The Effect of Cognitive Style and Training on Fault Diagnosis Performance

Abstract

Abstract Recent evidence has suggested that measures of cognitive style may be good predictors of fault diagnosis performance. Experiments 1 and 2 explore the relationship between measures of cognitive style and fault diagnosis performance. A focusing‐scanning measure of style was significantly related to testing efficiency and quality of diagnosis in a context‐free fault diagnosis task. Focusers showed superior diagnostic performance. Experiment 3 examined the effect of training in fault diagnosis strategies for subjects selected at extremes of the focusing‐scanning dimension. Training did not improve the performance of either focusers or scanners although, as suggested by experiments 1 and 2, differences were observed between the fault diagnosis performance of scanners and focusers. Further research is required into the nature of cognitive ability and style and how they interact with fault diagnosis performance.