Problem-solving style and multicultural personality dispositions: a study of construct validity.

This exploratory study examined the relationship between problem-solving styles and multicultural personality dispositions among 91 graduate students enrolled in an urban university located in the northeast United States. Problem-solving style was assessed with the three dimensions of the VIEW: an Assessment of Problem Solving Style. Multicultural personality was assessed with the five-factor Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ); its factors of Cultural Empathy, Open-mindedness, Social Initiative, and Flexibility correlated significantly with Explorer and External problem-solving styles, as predicted. The Emotional Stability subscale also correlated significantly with scores on Explorer style, suggesting that individuals who prefer "thinking in new directions" in problem solving are more likely to report remaining calm under stressful situations. Collectively, study results provided additional evidence of construct validity for the VIEW.

Problem-solving style and motivational attributions.

52 Master's-level female graduate students completed VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving Style and provided attributions for their successes and failures according to several categories of reasons. Attributions were in the form of percentages to the categories of skill or ability, effort devoted to the task, task difficulty, chance, or other factors, after Weiner's theory of motivation. Women scoring as more Developer than Explorer on VIEW attributed a greater percentage of their failures to uncontrollable factors (chance and task difficulty). These results are consistent with the theory that individuals with a Developer style are more organized, deliberate, "planful," and precise in their work efforts. Thus, such individuals would more likely attribute failure to factors they had not foreseen.

Comparison of two creativity style measures.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between two measures of creativity style for a sample of beginning teachers. 116 student teachers enrolled in an undergraduate teacher-education program in a medium-sized, metropolitan university completed the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory and Basadur Creative Problem Solving Profile measures. A preference for an Innovator style (higher scores on Kirton's inventory) was correlated with the Generator profile on the Basadur profile (r=.36, p<.01). The KAI Efficiency scores, suggesting a preference for broad, global ideas as opposed to narrow, specific ones, was correlated with the Basadur Conceptualizer scores (r=.26, p<.01). Implications are discussed for teachers who must adapt to newer instructional and assessment methods designed to foster students' higher-level thinking skills.