Cognitive complexity

Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis and Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model provide the major impetus for this study. The present article reports the findings of a between-subject factorial experimental research study which explored 1) the effects of increased cognitive task complexity, manipulated through the intentional reasoning demands and number of elements on the lexical and syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of EFL writers’ productions; and 2) the joint effects of cognitive task complexity factor and learners’ language learning aptitude (Low vs. High) on the written output. Firstly, we gave Carroll and Sapon’s Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) to 226 participants and then did a random stratification of the low- and high- aptitude learners into three groups. The participants received letter writing tasks with different cognitive complexity levels (low, medium, and high). The findings indicated that increasing cognitive task complexity resulted in significantly higher lexical and syntactic complexity and lower fluency, whereas no significant effect was found on writing accuracy. Moreover, the statistical results revealed no significant interaction effect between task complexity factors and learners’ language aptitude. With regard to the first objective of the study, the findings supported the predictions of Cognition Hypothesis while it is not the case in relation to the second objective of the study.

Achieving the goals of educational systems and responding correctly to the expectations of students, parents and teachers depend on the existence of efficient and effective educational administrators and their beliefs. Therefore, the attention of education researchers is focused on the understanding of management in educational settings. Since individuals' beliefs cause the creation of personality structures, so the study of managers' personality structures can be helpful in selecting, transferring and relocating educational managers on a scientific basis, recognizing the necessary components of management to establish training courses, predicting future actions of managers and reducing skepticism and uncertainty and identifying the stylistic complexity of managers. On the other hand, structures enable educational administrators to better fulfill their professional mission. Based on the importance of this issue, the main purpose of the study was to identify and compare the personal structures of management among school principals. In the present study, in order to achieve the personal construct of managers, an interpretive approach and a qualitative method of case study were used. Participants included all public school principals in Sanandaj who were employed in 2021 and had more than one year of managerial experience. Therefore, sampling was done in a target based using the criterion method. Also, the number of samples was appropriate for the Repertory Grid Technique which is usually used for the sample with small number, 43 novice and experienced Principal were chosen. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and a Repertory Grid Matrix. Finally, 575 personal construct were extracted during 43 interviews. Content analysis with the unit of subject was applied for the data analysis. The collected data of the personal construct of administrator were classified in 4 main categories and 13 sub-categories, which included issues as morality, relationship, personal features and intellectual-functional. The results of this study indicates that the highest percentage of personal constructs of novice and experienced managers is in the category of communication and the lowest percentage of personal structures for novice managers is in the category of intellectual-operational and also for experienced managers is in the category of ethics.

In many aspects, U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy-making was in sharp contrast with that of his predecessors, particularly post-WWII presidents. His hostility toward the long-lasting liberal international order that was crafted and maintained by former presidents, his eccentric ways of solving foreign policy issues, and his unusual rhetoric regarding U.S. allies and adversaries, are all indications of his “unorthodox” foreign policy approach. In an attempt to explain this unorthodoxy, in this article we aim to examine Trump’s cognitions and compare them to those of his post-WWII predecessors. In particular, we have measured the cognitive complexity score for each of these presidents to determine Trump’s position among them. In order to do so, we have calculated the Flesch-Kincaid readability score of the presidents’ verbal statements, assuming that the complexity of the statements indicates the complexity of their author’s thoughts. The results have clearly demonstrated that Trump was at the lowest level of cognitive complexity among the presidents under examination, and since a low level of cognitive complexity pertains to viewing the situation from limited perspectives, a low need for broader information, adhering to a limited number of policy options, ignoring advice, and decisiveness, we may reasonably infer that his cognitive simplicity played an important role in the unorthodoxy of his foreign policy approach.