Thinking: the same results from different processes / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Different processes of thinking may lead to the same results, which represent one of the forms of the complexity of the human brain.OBJECTIVE: To analyze the similarity in the results of thinking and difference in the thinking process by means of questionnaires.DESIGN: A comparative analysis of the answers in the final term examination with the difference in answers analyzed by x2 test with contingency table.SETTING: Department of Physiology, Medical College of Henan University of Science and Technology.PARTICIPANTS: This study was conducted between June and November,2004, involving totally 300 volunteered second-year medical students (150male and 150 female, aged 20-22 years) of the medical school of Henan Science and Technology University who took their final examination in physiology.METHODS: The first "question for thinking" in the final examination was taken as an example, and the papers with full score for this question (completely correct group, n=42) and zero score (totally wrong group, n=49)were chosen, from which one paper was randomly selected from each group. The first 10 words in the answer to the question was used as the control and compared with the answers of the other papers word by word.Each same word was given a score of 1 and otherwise a score of 0, and the number of the same words and different words were counted for comparison. Meanwhile the total words of the answer were also counted and compared. The difference in the answers was analyzed with x2 test with contingency table.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The difference in the first 10 words between completely correct group and totally wrong group.RESULTS: Totally 42 students in the complete correct group and 49 in totally wrong group were included in the final result analysis. The number of the total words of the answer was different between the students in spite of the same scores. The first 10 words of the chosen paper in completely correct group was significantly different from those in the other 41 papers (x2=270.978, P ＜ 0.01); there was also significant difference in the first 10words between the chosen paper and the other 41 papers in totally wrong group (x2=285.153, P ＜ 0.01).CONCLUSION: Longitudinal thinking as well as lateral thinking processes are different between persons.