This teacher's guide contains instructional material for use in a module designed to help students learn to use a list as one way to organize information. Detailed teaching procedures are given for each of eight lessons as well as objectives, student pages and transparencies. An answer key is provided. The lessons address the following goals: (1)…

Verbal protocols were collected from math-anxious and math-comfortable college students while they solved algebra problems. These protocols were then examined for differences in problem-solving processes. Differences occurred in the use of two basic strategies: generating values and symbolic transformations. Math-anxious students generated more…

This study was undertaken to explore the problem solving processes of secondary-school students. Geometry students were given an experimenter-constructed test of convergent and divergent thinking and classified as high on both, high convergent, high divergent, or low on both. Of these 105 students, 49 were selected for individual observation as…

In recent studies, several structural variables have accounted for a good portion of the score variances on verbal problem solving tests. This study investigated changes in the variance accounted by structural variables on problem solving tests when subjects were given instruction to overcome the structural variable influence. Effects on subjects'…

The study concerns the performances of first grade children in solving problems involving subtraction situations and the relationship of these performances to levels of conservation of numerousness and to I.Q. groups. The subjects were grouped into levels of conservation by a pretest administered prior to the main test of problem solving in…

This report is divided into two parts. The first part contains the major sections of the author's doctoral dissertation comparing the effects of two instructional problem-solving programs. The fifth grade students in six classes (three schools) were randomly assigned to the two programs: The Productive Thinking Program, a commercially-available…

The purpose of the study was to see if systematic instruction in terms of a multi-experience approach improved verbal problem solving ability, to determine what differences resulted when concrete experiences were not used, and to ascertain the effects of delayed recall on the two different methods. A sample of 15 groups of six fourth-grade…

This study tested the existence of a positive relationship between interest and problem-solving ability when problems were set in the area of interest among secondary-school students. Three parallel forms of a verbal problem-solving test, corresponding to the interest areas of outdoor, computational, and scientific, were constructed by the…

Several games, which can be useful in the classroom for teaching problem solving strategies, are described. (SD)

An experiment was performed to determine the effects of syntax complexity and vocabulary difficulty of problem statements on the ability of students to solve them. It was concluded that these variables do have an effect on students' performance, especially in cases of students with low general ability or reading problems. (SD)

An approach to solving many linear programming problems, using only arithmetical thinking in conjunction with the usual diagram, is given. (MN)

An elementary knowledge of geometry is shown to be helpful in problem solving, especially in that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. (MN)

This study tested the existence of a positive relationship between interest and verbal problem solving when problems are set in the area of interest assessed among secondary school students. There was no evidence to indicate that prior knowledge of interests would help to predict with which type of problem a student would be most successful.…

The author has selected a number of episodes that illustrate some of the successes and failures of humanity's attempt to find the area of the circle and presents them as problem studies. (MN)

Suggestions for teaching problem solving which include the use of general models, variation of illustrations and terminology, and diagrams are illustrated for comparison multiplication word problems. (MN)