To make sense of our interconnected and algorithm driven world, students increasingly need proficiency with computational thinking (CT), systems thinking (ST), and computational modeling. One aspect of computational modeling that can support students with CT, ST, and modeling is testing and debugging. Testing and debugging enables students to…

As digital technologies become a commonplace in mathematics classrooms, they transform the ways students and teachers interact with mathematics. Students learn to use a technological tool for solving mathematical tasks through a process known as instrumental genesis. Teachers' support for this process is known as instrumental orchestration. In…

Preliminary research showed that the learning process could have been more optimal, and this led to the research to develop a TEFA Model with the PBL concept as a valid, practical, and effective method of improving the problem-solving and communication skills of Automotive Vocational Education students. The process involved using the Research and…

Background: Students experience higher-order thinking skills by finding ways to solve the problem, debugging errors while applying the solution, and testing the solution in programming. However, the inability to create schemas that will characterise programming structures is one of the difficulties during this process. Objectives: This study aimed…

Understanding how physicists solve problems can guide the development of methods that help students learn and improve at solving complex problems. Leveraging the framework of cognitive task analysis, we conducted semistructured interviews with theoretical physicists (N=11) to gain insight into the cognitive processes and skills that they use in…

Teaching students statistical programming languages while simultaneously teaching them how to debug erroneous code is challenging. The traditional programming course focuses on error-free learning in class while students' experiences outside of class typically involve error-full learning. While error-free teaching consists of focused lectures…

The purpose of this research was to ascertain whether there had been any improvement in students' metacognitive and critical thinking skills through the development of the 'Teaching Factory Based on Troubleshooting' (TEFA-T) model in automotive vocational learning. The research had both quantitative and qualitative components and applied the 4D…

In Robotics Education (RE), the hands-on experience with troubleshooting problems is seen as a good catalyst to enhance the participants' problem-solving skills. Based on the pedagogical technique of collaborative learning and pair programming, pair learning is an emerging and potential method in RE, which means that students collaborate in pairs…

This study compared students' learning in troubleshooting and problem solving activities. The troubleshooting activities provided students with solutions to conceptual problems in the form of refutation texts; namely, solutions that portray common misconceptions, refute them, and then present the accepted scientific ideas. They required students…

The implementation of troubleshooting within a pre-existing expository laboratory is described and evaluated. Student feedback indicated that troubleshooting activities are highly effective in providing a hands-on opportunity to exercise problem-solving skills and gain a better understanding of the whole process in addition to effectively…

This paper describes a tutorial programme developed at the University of Western Australia (UWA) to enhance medical students' learning processes within problem-based learning contexts. The programme encourages students to use more effective learning approaches by scaffolding the development of effective problem-solving strategies, and by reducing…

Whereas product-oriented worked examples only present a problem solution, process-oriented worked examples additionally explain the rationale behind the presented solution. Given the importance of understanding this rationale for attaining transfer, process-oriented worked examples would be expected to result in more efficient transfer. However, a…

This paper reviews the literature related to the learning and teaching of debugging computer programs. Debugging is an important skill that continues to be both difficult for novice programmers to learn and challenging for computer science educators to teach. These challenges persist despite a wealth of important research on the subject dating…

Troubleshooting in a practice situation requires two types of information, namely for reasoning about the problem-cause and for finding an adequate solution ("declarative information") and for manipulating the environment ("procedural information"). It is hypothesized that presenting this information piece-by-piece during practice (i.e.,…

Discusses a case study of a project created for the U.S. Air Force, Air Combat Command, in which mental models were taught, reinforced, and assessed as the foundation for instruction. Preliminary data for 183 students reflected a 93% mastery level and a 79% cumulative gain in students' ability to troubleshoot difficult problems. (Author/AEF)