Metacognitive awareness of brain hemispheric functions during the composing process : a comparison between eminent scientist-authors and gifted students with similar career aspirations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine which combination of mental processes (styles of thinking or behaviors associated with the left and right brain hemispheric functions) occur during the writing act and what strategies scientist-authors and gifted student writers use to monitor and manage the complex integration of the processes. Fifty eminent scientist-authors and 23 gifted students enrolled in the Texas A&M Gifted & Talented Institute Space Science Summer Program served as subjects. Subjects responded to a researcher developed survey instrument and were administered Your Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT) developed by Torrance, Reynolds, Ball, and Riegel (1978). Data were analyzed using the chi square statistic. For a more indepth qualitative analysis, three adults and six students provided additional data collected through interviews. It was concluded on the basis of results that: (1) Adults, more than students, make clear to themselves an understanding of the problem, main purpose, and the audience during the prewriting phase. Also, adults, more often than students, feel strong forces of writing discipline during the revision process as though they are critics rather than creators. (2) Adult and student writers do monitor and manage brain hemispheric behaviors; however, adults appear to be more proficient than students at using their dominant mode of thinking to orchestrate and utilize both left and right hemisphere process modes. (3) Adults participate actively in the process of both left and right hemisphere functions; whereas students often seem uncertain of behaviors to use to aid them in solving problems associated with the composing process. (4) Use of SOLAT and the case study approach are means of providing visibility to those variables contributing to the writer's composing process behaviors associated with metacognitive awareness of brain hemispheric functions.