Field Dependent and Independent

As community health educators, nurses find it difficult toeffectively implement teaching and learning strategiestraditionally used with American adult learners. Concurrentmethodological triangulation was used to explore the construct offield dependence/independence in immigrant adult learners. Thistwo-step study employed the Witkin (1971) Group Embedded FiguresTest (GEFT) to determine field dependency/independency in 77subjects from various culturally diverse populations. Theconvenience sample consisted of 16 (n=16) subjects from Russian,Sudanese, and Dominican adult learner cohorts. These subjectsproved to be predominantly field-dependent. Focused interviews alsoprovided direct self-reported evidence that the students perceptionof their learning process was consistent with the results of theGEFT. Outcomes of this study suggested that focused interviewtechniques reflected field dependency/independency as accurately asa formal assessment tool, such as the GEFT. Results indicated theassessment of cohort-based learning style tendencies through anon-threatening interview may be a cost effective and timeefficient way to plan community-based educational programs.