Technology education practitioners (n=225) identified how often 27 mental processes were used in solving technological problems. Analysis resulted in five factors: researching the problem, searching for solutions, creating innovative solutions, analyzing data, and evaluating results. (SK)

Introduces the Mystery Festival at the Shrewsbury Middle School in Massachusetts. Claims that this program will enable the children to collect and analyze data, carry out necessary tests, and develop a scientific approach to solving crimes. Describes the process of setting up this festival and recommendations for adapting the program to suit…

This study investigated the roles of problem structure and strategy use in problem encoding. Fourth-grade students solved and explained a set of typical addition problems (e.g., 5 + 4 + 9 + 5 = ?) and mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 4 + 3 + 6 = 4 + ? or 6 + 4 + 5 = ? + 5). Next, they completed an encoding task in which they reconstructed…

Principals are increasingly expected to be the instructional as well as administrative leaders of their schools. However, little is known about how principals reason through the instructional issues that they face. An analysis of principal reasoning in instructional contexts is critical. The study presented in this article draws on interviews with…

This article provides the rationale for using Fermi questions with eighth graders studying algebra. It describes the students' reaction to such questions as well as their thinking processes and solutions to questions posed to them by their teacher. (Contains 1 figure.)

A cross-curricular structured-probe task-based clinical interview study with 44 pairs of third-year high-school mathematics students, most of whom were high achieving, was conducted to investigate their approaches to a variety of algebra problems. This paper presents results from one problem that involved solving a set of three linear equations of…

In this article, the author presents five problems that are representative of some of the "movie problems" that he has used on tests in various courses, including reactor design, heat transfer, mass transfer, engineering economics, and fluid mechanics. These problems tend to be open-ended. They can be challenging and can often be worked a variety…

Experiments were designed to estimate separately time required to encode the premises of a three-term series problem and time required to generate an answer. It appears that marked and unmarked adjectives are stored in the same form and premises are integrated into a unified representation. (CHK)

Article investigated creative thought and creative ideas possessed by those with if! minds as contrasted with the but! minds possessed by those whose initial response to the invitation to think and to extend is a reaction rather than a pro-action. (Editor/RK)

Article focused on ways in which anxiety influences behavior, particularly with respect to the influence of anxiety upon problem solving. (Author/RK)

Author attempted to present a reasonable description of the film, Easy Street, with major antics numbered, then analyzed those in terms of Duncker and Koestler, thereby extending the latter's theory of bisociation. (Author/RK)

The reasoning of adolescents in indeterminate situations was examined with particular attention given to how individuals incorporate the possibility that outcomes are determined jointly by more than one variable. Kuhn and Brannock's (1977) plant problem and two other similarly structured problems were administered to 25 inner-city adolescents…

A review of research and the views of researchers prominent in the field of thinking skill development discusses the role of thinking skills in the ability to formulate problems, resolve issues, determine the most effective decisions, and create effective solutions to problems. The views of Edward deBono, Robert Ennis, Reuven Feuerstein, Matthew…

In an investigation into the process of retrieval from very long term memory, four subjects who had been out of high school from 4 to 19 years were asked to think aloud while attempting to recall the names of their high school classmates. The retrievals were found to be characterized by overshoot, systematic hypothesizing, fabrications, the…

QUESTION-STUDY AS A METHOD FOR INTERPRETING AND MEASURING PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIOR WAS STUDIED. DATA WERE OBTAINED FROM A PREVIOUS STUDY (ED 003 005) AND ANALYZED. ANALYSES WERE PERFORMED TO DETERMINE WHETHER QUESTIONS WERE MORE USEFUL FOR ASSESSING PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIOR THAN ANALYSIS OF SOLUTIONS. TECHNIQUES, FORMULAE, AND RESULTS PERTINENT TO…