This issue presents six papers that provide both a historical perspective on and state-of-the-art knowledge about the study of clinical reasoning in medicine. A retrospective is followed by reviews of four approaches to clinical reasoning and an empirical study of current work in the field. (SLD)

The effects of differing attitudes toward money on family life are discussed using a sample case from family counseling services. (DB)

Three basic orientations to problem solving are defined and related to four profiles of problem environment. The contingency between problem-solving orientations and problem environment is presented by means of three formal models that are translated to fit the students' learning environment. Implications for further studies are discussed. (JD)

Examined possible subtypes of undecided students through cluster analysis. Undecided (N=87) and decided (N=26) college students were interviewed and completed career planning and problem solving instruments. Revealed four distinct subtypes of undecided students: planless avoiders, informed indecisives, confident but uninformed, and uninformed.…

Clinical applications of statistical process control (SPC) in human service organizations are considered. SPC is seen as providing a standard set of criteria that serves as a common interface for data-based decision making, which may bring decision making under the control of established contingencies rather than the immediate contingencies of…

Interviews with 12 senior administrators (8 college, 2 business, 2 hospital) who kept a journal for a year or more revealed 3 major journal-keeping functions: sorting through administrative chaos; generating solutions to problems; and documenting the past by recording details of decisions, personal data, responses to situations. Implications for…

Argues that fostering thinking across the curriculum can be affected by engaging students in complex, meaningful, long-term tasks such as decision making, naturalistic inquiry, scientific inquiry, problem solving, and composing. Notes that these tasks require an instructional format (workshops) that provides a new role for teachers and students.…

Describes educational collaboration and its relationship to school consultation as structured planning, decision-making, and problem-solving process. Identifies characteristics of collaborative school and its organizational structures. Articulates roles and skills counselors can use to provide leadership in developing and implementing…

Presents an accessible method to help adolescents become thoughtful decision makers, which combines social decision-making/problem-solving activities with the literature of the eighth-grade English classroom. (SR)

Explains how the process of creating a database provides opportunities for business instructors to use teaching strategies that promote higher-order thinking skills. Describes a project at a school of business in which each student must build an original database and apply functions of tables, queries, forms, and reports. (JOW)

Explores the process of ethical decision-making in counseling research and examines to what extent decision-making is based on intuitive thinking. Reviews and considers several models of ethical problem solving. Argues that ethical decisions are reached through intuition, informed by ethical principles, codes of practice, and reference to the laws…

Purpose: The literature advocates educational decision-making processes that are either intuitive or systematic. While the two approaches seem to be incompatible, each has its merits. Intuitive thinking is considered to be holistic and creative, whereas the systematic approach has the advantages of a theoretical foundation and accuracy in data…

What causes students to leave school? According to Azzam (2007), over 47% of students in the United States who drop out of school reported they did so because school was boring and irrelevant to their life situation. What can schools and teachers do to encourage students to stay in school? One possible solution may be to look at experiential…

This study compared the abilities of inservice and preservice teachers to demonstrate an understanding of technology integration and to apply such knowledge to instructional decision-making. Using a set of online content-specific multimedia scenarios to resolve complex problems of teaching with technology in a simulated school environment,…

Problem solving is one of the most important skills that new and developing professionals must learn. The process is complex, involving information scanning, problem identification, and feedback processes requiring synthesis, interim assessments, problem error recognition and rectification, and timely and appropriate conclusions. This study used…