Categorization and Representation of Physics Problems by Experts and Novices
TL;DR: Results from sorting tasks and protocols reveal that experts and novices begin their problem representations with specifiably different problem categories, and completion of the representations depends on the knowledge associated with the categories.
About: This article is published in Cognitive Science.The article was published on 1981-04-01 and is currently open access. It has received 5091 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Categorization.
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16 May 2003TL;DR: Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines. They get themselves learned and learned well, so that they get played long and hard by a great many people. This is how they and their designers survive and perpetuate themselves. If a game cannot be learned and even mastered at a certain level, it won't get played by enough people, and the company that makes it will go broke. Good learning in games is a capitalist-driven Darwinian process of selection of the fittest. Of course, game designers could have solved their learning problems by making games shorter and easier, by dumbing them down, so to speak. But most gamers don't want short and easy games. Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, often young people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging--and enjoy it, to boot.
7,211 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of empirical results from the psychological literature in a way that provides a useful foundation for research on consumer knowledge is provided by two fundamental distinctions: consumer expertise is distinguished from product-related experience and five distinct aspects, or dimensions, of expertise are identified.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to review basic empirical results from the psychological literature in a way that provides a useful foundation for research on consumer knowledge. A conceptual organization for this diverse literature is provided by two fundamental distinctions. First, consumer expertise is distinguished from product-related experience. Second, five distinct aspects, or dimensions, of expertise are identified: cognitive effort, cognitive structure, analysis, elaboration, and memory. Improvements in the first two dimensions are shown to have general beneficial effects on the latter three. Analysis, elaboration, and memory are shown to have more specific interrelationships. The empirical findings related to each dimension are reviewed and, on the basis of those findings, specific research hypotheses about the effects of expertise on consumer behavior are suggested.
4,147 citations
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, a general framework of mastery and performance goals is proposed to conceptualize the academic achievement goals that students may adopt in classroom settings and their role in facilitating or constraining self-regulated learning.
Abstract: Publisher Summary
Current research on goal orientation and self-regulated learning suggests a general framework for examining learning and motivation in academic contexts. Moreover, there are some important generalizations that are emerging from this research. It seems clear that an approach-mastery goal orientation is generally adaptive for cognition, motivation, learning, and performance. The roles of the other goal orientations need to be explored more carefully in empirical research, but the general framework of mastery and performance goals seems to provide a useful way to conceptualize the academic achievement goals that students may adopt in classroom settings and their role in facilitating or constraining self-regulated learning. There is much theoretical and empirical work to be done, but the current models and frameworks are productive and should lead to research on classroom learning that is both theoretically grounded and pedagogically useful.
3,835 citations
TL;DR: Problem-based learning (PBL) as mentioned in this paper is an instructional method in which students learn through facilitated problem solving, where the teacher acts to facilitate the learning process rather than to provide knowledge.
Abstract: Problem-based approaches to learning have a long history of advocating experience-based education. Psychological research and theory suggests that by having students learn through the experience of solving problems, they can learn both content and thinking strategies. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method in which students learn through facilitated problem solving. In PBL, student learning centers on a complex problem that does not have a single correct answer. Students work in collaborative groups to identify what they need to learn in order to solve a problem. They engage in self-directed learning (SDL) and then apply their new knowledge to the problem and reflect on what they learned and the effectiveness of the strategies employed. The teacher acts to facilitate the learning process rather than to provide knowledge. The goals of PBL include helping students develop 1) flexible knowledge, 2) effective problem-solving skills, 3) SDL skills, 4) effective collaboration skills, and 5) intrinsic motivation. This article discusses the nature of learning in PBL and examines the empirical evidence supporting it. There is considerable research on the first 3 goals of PBL but little on the last 2. Moreover, minimal research has been conducted outside medical and gifted education. Understanding how these goals are achieved with less skilled learners is an important part of a research agenda for PBL. The evidence suggests that PBL is an instructional approach that offers the potential to help students develop flexible understanding and lifelong learning skills.
3,823 citations
Cites background from "Categorization and Representation o..."
...Such knowledge is coherently organized around the deep principles in a domain (Chi et al., 1981)....
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...Furthermore, research suggests that the small group discussions and debate in PBL sessions enhances problem solving and higher order thinking and promotes shared knowledge construction (Blumenfeld et al., 1996; Brown, 1995; Vye et al., 1997)....
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TL;DR: This paper showed that if two prior analogs were given, subjects often derived a problem schema as an incidental product of describing the similarities of the analogs, and the quality of the induced schema was highly predictive of subsequent transfer performance.
2,740 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jun 1972TL;DR: The aim of the book is to advance the understanding of how humans think by putting forth a theory of human problem solving, along with a body of empirical evidence that permits assessment of the theory.
Abstract: : The aim of the book is to advance the understanding of how humans think. It seeks to do so by putting forth a theory of human problem solving, along with a body of empirical evidence that permits assessment of the theory. (Author)
10,770 citations
"Categorization and Representation o..." refers background in this paper
...Some of these correspond closely with the problem as stated, including the initial state (i.e., the "givens"), the. desired goal, and the legal problem-solving operators (Newell & Simon, 1972)....
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...It is well known by now that the quality of a problem representation influences the ease with which a problem can be solved (Hayes & Simon, 1976; Newell & Simon, 1972)....
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TL;DR: This article developed a technique for isolating and studying the perceptual structures that chess players perceive and analyzed the size and nature of these structures as a function of chess skill, and used the successive glances at the position in the perceptual task and long pauses in the memory task to segment the structures in the reconstruction protocol.
4,150 citations
"Categorization and Representation o..." refers background or result in this paper
...In general, this hypothesis is consistent with the "perceptual chunking" hypothesis for experts (e.g., Chase & Simon, 1973) and its more general cognitive ramifications (e.g., Chase & Chi, in press), which suggest that much of expert power lies in the expert's ability to quickly establish…...
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...…to the way that a chess expert's initial classification yields a small set of "good" alternative moves, which must then be investigated analytically (Chase & Simon, 1973), the physics expert's initial categorization restricts search for a particular solution to a small range of possible operations....
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...Secondly, in chess research, it appears that experts' superiority in memorizing chessboard positions arises from the existence of a large store of intact and well-organized chess configurations or patterns in memory (Chase & Simon, 1973)....
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03 Nov 2017
TL;DR: Schemata are active computational devices capable of evaluating the quality of their own fit to the available data as discussed by the authors and are employed in the process of interpreting sensory data, in retrieving information from memory, in organizing actions, in determining goals and subgoals, in allocating resources, and, generally, in guiding the flow of processing in the system.
Abstract: Schemata are employed in the process of interpreting sensory data, in retrieving information from memory, in organizing actions, in determining goals and subgoals, in allocating resources, and, generally, in guiding the flow of processing in the system. Perhaps the central function of schemata is in the construction of an interpretation of an event, object, or situation—that is, in the process of comprehension. Schemata are active computational devices capable of evaluating the quality of their own fit to the available data. Schemata consist of subschemata as procedures consist of subprocedures. A schema is said to be activated from the bottom-up whenever a subschema that has been somehow activated causes the various schemata of which it is a part to be activated. One of the central problems of a schema theory is a specification of the process whereby new schemata are developed.
2,061 citations
TL;DR: Although a sizable body of knowledge is prerequisite to expert skill, that knowledge must be indexed by large numbers of patterns that, on recognition, guide the expert in a fraction of a second to relevant parts of the knowledge store.
Abstract: Although a sizable body of knowledge is prerequisite to expert skill, that knowledge must be indexed by large numbers of patterns that, on recognition, guide the expert in a fraction of a second to relevant parts of the knowledge store. The knowledge forms complex schemata that can guide a problem's interpretation and solution and that constitute a large part of what we call physical intuition.
2,038 citations
"Categorization and Representation o..." refers background in this paper
...Such initial qualitative analysis would naturally lead to a more forward-working character (Larkin et al., 1980) of problem solving for the expert, in that the equations used depend more on the way the problem is represented than on the "unknown."...
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