Flexible strategy use: A characteristic of gifted problem solving

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between flexible strategic thinking and problem solving performance. In the first experiment, gifted, average, and poor problem solvers performed a number of tasks which were designed to provoke rigidity. The results indicated that the average and poor performance groups did not differ in the number of answers indicating response and perceptual set. On the other hand, creative and intelligent students showed fewer rigid answers than the other two groups. In the second experiment, gifted and average students were asked to think aloud while solving different problems with open and closed solution situations. The thinking aloud protocols were analyzed by classifying the statements into different strategy types. Gifted students used a variety of strategies when solving problems, as well as different strategies for different problem types. No such differences were observed with the average problem solvers. The results of both experiments demonstrated consistent evidence for the role of flexible strategic thinking in gifted problem solving, as well as less direct evidence of the importance of metacognitive knowledge.     

小学生表征数学应用题策略的实验研究

通过一个2(成功与否)×2(提示与否)×2(题型)的混合实验设计,对小学五年级学生解决和差应用题的表征策略进行了研究.结果表明:(1)与比较应用题的表征相类似,小学生对和差应用题的表征也存在着直译策略和问题模型策略;(2)不成功组解题者在表征和差应用题时倾向于运用直译策略,而成功组的解题者更倾向于运用问题模型策略,这导致了成功者与不成功者在列式上的差异,特别是在不一致题型上表现得更明显;(3)在读题前给以“请注意理解这道题的意思”这样简单的提示,对不成功的解题者对和差问题的正确表征并不能起到作用;(4)成功的和差应用题解题者和不成功的解题者在列式正确性的自我评价上存在显著差异.     

Memories of Me: Comparisons from Osnabrueck (Germany) and Delhi (India) Students and Their Mothers

The present study explores the dialogical relationship between autobiographical remembering, self and culture from a developmental and trans-generational perspective. It draws on a comparative design including self-describing memories of 10 Indian students from Delhi and 13 German students from Osnabrueck. Moreover, stories often told about oneself during childhood were investigated from the students’ as well as from their mothers’ perspective. Analysis revealed not only culture-specific ways of telling about one’s past that point to different prevailing socio-cultural philosophies, but also trans-generational similarities of stories repeatedly told to and about the child. The findings suggest that self-defining stories develop and are dialogically intertwined with the cultural narrative practices that children engage in during the course of socialization. Theoretical implications for our understanding of self-development are discussed from a Bakhtinian perspective.     

How immigrant adolescents' self‐views in school and family context relate to academic success in Germany

Immigrants' sense of self can be derived both from being members of their ethnic in‐group and their country of residence. We examined how the ways in which immigrant adolescents integrate these self‐views in relation to academic success in German schools. Students describe themselves at school and when with family. Using a standardized literacy performance test, analyses revealed that immigrants whose school‐related self‐view did not include Germany were less successful: Students who described their self as including both aspects of their ethnic group and Germany, and students who saw themselves predominantly as German, outperformed students with purely ethnic school‐related selves. As expected, though, an ethnic family‐related self‐view did not have a negative impact on scholastic achievements.     

Cultural and Bilingual Influences on Artistic Creativity Performances: Comparison of German and Chinese Students

Empirical research on the relationship between culture and creativity has thus far yielded no consistent results. Investigations of the differences are mostly post-hoc, and results are inconclusive. A creativity-value-oriented theory is proposed to explain cultural differences, as an alternative to ethnic and language effects. This study was conducted to compare the performances of artistic creativity of Germans and Chinese. Results revealed that the four groups of students examined (German students of Caucasian descent, German students of Asian descent, Chinese students studying abroad, and Chinese students studying in China) differed in their artistic creativity. German participants (Caucasian Germans and Asian Germans) produced more creative and aesthetically pleasing artwork than did their Chinese counterparts (Chinese studying abroad and domestic Chinese). This difference was observed by both German and Chinese judges. There no significant subgroup differences in creative performances—no difference between the two German groups, and no difference between the two Chinese groups. Finally, although there were significant differences between German judges, Chinese judges studying abroad, and domestic Chinese judges in judging the artworks, these were not due to a preference for artwork from students from their own cultural background. Chinese and German judges roughly agreed on what constitutes creativity. These results suggest that cultural differences affect creative performances.     

Between hope and despair: Conceptions of time and the German-Jewish experience in the nineteenth century

Despite German Jews' social, political, and cultural integration into the German society in the nineteenth century, distinct notions of time continued to shape their social discourses. This article analyzes the various ways in which German Jews comprehended the relation between past, present, and future. Throughout this period, German Jews formulated in the face of political, cultural, and religious changes,their own visions of the present and future. To characterize German Jews' notions of time as simply linear neglects the complex and dynamic aspects of their temporal notions. An investigation of the changing interrelation of past, present, and future provides an avenue for a more nuanced understanding of German Jews' experiences and expectations, as well as of their various responses to modernity. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Development of a Cognitive-Metacognitive Framework for Protocol Analysis of Mathematical Problem Solving in Small Groups

A framework is presented that explicitly delineates the roles of metacognition and cognition within small-group heuristic problem solving in mathematics. This framework is used to describe the videotaped behaviors of 27 seventh-grade students of varying ability working in small groups to solve a mathematical problem. The results suggest the importance of metacognitive processes in mathematical problem solving in a small-group setting. A continuous interplay of cognitive and metacognitive behaviors appears to be necessary for successful problem solving and maximum student involvement. Within the groups, students returned several times to such problem-solving episodes as reading, understanding, exploring, analyzing, planning, implementing, and verifying. Stimulated-recall interviews held after completion of the task underscored an additional dimension of importance. Attitudes, particularly those of high-ability students, seemed to affect the interactions and the problem-solving behaviors of fellow group members. The framework shows promise of being a powerful tool for the future study of mathematical problem solving in a small-group setting.     

Performance Assessment: Is Creative Thinking Necessary?

The study examined the relationship between creative thinking ability of 13 to 14‐year old female students and their ability in tackling problem solving situations in the science laboratory. The latter has been variously labeled as hands‐on problem‐solving tasks, scientific investigations, and performance assessment. No tutoring or guidance concerning how to solve the problem was provided. The scientific concepts embedded in the tasks are within the scope of the 13 to 14‐year old students, but the setting for the tasks are novel and not likely to be dealt with by their class teacher during the course of instruction. The solution process for these tasks is likely to involve the following components: preliminary trialing, planning, performing, communicating, interpreting and reflecting on the task to provide feedback for further refinement of the task (Department of Education & Science, U.K., 1987; Toh, 1990). The paper looks into the correlation of creative thinking ability and each of the six performance components, as well as the overall performance.     

Jung's Red Book and its relation to aspects of German idealism

The late nineteenth century saw a renaissance of interest in the thought of the German Romantic philosopher, F.W.J. Schelling. This paper takes Jung's engagement with Schelling and his awareness of Schellingian ideas and interests (notably, the mysterious Kabeiroi worshipped at Samothrace) as its starting-point. It goes on to argue that a key set of problematics in German Idealism - the relation between freedom and necessity, between science and art, and ultimately between realism and idealism - offers a useful conceptual framework within which to approach Jung's Red Book. For the problem of the ideal is central to this work, which can be read as a journey from eternal ideals to the ideal of eternity. (Although the term 'idealism' has at least four distinct meanings, their distinct senses can be related in different ways to Jung's thinking.) The eloquent embrace of idealism by F.T. Vischer in a novel, Auch Einer, for which Jung had the highest praise, reminds us of the persistence of this tradition, which is still contested and debated in the present day.     

Group Counseling Intervention for Solving Problems on the Job

This article reports the effects of a group counseling intervention on the social problem solving by and employment preparation of Grade 9 and Grade 10 students. Mathematics teachers implemented the intervention on problem solving on the job within a unit on mathematics problem solving. The intervention used a cognitive approach to counseling, specifically cognitive strategy instruction with teacher modeling and students' thinking aloud to a partner. Both pretest and posttest scores and analyses of interviews with 4 students showed the success of the intervention. An interview with the peer coach of the teachers highlighted teacher experiences in implementing successful group counseling.     

Representational dynamics in the domain of iterated mental paper folding

Successful problem solving relies on the availability of suitable mental representations of the task domain. Especially for more complex problems, there might be a wide variety of possible problem representations, and it might even be beneficial to change them during problem solving. In a first part, we argue that investigating the dynamics of understanding in terms of dynamically changing problem representations is an underexplored aspect of problem solving research, and that most classic tasks even preclude the opportunity of such dynamics to occur. Continuing this theoretical discussion, as an illustrative example of a task designed for the exploration of such representational dynamics, the second part of the paper discusses a novel, complex spatial transformation and problem solving task. In this task, one is asked to repeatedly mentally cross-fold a sheet of paper, and to predict the resulting sheet geometry without the use of external aids. Through its deliberate openness and difficulty, this task requires finding new and more efficient representations – ranging from kinaesthetic and visuospatial imagery to symbolic notions. We present an overview of the task domain and discuss various ways of representing the domain as well as potential dynamics between them.     

Enhancing Digital Fluency through a Training Program for Creative Problem Solving Using Computer Programming

The purpose of this paper is to propose a training program for creative problem solving based on computer programming. The proposed program will encourage students to solve real‐life problems through a creative thinking spiral related to cognitive skills with computer programming. With the goal of enhancing digital fluency through this proposed training program, we investigated its effects. Two sets of experiments were performed in which 119 typical students and 30 younger, gifted students participated. Two synthetic creative problem solving tests, which had a high correlation with logical ability, scientific problem solving ability and divergent thinking ability, were developed to measure creative problem solving ability. We provided the treatment group with a paper‐based booklet with relevant problems developed specifically for that group. ANCOVA statistical procedures were used to analyze the pre‐ and post‐synthetic creative problem solving tests. The findings of our study are as follows: with typical students, the originality of the treatment group outperformed the control group, a result that was compatible with previous research. With gifted students, the fluency of the treatment group outperformed the control group, and overall creative problem solving ability was enhanced. Remarkably, fluency increased significantly, a notable difference from the results of prior studies. In conclusion, we inferred that, given the definition of digital fluency, if creative problem solving ability is enhanced by a training program for creative problem solving based on computer programming, digital fluency will ultimately be improved. In this paper, we discuss the result of fluency enhancement that contradicts prior research. We suggest that this training program could be a new learning environment for the students who have grown up with digital media.     

Relationship of arithmetic problem solving and reflective-impulsive cognitive styles in third-grade students

Different individuals approach mathematical problems in a variety of ways, with these different approaches also reflected in over-all cognitive styles. This investigation had two purposes, first, to determine whether good and poor arithmetic problem solvers differ substantially in cognitive style, and second, to determine whether the students, after training in techniques of solving arithmetic problems, improve their performance with no significant change in cognitive style. A total of 98 third graders participated (mean age 8.1 yr.; 50 boys, 48 girls). The Matching Familiar Figure Test was used to classify the students by cognitive style as either Reflective or Impulsive. Students also were given training with different problem-solving exercises for different arithmetic problems. The training program in problem-solving strategies did not improve performance on arithmetic problems for Reflective students; however, Impulsive students' performance did improve after training.     

Chinese teachers’ use of humour in coping with stress

The purpose of this study was to examine the mentality of Chinese teachers regarding their use of humour in coping with stress. Specifically, the study investigated their frequency of use of humour in coping with stress as compared to other coping styles and their perceptions about the relationship of humour with other coping styles. Data were collected from a sample of 789 Chinese teachers holding teaching posts at local Hong Kong secondary schools. Based on responses made to the COPE questionnaire, there was evidence that Chinese teachers had a lower frequency of use of humour as compared to other coping styles. As suggested by the results of a factor analysis, there was a perception among Chinese teachers that the use of humour was related more closely to escaping and/or avoidance as coping strategies, but more differentiable from problem‐focused/task‐oriented and emotional/social coping. It is interesting to find that the results of our study echoed those of a previous crosscultural comparison between Chinese and Canadian university students, in which the Chinese university students reported less use of humour in coping with stress than did their Canadian counterparts. These results have provided some empirical support for the notion that “humor has been traditionally given little respect in Chinese culture mainly due to the Confucian emphasis on keeping proper manners in social interactions” (Yue, 2010, p. 403). As teachers in Chinese societies are regarded as persons who are full of wisdom and capable of problem‐solving, it is expected that they should act as role models to their students. These social expectations on Chinese teachers could further mould their perceptions on the use of humour in coping with stress.     

Self-Explanations: How Students Study and Use Examples in Learning to Solve Problems

The present paper analyzes the self-generated explanations (from talk-aloud protocols) that “Good” and “Poor” students produce while studying worked-out examples of mechanics problems, and their subsequent reliance on examples during problem solving. We find that “Good” students learn with understanding: They generate many explanations which refine and expand the conditions for the action parts of the example solutions, and relate these actions to principles in the text. These self-explanations are guided by accurate monitoring of their own understanding and misunderstanding. Such learning results in example-independent knowledge and in a better understanding of the principles presented in the text. “Poor” students do not generate sufficient self-explanations, monitor their learning inaccurately, and subsequently rely heavily on examples. We then discuss the role of self-explanations in facilitating problem solving, as well as the adequacy of current AI models of explanation-based learning to account for these psychological findings.     

学习不良儿童的策略研究

策略作为目标指向的旨在解决问题的心理操作,负责对基本信息加工的执行和控制,影响着个体的学习效果,因而被引入到学习不良领域。对学习不良儿童的策略研究具有重要价值。文章分析和综合了已有研究,阐述了学习不良与策略的关系、学习不良儿童的策略表现以及学习不良儿童策略低下的原因,提出了当前研究中存在的问题以及今后的发展趋势。     

Local institutionalization, discontinuity, and German textbooks of psychology, 1816-1854

In the context of social and intellectual developments and the changing role of German universities in the first half of the nineteenth century, which led to the local institutionalization of the discipline of psychology at German universities, the structure and content of textbooks of psychology are discussed. Textbooks in the first half of the nineteenth century had a pedagogical function in training teachers, in socializing students into the field, and in providing students and readers with knowledge about the subject matter, methodology, and topics of psychology. The textbooks, representative of influence, philosophical-psychological orientations, and different decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, are reconstructed with regard to the definition of psychology, the ways of studying the soul, and how to conceptually organize the field. The textbooks by Herbart, Beneke, and Waitz, which were written within a natural-scientific programmatic vision for psychology, are contrasted with the traditional philosophically intended textbooks of Reinhold, Mussmann, George, and Schilling. Fischhaber's textbook for Gymnasien is summarized. Issues regarding the continuity of psychology are discussed, and discontinuous developments in the history of German psychology are identified.     

The Effects of Coping-Modelling Problem Solving and Contingency Management Procedures on the Positive and Negative Interactions of Learning Disabled and Attention Deficit Disordered Children with an Autistic Peer

Two learning disabled and two learning-disabled attention deficit hyperactivity disordered boys participated in-group problem solving sessions to improve interactions with the attitudes toward a socially rejected autistic classmate. In class positive interactions and negative interactions served as individual baselines within a multiple baseline design with replications across the four students. Problem solving sessions increased positive interaction between each of the students and their autistic peer. Negative interactions, in contrast, did not decrease. Introduction of an interdependent classroom DRO subsequently reduced negative interactions. Weekly questionnaires revealed a positive shift in the residually autistic child's sociometric status. The number of interactions this student initiated with three peers and his responsiveness to those interactions initiated by two also increased.     

十文钱问题：中国一古老推理错觉问题初探

首先简要阐述了中国一古老推理问题——十文钱问题的学术价值,然后在研究1中通过调查法对其进行了研究。结果发现,该问题应该属于典型的推理错觉问题,且其错觉产生的原因可能是运用单式记账方式进行推理的结果;研究2和研究3分别通过口语报告法和实验法获得了支持这一假设的证据,但同时也发现记账方式问题可能也并不是问题的全部,其中财会事项发生的顺序所形成的循环结构可能也是问题困难原因之一,这一假设在研究4中得到了支持