patient health (Simpson, Buckman, Stewart, Maguire, Lipkin, Novack & Till, 1991). Individuals differ in their ability to communicate effectively with others, or to large groups (Stewart & Roter, 1989). Within the literature there have been attempts to measure such differences (Stiles & Putman, 1989), although the majority o f such measures have relied upon complex and time-consuming observational methods. In addition questions have been raised about the reliability and generalisability o f such approaches (McManus et al, 1997).

One of the most well-used questionnaires available for assessing self-perception o f communicative ability is the "Communicator Style Measure" (CSM) questionnaire originally developed by Norton (1978). In the original CSM-102 questionnaire 102 items were rated by participants on a 7-point Likert-type scale. The items were clustered under 10 separate constructs. This instrument was further refined into a shorter 50-item version in which items were assessed using a 4-point Likert-type scale.

For medical research purposes McManus et al (1997) devised a shorter 18-item version of the CSM-50, based upon three main constructs - Effective, Dominant and Non­ verbal. As with the CSM-50 a 4-point Likert-type scale was used. Study two (a) used the 18-item version as a measure of participants’ self-perceptions o f their communicative style.