Ill-structured Task Research Articles

Knowledge-building in an environment mediated by digital technology: A case study in higher education

The advancement of technology in recent years seems to be prompting a re-ontologising of the world. Digital technology is transforming the educational spaces we inhabit, as well as our way of processing information. Although there are already numerous studies that have addressed this technological reality, only a handful have done so from a theoretical perspective. That is why we present research that seeks to reinforce the latest theoretical contributions for understanding how modern technology may be affecting the way in which knowledge is built. Based on the latest research in social constructivism, this is a qualitative study designed to contribute to the creation of a specific theoretical framework for an onlife world. An ill-structured task and a semi-structured interview were used to observe the use of the thinking skills that enable us to build knowledge and the relationship between them. The results show that the ways of building knowledge are changing, as digital technology fosters the use of higher-order thinking skills that, furthermore, operate in a chaotic, complex, and unpredictable manner. In conclusion, this study upholds the notion that the ways of building knowledge are changing, but we still need more empirical contributions to create a generally accepted theoretical construct for explaining how we build knowledge through digital technology.

Multiple aspects of high school students' strategic processing on reading outcomes: The role of quantity, quality, and conjunctive strategy use.

While the literature on strategy use is relatively mature, measures of strategy use overwhelmingly measure only one aspect of that use, frequency, when relating that strategy use to performance outcomes. While this might be one important attribute of strategy use, there is increasing evidence that quality and conditional use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies may also be important. This study examines how multiple aspects of strategy use, namely frequency, quality, and conjunctive use of strategies, influence task performance on both well- and ill-structured task outcomes in addition to other concomitant variables that may interact with strategic processing during reading. The sample consisted of 21 high school students enrolled in an upper-level biology class in a suburban school in the north-eastern United States. These participants completed measures of prior knowledge and interest, then read either an expository or persuasive text while thinking aloud. They then completed a passage recall and open-ended response following passage completion. In general, quantity was not positively related to the study outcomes and was negatively related to one of them. Quality of strategy use, on the other hand, was consistently related to positive reading outcomes. The influence of knowledge and interest in terms of strategies is also discussed as well as six cases which illustrate the relation of aspects of strategy use and the other concomitant variables. Evaluating strategy use by solely examining the frequency of strategy use did not explain differences in task performance as well as evaluating the quality and conjunctive use of strategies. Further, important relations between prior knowledge, interest, and the task outcomes appeared to be mediated and moderated by the aspects of strategy use investigated.

BH-ShaDe: A Software Tool that Assists Architecture Students in the Ill-Structured Task of Housing Design

In this paper, we present BH-ShaDe, a new software tool to assist architecture students learning the ill-structured domain/task of housing design. The software tool provides students with automatic or interactively generated floor plan schemas for basic houses. The students can then use the generated schemas as initial seeds to develop complete residential projects. The main goal of our research was to obtain evidence about whether or not such schemas can be useful to architecture students. A first prototype of the tool was evaluated with 78 students, with positive results. However, the students seemed to demand increased user participation, so they could contribute to generating better quality starting points. A second prototype was therefore implemented, allowing a higher degree of interactivity. The second prototype was evaluated with a new group of 50 students. From the two evaluations performed, it can be concluded that both versions of the tool were able to generate useful starting points (either automatically or interactively) that expedited the design process. Additionally, in the second experiment, we found that neither the nature (automatic or interactive) nor the quality of the starting point seems to have any effect on the perceived quality of the final projects.

Understanding the Connection Between Epistemic Beliefs and Internet Searching

Within the context of exploring an ill-structured task using the Google search engine, this study examined (a) the connections between general epistemic beliefs and the complexity of learners' knowledge exploration processes (i.e., learning complexity) and (b) the role of activating learners' task-oriented epistemic beliefs (i.e., epistemic activation) in affecting their learning processes. Survey was used to collect participants' general epistemic beliefs, and direct analysis of participants' think-aloud protocols documenting their knowledge exploration processes was conducted to measure their learning complexity. Results revealed positive epistemology-learning relationships in the way that learners with complex epistemic beliefs are more likely to invest efforts in integrating knowledge, building flexible knowledge representations, evaluating information credibility, engaging in inquiry, and being learning-oriented during their ill-structured Internet search activities. Epistemic activation seemed to provide an opportunity for learners to contemplate varying advanced strategies to evaluate the quality of web information, trigger their efforts to search for alternative views during learning, and enhance their awareness of task complexity and subjectivity. In addition, learners with complex epistemic beliefs seemed to benefit more from epistemic activation in terms of using advanced strategies for web information evaluation. This research contributes to (a) theoretical understandings of epistemology in connection to learning complexity when learning is open-ended and (b) pedagogical practices of using the epistemic activation strategy to promote deep learning in Internet-based learning environments.

Building a Rube Goldberg Machine in an Undergraduate Business School Course to Learn Principles of Project Management and Leadership Skills

The International Rube Goldberg Machine Competition (Rube Goldberg, 2015) provides the foundation for a class project in an undergraduate business school course designed to teach principles of project management and leadership skills. The project provides a challenging, ill-structured task that allows students to apply project management and leadership theory and develop their skills. The article reports the results of a survey suggesting that students viewed the project positively and that student knowledge of project management and leadership skills improved as a result of completing the project.

Early childhood educators’ meta-cognitive knowledge of problem-solving strategies and quality of childcare curriculum implementation

This study aims to explore the impact of early childhood educators’ meta-cognitive knowledge on the quality of their childcare curriculum implementation, and to gain insights regarding successful problem-solving strategies associated with early education and care. Early childhood educators’ implementation of general problem-solving strategies in real educational settings has not previously been studied, even though providing early education and care is a complicated ill-structured task requiring effective problem-solving strategies. The present study surveyed 166 South Korean early childhood educators regarding their meta-cognitive knowledge of five general problem-solving strategies (free production, analogy, step-by-step analysis, visualisation and combining) and childcare curriculum implementation. In general, strategic teachers provided high-quality childcare. Teachers preferred analogy most strongly among the five general problem-solving strategies, but step-by-step analysis was the most powerful predictor of quality of curriculum implementation. Among the five strategies, only three strategies (step-by-step analysis, free production and analogy) showed meaningful associations with quality of curriculum implementation.

Productive Failure in Stem Education

Science education is criticized because it often fails to support problem-solving skills in students. Instead, the instructional methods primarily emphasize didactic models that fail to engage students and reveal how the material can be applied to solve real problems. To overcome these limitations, this study asked participants in a general ecology course to operate an advanced environmental instrumentation (GC/MS), collect pollution samples, complete data analysis, develop an environmental assessment, and proffer a remediation plan for a local river during an ill-structured task. Students were then given a novel task to assess their transfer skills. The study specifically examined student attitudes, effectiveness, and outcomes toward the integration of laboratories into a science course. Results found that students rated their level of instrumentation confidence as low, but showed statistically significant differences on transfer task scores. Implications for research are discussed.

Identifying types of peer feedback improving learners’ ill-structured task performance & Developing their instructional strategies

Identifying types of peer feedback improving learners’ ill-structured task performance & Developing their instructional strategies

An exploratory study of workflow support for tactical teams

Tactical teams need tools to support their collaboration and help coordinate their workflow. We developed the concept of workflow coordinating representations (WCRs) to provide a common workspace and coordination space. Two questions are whether there are general good design properties for WCRs, and whether there are limits to the types of tasks to which these properties can be applied successfully. Experiment 1 examined a range of design properties within a well-structured team task: collecting and analyzing biometric data during a maritime interdiction operation. Naive participants performed the biometrics task and then rated the designs. A detailed WCR design that well matched the workflow of the task was rated more highly than other designs. Experiment 2 applied the detailed design to an ill-structured team task: planning a military rescue mission. There was a WCR for organizing the capabilities of each available asset and another WCR for laying out a detailed timeline of events. Simple maps of the mi...

Supporting College Students' Ill-Structured Problem Solving in a Web-Based Learning Environment

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of using cognitive and metacognitive prompting strategies in a web-based learning environment to engage college students in a complex, ill-structured task. The course context was a freshman/sophomore level Information Sciences and Technology course, and the topic was web design. Four ill-structured problem-solving outcomes were measured: problem representation, developing solutions, making justifications, and monitoring and evaluation. Findings showed significant effects of the prompting treatment on all four ill-structured problem solving outcomes.

Implications of task structure on self‐regulated learning and achievement

School tasks interact with student motivation, cognition, and instruction to influence learning and achievement. Heeding calls for additional research linking motivational and cognitive factors in learning and instruction on specific tasks within authentic classroom settings we quantitatively and qualitatively track 90 tenth‐grade science students’ motivation, reported use of learning strategies, achievement, calibration, and task perceptions as they engage in a well‐structured task (WST) and an ill‐structured task (IST). Students achieved higher grades on, and reported more ease and value for, the WST whereas they utilised critical thinking and peer learning strategies more on the IST. Lower academic achievers calibrated their achievement less accurately on each task and experienced lower grades, interest, ease, and management capability on the IST. Conversely, higher academic achieving students reported more self‐efficacy and effort regulation and lower anxiety and elaboration on the IST. Motivation – notably less intrinsic goal orientation in low academic achievers and higher task value and self‐efficacy – predicted performance on the IST. The structure of tasks may provide prompts that illicit unique self‐regulated learning responses in students.

Preservice Teachers Experience Middle Grades Curriculum

Picture this idyllic scene: A seasoned father strolling with his young son out to the end of a dock jutting into a sparkling lake. The time has come for the lad to learn to swim. Expecting that his caring father would ease him into the water and offer gentle instruction, the boy was eager to master the elements of swimming. In seconds his heart was pounding as he sputtered for air, alarmed to discover that he was immersed in cold water up to his chin. In the distance, he could see his father making crawling motions and yelling, Kick, kick! Use your arms! You can do it! Angry, flailing, beseeching, the boy was stunned by the fact that his father had just tossed him into the lake and expected him to swim. That startled, insecure boy represents what a cohort of 17 preservice middle grades teachers encountered as they learned to stroke the crawl in a curriculum lass that was to provide an unconventional approach to understanding middle grades curriculum concepts. In spring 2006, as they entered the first session of this middle grades curriculum class, collaboratively taught by two professors, they were given a syllabus that was 70% blank (See Figure 1 for the performance objectives on the syllabus and Figure 2 for the initial outline of course activities prepared by instructors) . Given the students' familiarity with the paradigm of taking classes honed from 16 years of a passive education, this was hardly what they were expecting. The cohort of students was told that their challenge, through consensus decision making, was to complete the nearly empty syllabus. They were first to determine the ways in which the objectives for learning about middle grades curriculum would be met and assessed and then to settle on the time and activities to do so. Given a deceptively simple charge on the face of it, the students soon reacted to the shared responsibility for learning much like the young boy. Some of them were gasping for air, trying to figure out what they really were supposed to accomplish. Some of them were incredulous and could not conceptualize what was being asked of them, while some expressed feelings of abandonment and resisted participating in a process that felt unnatural. Having never encountered such an openended, ill-structured task, they patiently tried to keep afloat as it became ever more difficult to avoid drowning, all the while hoping that someone would come along to toss them a life preserver. Before the semester began, the students had been assigned to read This We Believe in Action (Erb, 2005) and A Reaspm to Teach (Beane, 2005) in preparation for tne class that met twice weekly for 75 minutes. At that point, the readings were informative for the preservice teachers, but their understanding of the concepts they contained was insubstantial. While they may have acknowledged that they did not truly understand the meaning of terms such as active learning, integrated curriculum, learning community, and democratic classroom, they certainly did not foresee something so drastic being done to help them make sense of the abstract concepts. Nor did they expect they would have to undergo such discomfort to truly understand theoretical concepts. The professors had decided that leaving the planning process largely unstructured would enable the students to experience the terms, in all of their anguish and exultation, thereby making it more likely to result in significant learning outcomes they could apply to their teaching practices. What follows the Background section is a conversation between one of the professors and one of the students who experienced the course and wrote this article as their means of making more sense of their differing perspectives on the experience. Background The seeds for middle grades curriculum can be traced to the progressive movement, in which reformers such as William Heard Kilpatrick (1918) promoted the project method as a means to experience learning. …

"과제의 구조화 정도에 따른 위키 활용 학습의 효과 탐색에 관한 연구"

최근 들어 개방, 참여, 공유라는 web2.0의 기본 정신을 구현하고 있는 위키 기술을 교육현장에 적용하려는 시도는 빈번히 이루어지고 있다. 이러한 시점에서 본 연구는 어떤 유형의 과제를 위키 활용 학습 환경에서 활용할 때 교육의 효과가 더 나아지는지에 대한 탐색적인 연구를 하였다. 구체적으로 본 연구의 목적은 위키 활용 협력 학습 환경에서 과제의 구조화 정도에 따라 학습의 과정과 결과가 어떻게 달라지는지를 살펴보고, 이를 토대로 후속적인 위키 활용을 위한 처방적인 안내를 제공하기 위함이다. 이를 위하여 40명의 학습자들이 위키 협력 학습에 참여하였는데, 이들은 구조화된 과제의 위키 협력활동과 비구조화된 과제의 위키 협력활동을 차례로 경험하였고, 그 결과를 학습의 과정 측면과 학습의 결과 측면에서 양적 질적으로 분석하였다. 분석 결과, 학습의 과정적인 측면과 결과적인 측면 모두에서 비구조화 과제일 때 학습자들의 학습 활동이 부진한 것으로 해석되었다. 그 원인을 심층적으로 분석해보고자 설문과 심층면담을 실시하여, 그 내용을 원인연쇄분석 방법을 통하여 분석하였다. 원인연쇄분석의 결과, 비구조적 위키 협력 환경에서 학습자들은 과제 해결의 방법과 학습 내용의 불확실성을 가장 큰 어려움으로 느끼고 있었으며, 이를 위한 실시간 혹은 이에 상응하는 상호작용 도구에 대한 요구가 높음이 밝혀졌다. 연구의 종결에는 이러한 결과를 바탕으로 위키 활용 협력학습에서 비구조화된 과제를 효과적으로 활용하기 위한 안내를 제안하고 있다.

Investigating Task Understanding in Online Repositories Equipped with Topic Map Indexes: Implications for Improving Self-Regulatory Processes in Graduate Learners

Theories of cognitive information retrieval can work in concert with those of educational psychology to better formalize self-regulatory processes, such as task understanding, in online learning. Results from a prior statistical exploration of 38 graduate learners using a topic map (ISO 13250) index to browse an online repository of instructor-annotated essays in order to complete an ill-structured essay task indicate improved performance and task understanding. This follow-up study analyzes the inductive content of interviews and computer-based user traces for a theoretical sample of 12 of these 38 learners, showing how the semantic nature of the topic map enabled them to pursue distinct paths to browse essays according to individual task understanding and information need.

Relations Among the Structure of Learning Tasks, Achievement, and Changes in Self-Efficacy in Secondary Students.

Although much has been discovered about relations between self-efficacy and academic achievement, questions remain about links between achievement, the structure of learning tasks, and changes in students' self-efficacy as students engage with a single, complex authentic task. Students' self-efficacy for learning (SEL) and for performance (SEP) was tracked as they worked on well- and ill-structured tasks during their regular class. Students reported higher SEL and SEP for a well-structured task. Moderate achievers reported significantly more difficulty with the ill-structured task. SEP was higher and more stable than SEL, especially in early phases of both tasks. After accounting for overall academic achievement, self-efficacy was a negligible predictor of achievement. Students may perceive various features of each task's structure as difficult. Implications concerning relations among self-efficacy, task structure, and achievement are discussed.

Scaffolding students’ problem-solving processes in an ill-structured task using question prompts and peer interactions

This study 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. A quasi-experimental study, supplemented by multiple-case studies, was conducted to investigate both the outcomes and the processes of student problem-solving performance. The quantitative outcomes revealed that question prompts had significantly positive effects on student problem-solving performance but peer interactions did not show significant effects. The qualitative findings, however, did indicate some positive effects of peer interactions in facilitating cognitive thinking and metacognitive skills. The study suggests that the peer interaction process itself must be guided and monitored with various strategies, including question prompts, in order to maximize its benefits.

Formalized Dissent and Cognitive Complexity in Group Processes and Performance

Research suggests that two methods of introducing dissent, the dialectic inquiry (DI) and devil's advocate (DA) methods, show promise for increasing the cognitive complexity of decision makers. We investigated the joint effects of formalized dissent and group cognitive complexity by manipulating the formalized dissent method (DI or DA) used by 25 interacting groups engaged in a complex, ill-structured planning task. Participants were classified as either high or low cognitive complexity and assigned to stratified groups with members of homogeneous complexity. Results indicated that: (1) DA groups produced higher quality assumptions but took longer to generate plans than did DI groups, (2) high complexity groups generated more recommendations relative to low complexity groups, and (3) DA groups with low complexity members produced lower quality recommendations and participated less equally in decision making than did the other groups. We conclude by discussing the implications of the results for formalized dissent, cognitive complexity, and assessing managerial performance.

The Use of Mental Imagery to Facilitate Information Identification in Requirements Analysis

Many alternative approaches have been devised for eliciting information systems requirements. The majority of these approaches, however, assume a familiarity with and understanding of the organizational context by those individuals from whom requirements are to be derived. Such approaches often yield unsatisfactory results when the information system being developed involves ill-structured task contexts. The generation of a robust set of information items can be an important first step in the specification of information requirements. Scenario-based approaches to generate information items for requirements analysis appear intuitively promising as a mechanism for promoting the elicitation of information requirements for ill-structured task contexts. However, little empirical evidence exists regarding their potential effectiveness. This paper proposes the use of mental imagery as a scenario-based technique and reports on the results of an exploratory laboratory experiment that compared a mental imagery approach with goal-oriented and critical success factors approaches in the generation of information items. The results of this experiment provide modest evidence that positive and negative mental imagery protocols may both outperform goal-oriented and critical success factors approaches for ill-structured task contexts. Further, the strongest results were observed to favor the positive imagery protocol. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings and suggestions for future research.