by Marie Kendall Brown, University of Michigan and
Jill Cellars Rogers, Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College
Summer 2005
Abstract
The Need for Cognition Scale (NCS) provides information about a person’s tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking. Although it is higher education researchers who most frequently use the NCS, it is also appropriate for use by faculty in classroom settings. The NCS can either be administered once to determine need for cognition at a given time, or several times throughout an educational experience. Furthermore, when combined with other appropriate instruments and student demographic information, it could be a valuable tool for measuring the cognitive goals of a liberal arts education.
Introduction
The Need for Cognition Scale (NCS) was designed to measure "individual differences in people’s tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking." [3, p. 130] This instrument can be used by institutions interested in learning about their students’ intellectual attitudes. A student’s score on the NCS indicates the extent to which cognitive activities are desirable and important to that student. This review of the Need for Cognition Scale begins with a general description of the NCS, followed by a brief overview of how NCS has been used by colleges and universities. Reflections about how the scale might be used in conjunction with other surveys and with student information are also offered.
About the Need for Cognition Scale
Drawing on the work of social psychologists such as Cohen et al., who described the need for cognition as "a need to structure relevant situations in meaningful, integrated ways" [5, p. 291], Cacioppo and Petty developed the NCS in 1982. According to the authors, an individual’s need for cognition score is predictive of the cognitive manner in which people deal with tasks and social information. [4] The NCS was conceptualized as reflecting a stable—though not invariant—intrinsic motivation that can be developed over time. In 1984, the NCS was revised to reduce the number of test items to 18. This "short form" is the current preferred version of the instrument Participants taking the Need for Cognition Scale are asked to respond to each of the 18 statements by indicating the degree to which they perceive the statement to be characteristic of them. The eighteen statements are:
- I would prefer complex to simple problems.
- I like to have the responsibility of handling a situation that requires a lot of thinking.
- Thinking is not my idea of fun.
- I would rather do something that requires little thought than something that is sure to challenge my thinking abilities.
- I try to anticipate and avoid situations where there is likely a chance I will have to think in depth about something.
- I find satisfaction in deliberating hard and for long hours.
- I only think as hard as I have to.
- I prefer to think about small, daily projects to long-term ones.
- I like tasks that require little thought once I’ve learned them.
- The idea of relying on thought to make my way to the top appeals to me.
- I really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions to problems.
- Learning new ways to think doesn’t excite me very much.
- I prefer my life to be filled with puzzles that I must solve.
- The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me.
- I would prefer a task that is intellectual, difficult, and important to one that is somewhat important but does not require much thought.
- I feel relief rather than satisfaction after completing a task that required a lot of mental effort.
- It’s enough for me that something gets the job done; I don’t care how or why it works.
- I usually end up deliberating about issues even when they do not affect me personally.
To minimize response bias, half of the items are reverse scored. Examples of reverse scored items are, "I only think as hard as I have to" and "I feel relief rather than satisfaction after completing a task that required a lot of mental effort." Individual NCS scores begin at 18 (low) and increase. Because different test administrators use different numbers of response options (usually from four to nine options), the upper limit of an individual’s score varies. Examples of labels for these responses are "agreement-disagreement," "true-false," or "characteristic-uncharacteristic." For instance, one form of the test will have a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "extremely uncharacteristic" and 5 being "extremely characteristic." Other forms of the same test will have a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 indicating "complete disagreement" and 9 indicating "complete agreement." Though these variations will influence the total score, they have not had dramatic effects on the consistency of test results—a student’s score will generally fall into the same range of cognitive need regardless of the test form used. [2] Lastly, there is no specific interpretation of a score. The final tally simply falls somewhere on the continuum between low and high need for cognition.
Administration of the Need for Cognition Scale
The Need for Cognition Scale is straightforward, brief, and can be used alone or combined with other survey items or instruments. The NCS is free to administrators and there are no copyright issues. These reviewers could find no detailed information on the administration guidelines of the NCS. Scoring the NCS is clear-cut. Scores for each of the 18 items are summed after reversing the scores on the nine negatively worded items.
Using the Need for Cognition Scale
Because it is so easy to administer, faculty can readily use the NCS as a feedback tool to gauge change in their students' curiosity and inclination to think through problems. Higher education researchers have used the NCS in conjunction with other student information to examine relationships between the student characteristics/college environment and a student’s enjoyment of thinking activities. Collecting student characteristics/demographic data alongside their NCS responses and results allows researchers to look at how cognitive need compares between subgroups. (Useful instruments for this type of survey could include the CIRP and the NSSE.) For example, several studies have linked students’ need for cognition with their educational level—first year vs. fourth year in college. There appears to be a consistent relationship between a person’s need for cognition and his or her educational level, such that higher cognitive needs correlate with more education. It remains unclear whether an individual high in cognitive need is more likely to pursue an education or if higher education fosters success and intrinsic enjoyment from effortful problem solving. [2]
Finally, understanding how students change and develop over time as a result of an experience can give an institution helpful data about the relationship between particular educational practices and learning outcomes. Using this notion, researchers could administer the NCS before and after a particular college experience (e.g., an intensive reading and writing class or a study abroad experience). Results could suggest the effectiveness of that particular educational practice on a student’s thinking character.
Liberal Arts Education Assessment and the Need for Cognition Scale
Using the Need for Cognition Scale to assess certain outcomes of a liberal arts education is not only appropriate but perhaps ideal. The thinking dispositions examined by the NCS directly target the inclination to inquire, a key liberal arts outcome. Moreover, a person’s cognitive need may also influence other outcomes, such as intercultural effectiveness, which requires complex cognitive skills for decision making in intercultural contexts. In fact, because of its strong content validity and robust statistical properties, the NCS has demonstrated relationships to a host of other outcomes. For example, studies have shown that the need for cognition is positively related to an individual’s tendency to base judgments and beliefs on empirical information and rational considerations; to seek out, scrutinize, and use relevant information when making decisions and solving problems; to desire new experiences that stimulate thinking; and to perceive social issues as personally relevant or involving. [2]
There is also evidence that the need for cognition correlates positively with academic performance and course grades. [7, 8] Students with high need for cognition were able to better comprehend material requiring cognitive effort and thus had better grades. [7] Students high in need for cognition were also found to be better information processors. [8] In contrast, variations in need for cognition are negatively related to characteristics such as dogmatism; tendencies to ignore, avoid, or distort new information; and closed-mindedness (i.e., higher need for cognition implies lower inclination toward these qualities, lower NCS scores indicate higher inclination toward them). [2] Given this list of thinking and behavioral characteristics, one finds it difficult to imagine a liberal arts outcome that would not be impacted by an individual’s need for cognition.
Given that an individual’s need for cognition at a given point in time is determined by past experiences, accessible memories, and behavior histories [3], it is reasonable to propose that over time a student’s curricular and co-curricular experiences can influence his or her cognitive needs and motivations. Accordingly, the NCS could be administered as a pre- and post-test measure of a particular liberal arts education experience. Alternatively, students' need for cognition coupled with other demographic data could suggest a link between demographic, curricular, or environmental characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status or chosen major) and cognitive need.
Limitations
The NCS does have several potential weaknesses. First, there is a lack of direction in interpreting scores and differences in the possible range of scores. While a score of 18 is considered "low" and a score of 90 "high" (when using the NCS form with five response options), there is little guidance offered in the literature for interpreting the differences between a score of 40 and one of 50, for example. Additionally, because the NCS is short and easy to administer, faculty and researchers might be tempted to use it hastily, without a clear vision of what they are interested in measuring, and to what end.
The NCS, like many other surveys, relies on self-reporting. Therefore, the NCS evaluates how an individual perceives his or her cognitive motivations. Furthermore, an individual’s mood and affective state may influence his or her perception, which adds another variable to the survey results.
Finally, a liberal arts education is often characterized as involving a complex interplay of cognitive practices and human qualities, aiming to foster the overall development of the mind. [1] Therefore, using quantitative instruments alone cannot provide the rich data needed to truly assess the effectiveness of such an experience. A variety of appropriate quantitative instruments such as the NCS, along with targeted qualitative assessment, would provide the best overall picture of the success of liberal arts educational practices.
Concluding Remarks
Because of its easy accessibility, efficiency, and fairly wide range of uses, the NCS is a useful measurement for assessing cognitive engagement. Used as a pre- and post-test measure of students’ need for cognition, or in conjunction with other demographic, environmental, or curricular characteristics, the NCS is one tool that should be considered for those who identify the enjoyment of thinking as an educational goal.
References