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)

Describes an investigation of students' problem-solving strategies as seventh-grade students (n=10) attempted to design a solution to a technological problem. Concludes that novice designers use highly iterative rather than linear strategies, develop their ideas using three-dimensional materials rather than two-dimensional sketches, and develop…

In this study, the authors used two methods for analyzing expert data: verbal protocol analysis (VPA) and narrative analysis. VPA has been effectively used to describe the design processes employed by engineering students, expert designers, and expert-novice comparative research. VPA involves asking participants to "think aloud" while…

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…

Students learning to program recursive LISP functions in a typical school-like lesson on recursion were observed. The typical lesson contains text and examples and involves solving a series of programming problems. The focus of this study is on students' learning strategies in new domains. In this light, a Soar computational model of…

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…

The possibility of developing a learning theory that is designed to insure its relevance to educational problems is discussed. It is suggested that the constitutive problem for an educational psychology of learning is how one learns things that are difficult to learn. Behaviorist learning theories fail almost entirely to explain why anything is…

Explores how a set of possible student misconceptions about solving a complex problem can be used in computer-based intelligent tutoring systems and in computer-based exercise and test generation. Topics discussed include expert systems, misconception covers, discrimination trees, methods of acquiring the set of misconceptions, and protocol…

Examined relationships among young children's metacognitive processing and creative ability, based on information-processing theory and Vygotsky's early thought development theory. Twenty-one five- and six-year olds were assessed on four attributes of creativity, and their private speech was coded. Specific qualities and characteristics of…

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…

Describes differences in formative evaluation techniques between instructional designers and subject matter experts. Content analysis based on think-aloud data focusing on differences in task interpretation, problem identification and revision statements, and review strategies is discussed; use of instructional systems design models by…

The problem-solving processes and strategies of ten school principals with reputations for high effectiveness were studied. Verbal protocols were gathered through unstructured interviews while principals were working on a set of five cases. Analysis of the data was guided, but not constrained, by a set of processes and strategies for problem…