A cognitive construct that is important when solving engineering design problems is executive control process, or metacognition. It is a central feature of human consciousness that enables one "to be aware of, monitor, and control mental processes." The framework for this study was conceptualized by integrating the model for creative design, which…

In some higher education courses that focus on case studies, teachers can provide situated scenarios (such as business bottlenecks and medical cases) and problem-solving discussion tasks for students to promote their cognitive skills. There is limited research on the content, performance, and behavioral patterns of teaching using online…

This study employed an eye-tracking technique to examine students' visual attention when solving a multiple-choice science problem. Six university students participated in a problem-solving task to predict occurrences of landslide hazards from four images representing four combinations of four factors. Participants' responses and visual attention…

Problem solving, reasoning, and analytical thinking are defined and described as teachable repertoires. This paper describes work performed at a school serving special needs children, Morningside Academy, that has resulted in specific procedures developed over the past 15 years. These procedures include modifying "Think Aloud Pair Problem…

This paper presents an overview of research on physics problem solving using verbal protocols. It asserts that the understanding of physics problem solving strategies enables researchers to write computer programs, which can automatically solve physics problems without the users having to be experts in physics. This, in turn, can generate more…

A study examined in detail the initial encoding of worked-out examples of mechanics problems by "good" and "poor" students, and their subsequent reliance on examples during problem solving. The subjects, three males and five females, were selected from responses to a university campus advertisement. Six of them were working…

The focus of this project was on characterizing and assessing design problem solving in the area of digital circuit design. Think-aloud protocols and computer traces of subject problem-solving behavior were used to elucidate the cognitive processes involved in designing combinational and complex sequential circuits by: (1) studying the differences…

Reports a study that identified the underlying cognitive processes employed by problem solvers. Researchers coded think aloud protocols from 40 undergraduate elementary education majors who were asked to solve analogous problems. Results indicated that the successful problem solvers differed from unsuccessful ones in three significant ways. (SM)

Twenty-four students who scored 650 or more on the Scholastic Aptitude Test Mathematics test (SAT-M) were asked to think aloud while solving 13 mathematics items in either multiple-choice or free-response format. Strategies students used to solve the items were classified as either algorithmic or insightful. Data analyses indicated that items in…

By using ill-structured problems and examining problem- solving processes, this study was conducted to explore the nature of solving complex, multistep problems, focusing on how prior knowledge, problem-solving process utilization, and analogical problem solving are related to success. Twenty-four college students qualified to participate by…

The role of planning in the design of digital circuits was studied in two experiments. One compared the planning-related activities of expert designers and beginning students of design, and the other looked at the effect on circuit-design processes of forcing students to construct a global plan. In experiment 1, five undergraduate students…

Individual differences in performance on figural analogy tests are usually attributed to quantitative differences in processing parameters rather than to qualitative differences in the formation and use of representations. Yet aptitude-related differences in categorizing standardized figural analogy problems between high and low scorers have been…

Describes a study which analyzed think-aloud protocols of four expert and four novice instructional designers working on a design problem in physics instruction. Differences between novices and experts in problem interpretation, problem analysis, problem representation, solution generation, the solution, internal resources, external resources, and…

Examines think-aloud protocols of experts from three disciplines generated as they revised mismatched text/illustration combinations from biology textbooks; 14 biology students also gave protocols as they read and interpreted the combinations. Indicates that the experts worked in similar ways, but many were not able to predict the…

Compares experts', advanced students', and novice students' use of genetics knowledge to generate and test hypotheses while solving genetic pedigree problems. Reports that experts identified more critical cues, tested more hypotheses, were more rigorous in the falsification of alternative hypotheses, and were more flexible to their solving…