Constructivism (learning Theory) - Role Category Questionnaire

Role Category Questionnaire

An important key in Constructivism is the idea of the RCQ which stands for Role Category Questionnaire. This tool is a questionnaire or survey that is designed to reveal individual’s cognitive complexity in accordance to their interpersonal perception. To take this one step further it is important to define exactly what cognitive complexity is. In this case cognitive complexity is the degree of ability to distinguish between personalities, no matter how obvious the personality difference may be or how minute the personality difference may be. When someone has a high level of cognitive complexity they are able to put themselves in that person’s shoes and relate to them on their level, as well as better understanding the events happening around them. Researchers believe that those with more sets of constructs have an advantage of social perception skills compared to those who have only a small amount of constructs to interpret people with (Griffin 99). Delia and Burleson (constructivist theorists) define two types of people: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t (Griffin 100). If we use this as our base then those who only view the world made up of one type of person can be coined as lackluster. Those who view more than one type of person in the world are a notch above the rest, elevated human beings able to distinguish the different characteristics amongst those they interact with. It is the degree of differences that are tested upon with the RCQ, revealing how intricate and complicated the person’s mind is (Griffin 100).