An Item and Internal Consistency Reliability Analysis of Your Style of Learning and Thinking

Your Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT)" is a test which estimates the relative psychological dependence of an individual on the left or right hemisphere of the brain.In this study, in order to improve SOLAT-Form CC an internal consistency reliability was computed, and an item analysis was performed.Coefficient alpha was used to measure the internal consistency reliability, and it was demonstrated that SOLAT-Form CC was internally highly consistent.As a result of item analysis, it was shown that most items were appropriate; however, items 28 and 45 were indicated to be revised or omitted.There is now a great deal of discussion concerning the role of cerebral hemisphericity or style of processing information in learning and thinking behavior.Hemisphericity is defined briefly as the tendency for a person to rely more on one than the other cerebral hemisphere in processing information.The left hemisphere seems to be specialized for the logical, sequential processing of information and deals primarily with verbal, analytical, abstract, temporal, and digital materials (Bogen, 1969;Gazzaniga, 1970;Ornstein, 1972).The right hemisphere seems to be specialized for primarily non-verbal, concrete, spatial, analogic, emotional, and aesthetic materials (Torrance and Mourad, 1979).Torrance and his fellow researchers recently arranged a self-report inventory to estimate the relative psychological dependence of an individual on the left or right hemisphere of the brain.The instrument, "Your Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT)," contains questions regarding primarily the left and right hemispheric functions as well as the integrative capacity of the two hemispheres.At first, Torrance, Reynolds, Riegel, and Ball (1977) made SOLAT-Forms A and B. Then Torrance and Reyno1ds (1980) revised the instrument as Form C. The forms-A, B, and C-were all for adults.In addition to those, Reynolds (1978) presented a children's form of SOL AT, which was called SOLAT-Form CA at the 25th annual Creative Problem Solving Institute.When the second children's form (SOLAT-Form CB) was presented, Reynolds, Kaltsounis, and Torrance (1979) reported on