The Efficacy and Development of Students' Problem-Solving Strategies During Compulsory Schooling: Logfile Analyses

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Effective problem-solving is crucial for academic success and lifelong learning.
• Understanding students' exploration strategies is key to improving problem-solving instruction.
• The MicroDYN approach provides a framework for analyzing complex problem-solving processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of students' exploration strategies in the initial phase of complex problem solving.
• To identify and classify different problem-solving strategy profiles among students.
• To determine the impact of strategy use on problem-solving performance.

Main Methods:

• A large-scale study involving 4,371 students (grades 3-12) in Hungarian schools.
• Administration of complex problems via the eDia online platform using the MicroDYN approach.
• Logfile analysis and Latent Class Analysis to code and cluster students' exploration behaviors and strategy use.

Main Results:

• Several effective strategies were identified, including the vary-one-thing-at-a-time (VOTAT) strategy.
• Conscious VOTAT strategy users outperformed non-conscious VOTAT and non-VOTAT users.
• The use of theoretically effective strategies did not always guarantee high performance.
• Six distinct strategy profiles were identified in primary school students.

Conclusions:

• Conscious application of specific strategies, like VOTAT, is linked to superior problem-solving performance.
• Problem-solving strategy instruction is vital for effective knowledge acquisition across various contexts.
• Findings offer new interpretations of complex problem-solving processes and emphasize pedagogical interventions.