A computer program based upon SPS models developed by D'Zurilla and his colleagues was used (D'Zurilla & Goldfried, 1971; D'Zurilla & Nezu, 1982; D'Zurilla, 1986; D'Zurilla & Nezu, 1990). Comparisons of computerized training, computerized control, workbook training and assessment control groups were conducted on four post-intervention dependent measures: a revised version of the Social Problem-Solving Inventory (D'Zurilla & Nezu, 1990), MeansEnds Problem-Solving Procedure (Platt & Spivack, 1975), SPS SelfEfficacy rating and a Computer/Workbook evaluation. The computerized SPS training group rated their training procedure as significantly more acceptable than those in the workbook training group. Analyses of problem-solving ability and knowledge yielded no significant interactions between problem-solving content and computer contact. No main effects were found for computer contact. A main effect for problem-solving content approached significance. Subjects receiving interventions that contained problem-solving content scored higher on SPS knowledge and ability measures than those who did not.Discussion focuses on reasons for and implications of differences between computerized and non-computerized SPS training groups' performance and preferences. / Department of Psychological Science

This experiment was designed to give further understanding of the underlying factors which influence group idea generation. The first objective of this study was to compare the impact of using computer technology and traditional technologies for creating ideas. The effectiveness of three idea generating techniques, original brainstorming, nominal group technique, and electronic brainstorming were considered. It was, however, hypothesized that electronic brainstorming would outperform the nominal group technique and original brainstorming regardless of the length of time provided.The second objective of this study was to probe how subjects in different idea generating conditions discerned their performance during and after sessions. It was expected that subjects in the original brainstorming groups would perceive that they produce more ideas and they would be more satisfied with results and the process.An ANOVA with a 3x2 factorial design was planned for the study. The independent variables for the study were types of group and types of session. Yet, on account of small sampling size an inferential analysis was precluded. A descriptive analysis was followed.The analysis of five dependent variables, quality, originality, practicality, numbers of nonoverlapping ideas, and perceptions showed that there were no significant differences among three idea generation techniques regarding the length of time provided. However, a quantity variable showed that numbers of nonoverlapping ideas were increased as the length of time were prolonged in six idea generating conditions. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of two different methods of teaching learning disabled middle school students (6th, 7th, and 8th grades) how to solve one-step addition and subtraction mathematics story problems. This study also compared the generalization of the two instructional methods to problems written in simple syntax which required the performance of two mathematics operations, addition and subtraction, in order to obtain the correct written solution.Teachers were randomly assigned to one of the two instructional methods. The students in the experimental and control classrooms were administered the The Mathematics Computation Screeninq Test, the One-step Story Problem-Solving Test of Mathematics Reasoninq and the Two-step Story Problem-Solving Test of Mathematics Reasoninq. Students who obtained above 80% mastery on the The Mathematics Computation Screening Test and at or below 67% mastery on the pretest of the One-step Story Problem-Solving Test of Mathematics Reasoning were included in the experimental and control groups. Students in the experimental and control groups who meet the above criteria and were at or below the 60% mastery level on the pretest of the Two-step Storv Problem Solving Test of, Mathematics Reasoning were included in the analysis of two-step problems. There were 70 students who meet these criteria. Following administration of the tests, students received 17 days of instruction in one of the two instructional methods.Previous research has shown that good problem-solvers initially have a mental representation of a story problem prior to solving the problem and that accurate performance may be increased by teaching students to generate diagrammatic representations of the problems. Based on this research it was hypothesized that learning disabled students who receive instruction in generating diagrammatic representations would have a higher mean performance on a linear composite of writing number sentences and solving one-step addition and subtraction story problems than learning disabled students who did not receive this instruction when pretest performance on one-step written solutions was held constant. It was also hypothezied that when presented with two-step addition and subtraction story problems learning disabled students who receive instruction in how to generate diagrammatic representations for various one-step addition and subtraction story problems would have a higher mean performance than learning disabled students who do not receive this instruction when pretest one-step and two-step written solutions were held constant.A 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 hierarchical multivariate analysis of covariance mixed effects design followed by examination of step down F ratios was used to test the one-step hypotheses. Analysis of the data indicated no significant difference between the groups on number sentence writing and on solving one-step addition and subtraction story problems varying in syntactic complexity and position of the unknown term. The data did indicate a significant interaction between the within subject factors of syntax, position of the unknown term, and mathematics operation.A 2 X 2 hierarchical analysis of covariance design was used to test the hypotheses regarding generalization of the two instructional methods to two-step story problems of addition and subtraction. Analysis of the data indicated no significant difference between the problem-solving performance of students taught with the diagrammatic instructional method and those taught in the control group. / Department of Special Education

This thesis has examined the hypothesis that sex differences in perception influence anagram problem solving. Specifically, an experiment was designed to study the effects of different letter sizes on the anagram problem-solving performance of male and female eighth grade subjects. It was postulated that males would outperform females under normal letter size conditions, but that females would perform at least as well as males when the anagrams were printed in large letters.The results showed that the female subjects’ performance was superior to the males under both experimental conditions. The results were discussed in terms of lack of experimental control for cognitive style and of possible individual differences in intelligence between the male and female subjects. Ideas were suggested for further research in this area.

One employs the mathematical analysis of decision making when the state of nature is uncertain but further information about it can be obtained by experimentation. Bayesian Decision Theory concerns practical problems of decision making under conditions of uncertainty and also requires the use of statistical and mathematical methods.In this thesis, some basic risk sharing and group decision concepts are provided. Risk is the expected value of the Loss Function of Bayesian Estimators. Group decisions consider situations in which the individuals need to agree both on utilities for consequences and on conditional probability assessments for different experimental outcomes. / Department of Mathematical Sciences

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate critical thinking development in an introductory computer programming course in which problem-solving was a key component of the course, compared with another college level computing course in which problem-solving is not a key component. There were two hypotheses in this study. The first was that students would show a greater increase in critical thinking skills after they participate in CINS 113 than CINS 101. The second hypothesis was that students’ critical thinking skills at the beginning of CINS 113 would predict the final grade in the course. Prior to conducting the study, approval was received from both institutions’ review boards and all guidelines were followed. A control group was recruited from students enrolled in a course that was determined to not have problem-solving as a key component of the course and an experimental group was recruited from students enrolled in an introductory computer programming course. Both courses were from a Midwestern community college. Program chairs from various regions throughout the state volunteered their faculty and students to participate in the study. Students were administered the Cornell Critical Thinking Test on the first day of the semester and again at the end of the semester. At the end of the semester, faculty submitted final semester grades for all students participating in the program. A comparison of the pretest was made against the posttest using a repeating ANOVA test to see if there was a significant change between the two scores and if there was a difference in the change in scores between the two groups. In addition, the pretest was analyzed against the final grade for the course to determine if a relationship existed between the critical thinking score at the beginning of the course and the student’s success in the course. A correlational analysis, as well as regression analysis, was conducted. There were a total of 213 students who completed the study. The results of the study supported both hypotheses. / Department of Educational Studies

Thesis (Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

The goal of this study is to assess the far-transfer effects of strategy-based working memory (WM) training to a novel problem solving task. Far-transfer refers to the application of trained skills to an untrained situation and is especially important because it deals with the generalization of learning to novel contexts. However, previous working memory training studies have produced little evidence for far-transfer. In the current study, children were trained in two strategies, phonological rehearsal and semantic categorization. These strategies have been suggested to increase the efficiency in processing and encoding of information and are invoked to explain developmental increases in WM capacity. Sixteen 6-to 9-year-olds were randomly assigned to each of four training conditions: semantic and rehearsal training, semantic training only, rehearsal training only, and treated control group. The treated control group performed significantly worse on the problem solving task compared to the three training groups. Surprisingly, the treatment groups did not differ significantly from each other. There was no statistically significant difference in receiving combined training of both strategies compared to only one strategy and furthermore, neither strategy resulted in better performance compared to the other strategy. Future directions for WM training and the implications for cognitive interventions are discussed. / Graduate / 0620 / 0633 / sharonc@uvic.ca

This study investigates the relationship between the beliefs of early childhood education teachers and their use of the teaching strategies instruction and negotiation in relation to the scaffold process. Consideration of thinking skills and the ability to problem solve through the vehicle of play provided the background to the research focus. The research was undertaken in two differently structured early childhood education centres in New Zealand with a case study design framing the gathering of data through observations and interviews. It is a small qualitative study driven by socio-cultural theory and therefore considered from a social constructivist position. The main findings from observations and interviews revealed that not all teachers had congruency between their beliefs and practice, that instruction could be the only mediation within a scaffolding process and by considering the power relations in the learning and teaching situation, a model of how different teaching strategies could be related to different states of thinking. A key finding was that of a definition of negotiation as a teaching strategy.

This thesis describes a class of problems in which interactions occur when plans to achieve members of a set of simultaneous goals are concatenated in the hope of achieving the whole goal. They will be termed "interaction problems". Several well known problems fall into this class. Swapping the values of two computer registers is a typical example. A very simple 3 block problem is used to illustrate the interaction difficulty. It is used to describe how a simple method can be employed to derive enough information from an interaction which has occurred to allow problem solving to proceed effectively. The method used to detect interactions and derive information from them, allowing problem solving to be re-directed, relies on an analysis of the goal and subgoal structure being considered by the problem solver. This goal structure will be called the "approach" taken by the system. It specifies the order in which individual goals are being attempted and any precedence relationships between them (say because one goal is a precondition of an action to achieve another). We argue that the goal structure of a problem contains information which is simpler and more meaningful than the actual plan (sequence of actions) being considered. We then show how an analysis of the goal structure of a problem, and the correction of such a structure in the light of any interaction, can direct the search towards a successful solution. Interaction problems pose particular difficulties for most current problem solvers because they achieve each part of a composite goal independently and assume that the resulting plans can be concatenated to achieve the overall goal. This assumption is beneficial in that it can drastically reduce the search necessary in many problems. However, it does restrict the range of problems which can be tackled. The problem solver, INTERPLAN, to be described as a result of this investigation, also assumes that subgoals can be solved independently, but when an interaction is detected it performs an analysis of the goal structure of the problem to re-direct the search. INTERPLAN is an efficient system which allows the class of interaction problems to be coped with. INTERPLAN uses a data structure called a "ticklist" as the basis of its mechanism for keeping track of the search it performs. The ticklist allows a very simple method to be employed for detecting and correcting for interactions by providing a summary of the goal structure of the problem being tried.