Planning the menu for a dinner party, which involves problem-solving with a large body of knowledge, is used to study the daily operation of human memory. Verbal protocol analysis, a technique devised to investigate formal problem-solving, is examined theoretically and adapted for analysis of this task. (Author/MV)

Programing a computer is a problem-solving activity which can be categorized as formal procedure specification. The reported study focuses on the incidence and severity of errors committed by novice programers during the development and "debugging" of computer programs. (Author/BW)

Several examples of student-written programs "teaching" a computer to guess systematically in finding a number between 0 and 10,000 are illustrated. These lend support to the contention that rather than being a "natural" application, using a binary search is a learned technique. (MN)

The water jug task model was extended to four variations of the Missionaries--Cannibals river-crossing problem. Different cover stories resulted in large differences in number of illegal moves, but no difference in number of legal moves to solution. The three-stage process model explains both legal and illegal moves. (Author/GDC)

Two experiments were conducted to examine developmental changes from middle childhood to adolescence in metaretrieval plans offered to solve different retrieval problems. (Author/JMB)

The philosophy, purpose and methods of the Creative Problem-Solving Institute are discussed. (RW)

The study examines the role of conceptual tempo in creativity and problem solving. It was hypothesized that reflective children would do well on tasks involving evaluation components, while impulsive children would do well on typical creativity tasks. Results indicated no significant differences among the conceptual tempo groups. (Author)

Describes a cognitive-skills approach to teaching physics, Spanish, and philosophy. The approach relies on students verbalizing their thinking as they solve problems. (IRT)

The goal of problem-solving education should be to develop tools for thinking that will constitute a shell or framework of action procedures that can be applied on an ever-changing database. These tools come in the form of heuristics that can be modified and adapted to new situations. (Author/MLW)

Provides an overview of recent research on problem solving in speech communication. Discusses relevant documents under three categories: (1) conceptual developments, (2) social and affective correlates, and (3) potential teaching methods. (NKA)

The role of problem solving in divergent thinking and creative performance of 19 male and 10 female adolescents was studied. The subjects generated significantly more responses to discovered problems than to presented problems. The unique variance of discovered problems was related to five indices of creative performance. (SLD)

Similarities between Enaction Theory of Thinking and the Enrichment Triad Model lend theoretical validity to the Triad Model as a method to facilitate gifted students' thinking or problem solving. The relationships between mental models and Type I Enrichment, operators and Type II Enrichment, and heuristics and Type III enrichment are illustrated.…

This article identifies some behaviorial approaches for teaching economics at the pre-college level, including contiguity, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning. The cognitive school of thought is also considered. Implications of research on problem-solving are drawn. (CB)

Analysis of two high school economics courses illustrates generalizations that could help guide design of other high school courses involving: (1) high-ability students; (2) introductory economic principles in high school courses; (3) personal and societal economic problems; (4) juniors' and seniors' interest in economics; and (5) emphasis on…

Transferring the skills learned in mathematics to other contexts is a problem for many students. A new heuristic model of mathematics instruction is proposed. The model would guard against the adoption of mistaken assumptions about mathematics and foster the learning of problem-solving strategies. (VM)