Teaching the problem-solving process in a progressive or a simultaneous way: A question of making sense?

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the perennial low success rates of elementary students in math problem solving and the difficulties experienced by teachers in helping their students with this type of task has become quite a hot topic. In response, several instructional interventions aiming to develop an expert and reflexive approach to problem solving have been designed. However, these interventions are based on two contrasting teaching approaches, either teaching the components of the problem-solving process at the same time or teaching them one at the time. A meticulous analysis of the literature indicates that studies that have compared these two teaching approaches have focused primarily on undergraduate students. Moreover, they have mainly been assessed in terms of cognitive outcomes. Yet, recent studies stress the importance of analyzing the cognitive, motivational and emotional processes involved in problem-solving learning together in order to gain a full understanding of the process. Addressing these limitations is essential to enhance our understanding of problem-solving learning and to design more effective interventions. This paper focuses on this issue by investigating whether teaching the problem-solving process in all its complexity or one component at a time is preferable in terms of cognitive, motivational and emotional outcomes. This issue is handled for both novice and expert solvers. Data were gathered among 267 upper elementary students. Findings showed that both teaching approaches support the short-and long-term acquisition of cognitive problem-solving strategies, regardless of the student’s profile. However, beneficial emotional and motivational outcomes occur only when the problem-solving process is taught in all its complexity, that is, makes sense for the learner. Novice solvers made less use of the help-seeking strategy and persisted more.