Cognitive structure of graduate students

Abstract

The current research aims to identify the cognitive structures of graduate students in the universities of the Middle Euphrates as well as the statistically significant differences in the cognitive structures of graduate students according to gender (male-female), specialisation (scientific-human), and study (Master-PhD), and to achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers built a research tool: the cognitive structure scale, so the tool was applied to the basic research sample (643) of male and female graduate students in the universities of the Middle Euphrates (Karbala, Babylon, Kufa, Al-Muthanna, Al-Qadisiyah) and to the scientific and humanitarian specialists. After stratifying the original population by 10% using the stratified random method, and after collecting and analysing data statistically using the SPSS statistical package for social sciences, the researchers reached the following results: The postgraduate students in the universities of the Middle Euphrates are characterised by cognitive structures. They know that the knowledge structures in their educational world, knowledge structures in their information world, and knowledge structures in their social world did not show any clear structures in their economic world, that PhD students are more than master’s students in cognitive structures.