PhD defence Wenying Hou

Keywords: Cognitive Measurements, Strategy Use, Personality

"Measuring In Cognition: Unravelling What Matters Beyond Scores"

This thesis examined how cognitive tests can provide more insight into how children and adolescents think, rather than only measuring how well they perform. Traditional scoring methods usually focus on overall outcomes, such as the total number of correct scores, but provide limited information about the thinking processes behind these scores.

Using large-scale behavioral data from cognitive tasks, this research developed new strategy-based scoring methods that identify patterns in how participants solve problems. The findings showed that individuals with similar total scores may use very different cognitive strategies. In addition, these strategy-based measures provided extra information beyond traditional scores, particularly in understanding academic performance and personality.

Overall, the thesis demonstrates that combining traditional and strategy-based scores offers a more detailed and nuanced understanding of cognitive functioning, which may support more personalized educational assessment and guidance.

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