With the 2010 Winter Olympic Games prominent in the media, children were exposed to images of athletes skiing down snow-covered slopes, coasting furiously on bobsleds, and skating gracefully across the ice. Therefore, the authors capitalized on their children's natural curiosity about the world around them by exploring the concept of motion in a…

Many students who enter colleges and universities seem to be focused on memorizing and regurgitating information rather than on developing critical thinking and problem solving skills. Mentoring is crucial to help these students transition from the current approach to one that will be successful in college. Successful mentoring requires a…

This paper argues that the introduction of the scientific method in the very rich environments of the natural sciences or human sciences may disguise the process and create difficulties for students because of the multiplicity of variables involved, whereas the variables present in a mathematical context can be readily manipulated and their…

The reconstructive approach deals with problem solving in the social studies and particularly with the formulation of policy questions which would be examined with respect to their desireability and feasibility. In this article the author rebuts criticism of his handbook outlining the reconstructivist model for inquiry. (JH)

Presents a schema to replace the generally accepted notion of the scientific method being described as an individual scientist's behavior. The schema is described as the summary process by which scientific understanding of the universe is advanced, how knowledge is created and tested, and how workable models emerge. (EB)

Organizations must recognize that training and development managers can and should play a role in organizational problem-solving. They can be quite effective in directing the jury technique of analyzing and solving unexpected contingencies. (Author)

Discusses general ways to approach and solve engineering problems. Uses the phase plane and perturbation methods to illustrate the qualitative study of equations. (MLH)

The author describes various professionals' need for the ability to diagnose problems in their areas of expertise. Three psychological models are examined: (1) scientific rationality, (2) the template model, and (3) the interactionist model. The author discusses the integration of information on diagnostic processes into the adult professional…

The proper framework for studying different methods of problem-solving is to recognize that there are different approaches to the analysis of reality. Three approaches--science, systems analysis, and futurism--are considered within the framework of the "theory of knowledge." (Author/IRT)

Discusses an experiment designed to give students a feel for the way in which theoretical models evolve. Students are given a system unknown to them and asked to develop a consistent model which fully explains all their observations on the system. (Author/GA)

This article points out the flaws inherent in the hypothetico-deductive formulation of inquiry. (CD)

Discusses basic weaknesses and limitations of models, simulations, gaming, and other analytical and behavioral approaches to simplifying reality for understanding. The development and use of scenarios and the model builder's basic conceptions of the aspects of reality being analyzed are described for a one-person, computer-interactive, quasi-rigid…

Past research in a high school genetics classroom has shown that groups of students solving computer-generated genetics problems differed in their application of assessment criteria to the tentative models they generated, and that consistent application of certain model-assessment criteria correlated with success in proposing adequate explanatory…

This article describes and tests a theory of scientific discovery learning based on the Scientific Discovery as Dual Search (SDDS) model. A study of 22 university chemistry students determined that conditions for performing a search operation in hypothesis space include sufficient knowledge of the search operation and reasons for choosing a…