Acquisition of Problem Solving Skills in Basic Electricity and Electronics.
Abstract
The objectives of this effort were to (1) identify the knowledge components that students in the Navy's BE/E schools need to solve problems involving DC circuits, (2) identify which of those components students fail to acquire in BE/E, and (3) explore ways to instruct students in these missing components. First, a theoretical task analysis was performed to identify the knowledge required to perform successfully on the first six BE/E modules. Next, two experiments were conducted. The purpose of Experiment I was to test model predictions. Verbal protocols were obtained from seven subjects as they learned to solve DC circuit problems from the BE/E course and subjects' patterns of performance were compared to the predicted patterns of performance. The purpose of Experiment II was to determine whether the errors students made in Experiment I could be prevented by providing them with a model of a concrete analogy of circuit relations in which the constraints are salient and therefore more likely to be understood and used in solving problems. Experiment I showed that providing students with the minimum knowledge and procedures to solve a selected set of problems is not necessarily sufficient. Unless students understand the constraints underlying those procedures, they fail to integrate these constraints in their problem-solving procedures. The results of Experiment II suggest that the analogy facilitated performance on series and parallel problems by making circuit constraints more salient and by providing subjects with simple procedures that take those constraints explicitly into account. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA145029
Entities
People
- M. S. Riley