Students today routinely conduct research in the digital world to solve problems in daily life and in learning tasks. Although research to date has proposed different models to describe the processes of information problem solving (IPS), little is known about the cognitive patterns demonstrated in the processes, particularly the iterative nature…

One of the goals for problem-based learning (PBL) is to promote self-regulation. Although self-regulation has been studied extensively, its interrelationships with ill-structured problem solving have been unclear. In order to clarify the interrelationships, this article proposes a conceptual framework illustrating the iterative processes among…

Self-regulation has been shown as a critical factor in learning in a regular classroom environment (e.g. Wolters and Pintrich in "Instr Sci" 26(1):27-47, 1998. doi: 10.1023/A:1003035929216). However, little research has been conducted to understand self-regulation in the context of collaboration (Dinsmore et al. in "Educ Psychol…

This study explored teachers' problem solving during technology-mediated professional development (PD) in the topic related to teaching English Learners (ELs, i.e. students whose home languages are not English). Open-ended PD provided authentic, situated contexts using videos of scenario to engage six elementary teachers to participate in small…

This study investigated the characteristics of deep and surface approaches to learning in online students' responses to instructor's qualitative feedback given to a multi-stage, ill-structured design project. Further, the study examined the relationships between approaches to learning and two learner characteristics: epistemic beliefs (EB) and…

This proposal reports the findings from interviews with construction science students about their visualization of problems in a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional task. The specific research questions focused on the individual characteristics that students identify as influencing their spatial ability to generate internal and external…

Digital game-based learning, especially massively multiplayer online games, has been touted for its potential to promote student motivation and complex problem-solving competency development. However, current evidence is limited to anecdotal studies. The purpose of this empirical investigation is to examine the complex interplay between learners'…

This paper discusses a qualitative study which examined students' problem-solving, metacognition, and motivation in a learning environment designed for teaching educational technology to pre-service teachers. The researchers converted a linear and didactic learning environment into a new open learning environment by contextualizing domain-related…

The important but little understood problem that motivated this study was the lack of research on valid assessment methods to determine progress in higher-order learning in situations involving complex and ill-structured problems. Without a valid assessment method, little progress can occur in instructional design research with regard to designing…

This study explored students and instructors' perceptions and experience of technology affordances in an technology-enhanced Active Learning Classroom (ALC) to promote students' collaborative problem solving. Multiple case studies were conducted. Five classes of 92 students and five professors participated in this study. The data sources were…

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of question prompts and peer review on scaffolding students' problem-based learning in a web-based cognitive support system. Ninety-six pharmacy students were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition. The students in both conditions were asked to generate solutions to a…

Following a design-based research framework, this article reports two empirical studies with an educational MMOG, called "McLarin's Adventures," on facilitating 9th-grade students' complex problem-solving skill acquisition in interdisciplinary STEM education. The article discusses the nature of complex and ill-structured problem solving…

This study explored Metacognition and how automated instructional support in the form of problem-solving and self-reflection prompts influenced students' capacity to solve complex problems in a Web-based learning environment. Specifically, we examined the independent and interactive effects of problem-solving prompts and reflection prompts on…

Examined the effects of question prompts and peer interactions in scaffolding undergraduate students' problem-solving processes in an ill-structured task in problem representation, developing solutions, making justifications, and monitoring and evaluating. Qualitative and quantitative results suggest that the peer interaction process must be…

We present a conceptual framework for scaffolding ill-structured problem-solving processes using question prompts and peer interactions. We first examine the characteristics and processes of ill-structured problem solving, namely, problem representation, generating solutions, making justifications, and monitoring and evaluation. Then, we analyze…