THE EFFECTS OF COMPUTER-BASED VIDEO STRATEGY TRAINING FOR PROBLEM REPRESENTATION AND SELF-EXPLANATION ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS REPRESENTING AND SOLVING ILL-STRUCTURED PROBLEMS
Open Access
- Author:
- Ching, Yu-Hui
- Graduate Program:
- Instructional Systems
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- September 25, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Barbara L Grabowski, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Barbara L Grabowski, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Peggy Noel Van Meter, Committee Member
Priya Sharma, Committee Member
Jonathan P Mathews, Committee Member - Keywords:
- problem representation
self-explanation
ill-structured problem solving
strategy instruction
scaffolding
undergraduate - Abstract:
- Professionals solve ill-structured problems every day. To prepare undergraduate students to become professionals capable of solving ill-structured problems in their future workplace, it is critical to develop their ability in problem solving during their higher education experience. However, representing ill-structured problems is identified as a difficult task for novice problem solvers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of strategy training on an individual’s ability to construct an effective problem representation, and if this would lead to better problem solutions when solving ill-structured problems. Specifically, this study examined the effects of providing training for two types of strategies, the Problem Representation Heuristic Strategy and the Self-explanation Learning Strategy, on developing undergraduate students’ ability to represent problems and generate solutions to ill-structured problems. <p> The study was conducted in an undergraduate online Environmental Science general education course at a large northeastern public university. The results of ANCOVAs showed that Problem Representation Heuristic Strategy Training was effective for helping undergraduate students perform better on one of the Problem Representation sub-skills, Setting Goals. The results of chi-square tests indicated that this type of training also resulted in more students applying the following Problem Representation sub-skills when presenting problems: Define Problems, and Recognize Multiple Perspectives with Justification. This type of training, however, did not have an effect on the problem solutions generated. The findings also showed that there was no effect of Self-explanation Learning Strategy Training on students’ ability to represent problems or generate solutions. An interaction effect between the above two types of training was found on students’ ability to Set Goals on one of the two employed problems. Finally, there was not a higher proportion of students articulating clarification or justification explanations when representation problems in groups receiving Self-explanation Learning Strategy Training than was that in the groups not receiving such training. <p> The promising results of this study suggest that Problem Representation Heuristic Strategy Training has a great potential in improving undergraduate students’ skills of representing ill-structured problems, considering the short amount of time required for the training. Practical suggestions are offered for strengthening the effective strategy training to further promote novice problem solvers’ ability to represent and solve ill-structured problems. This study contributes to the educational research community by identifying future directions that would advance research on ill-structured problem solving.