Welcome to the Center for the Study of Problem Solving


In our everyday and professional lives, the primary intellectual activity in which we engage is problem solving.Employees in corporations are hired, retained, and rewarded for solving problems. At home, we encounter vexing problems constantly. While many of us prefer not to admit that we have problems, the reality is that we solve many problems on a daily basis.  What shall I wear to work? Which is the best route to avoid this traffic jam? How do I prevent my boss from criticizing me?  How can I get that new contract? What shall we make for supper this evening?  How shall we market this new product to maximize cash flow?  What do I have to do in order to attract recognition in this agency? We are deluged with problems every day.  As indicated in the banner, Karl Popper (1999) averred, “All life is problem solving.”

Unfortunately, schools do not prepare us to solve the kinds of problems that we face everyday. Everyday problems are ill-structured. They rarely have a known, correct answer or an accepted method for solving them. We often do not know what the best solution is, so we must rely on our best judgment.  In schools, we learn to solve well-structured problems in mathematics and the sciences. Those problems have correct answers, so students are evaluated on the basis of their ability to calculate the correct answer.  Many people mistakenly believe that learning to solve those well-structured problems in schools helps us to become better problem solvers in life. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The methods that we use to solve well-structured problems do not help us very much to solve ill-structured problems for at lest two reasons. One, the skills that are required to solve everyday, ill-structured problems are different than those required to solve well-structured problems. Historically, researchers have claimed that the steps that are required to solve most problems are basically the same:

  1. Figure out what kind of problem we are solving
  2. Generate alternative solutions
  3. Evaluate those solutions to find the best one
  4. Implement the solution, and
  5. Evaluate how successful the solution was in solving the problem

This method works only if we know what the best answer is. Usually, we do not.

Two, when students learn to solve mathematics and science problems in order to derive the correct answer, they usually fail to understand the processes that are included in the problem. That is, they do not develop conceptual understanding of the domain ideas sufficient to enable them to transfer their problem-solving skills to new problems. They fail to develop science knowledge. So they cannot apply what they have not learned to understanding what new problems are about.

This conundrum  has led us try to better understand all facets of problem solving. The Center for the Study of Problem Solving is devoted to better understanding the cognitive and social processes underlying problem solving. How do we have to think in order to solve different kinds of problems in different disciplines? Does problem solving in one discipline transfer to problem solving in another discipline?  How are problems alike? Different.

This website describes some of the research activities on problem solving that we are engaged in. It also displays some of the products of that research as well as models and examples of different methods for helping students better learn to solve problems.  If you are interested in leaning more about our acivities, please contact me.

Dave Jonassen
Jonassen@missouri.edu