How instructional design experts use knowledge and experience to solve ill‐structured problems

This study examined how instructional design (ID) experts used their prior knowledge and previous experiences to solve an ill‐structured instructional design problem. Seven experienced designers used a think‐aloud procedure to articulate their problem‐solving processes while reading a case narrative. Results, presented in the form of four assertions, showed that experts (1) narrowed the problem space by identifying key design challenges, (2) used an amalgam of knowledge and experience to interpret the problem situation, (3) incorporated a mental model of the ID process in their problem analyses, and (4) came to similar conclusions about how to respond to the situation, despite differences in their initial conceptualizations. Implications for educating novice instructional designers are discussed.     

An Activity Analysis of Secretarial Duties as a Basis for an Office Practice Course

The cognitive processes used by children during problem solving have received considerable attention in recent years. The identification of the processes used by both successful and unsuccessful problem solvers has been hampered by the difficulties involved in making accurate observations of mental processes which may or may not have physical manifestations during problem solving. In addition, problem solvers themselves often are unaware of many of the thought processes they use while attempting to solve problems. The most popularly used methods for studying problem solving processes are not sufficiently reliable or valid. This study explored the potential effectiveness of a new procedure for identifying and studying certain of the cognitive processes used during problem solving. In addition, the procedure was used to categorize the types of conceptual thinking problem solvers employ, to study the use of trial and error behavior, and to investigate problem solvers’ abilities to coordinate multiple bits of information. It appears that the procedure has application for generating hypotheses about cognitive processes problem solvers use.     

高校教师的心理健康、应对方式及其关系研究

通过对广东省24所高校5603位教师的问卷调查，考察当前高校教师的心理健康、应对方式及其关系。结果发现：（1）高校教师自评健康状况总体上良好，不同性别、教龄、职称和学历教师的自评结果有一定差异；（2）高校教师采用解决问题、求助等成熟型的应对方式相对较多，但不同性别、教龄、职称和学历教师所采用的应对方式差异显著；（3）应对方式对教师的自评健康有良好的预测作用，解决问题、求助等应对方式有助于高校教师良好心理状况的发展，而自责、退避、幻想等应对方式则会阻碍教师心理健康的发展。     

Planning HRD Interventions; What,Why, and How

There is a large body of literature on the instructional design process but little information about the planning practices of Human Resource Development (HRD) practitioners, those who may be devising training or organization development interventions. This article describes qualitative research conducted on the planning processes of five experienced HRD practitioners. Results indicate that subjects had similar mental models of the planning process, portraying the general framework as: a) discerning the desired outcomes, b) understanding the current situation, and c) designing a process to meet the needs. They characterized the planning process as holistic and iterative, involving the use of scenarios, and paradoxical in nature. This paper will identify how the subjects' values, beliefs, and principles of practice influenced their planning. It will also describe techniques used by the subjects to enhance their planning, which involved activating internal resources (prior experience), seeking external resources (reading, talking to others), and tapping into their subconscious for insights or answers. Implications for education, practice, and further research on the planning practices of HRD practitioners will be proposed.     

心理健康观影响应付方式:积极心理资本的中介效应

This research used Mental Health Questionnaire, Coping Style Questionnaire and Positive Psychological Capital Questionnaire to investigate 355 participants of college students to examine the status of their viewpoints of mental health, coping styles and positive psychological capital. The results showed that undergraduates’ viewpoints of mental health in autonomy had a positive prediction of the problem-solving dimension of coping styles, with the interpretation rate to be 12.1%; that the self-efficacy dimension of psychological capital had a positive prediction of the problem-solving dimension of coping styles, with the interpretation rate to be 35.1%; and that the self-efficacy dimension played a mediating role in undergraduates’ viewpoints of mental health in autonomy and problem solving dimension of coping styles, with the mediating effect covering 64.049% of the total. This research implied that undergraduates’ viewpoints of mental health had a positive prediction for coping styles, and that the positive psychological capital played a mediating role     

民族地区高职高专心理健康教育现状、问题与对策

通过对广西37所高职院校大学生心理健康教育现状进行调查,发现各高职院校普遍重视学生心理健康教育工作,但总体上滞后于广西区内的本科院校,各高职高专院校大学生心理健康教育普遍存在缺乏制度保障;主动性、针对性、实效性差;从业人员不足,素质不高等问题。对策:各级教育行政主管部门加强评估、检查力度,促进心理健康教育保障制度的建立与完善;营造全员开展心理健康教育的氛围;加强课堂教学,将课堂教学与课外活动相结合;建立学校心理咨询督导制度,提高心理咨询人员的专业水平;开展朋辈心理辅导,缓解专业心理咨询人员之不足;重视心理健康教育研究,提高工作的针对性、实效性。     

Yes,Memorize

The endless wealth of information on the internet sharpens the question: how much and what is really important for us to remember? This issue is related to questions regarding the core processes involved in reasoning and thinking. We present mental manipulation (MM) as the core of reasoning and examine the above‐mentioned issue in light of MM's vital role in reasoning and problem‐solving.     

Dealing with graphic output from diagram processing tasks: Approaches to characterisation and analysis

The current relative lack of detailed knowledge about how learners interact with the types of diagrams used in instructional materials is partly due to the research difficulties in characterising the cognitive structures and processes involved in these interactions. One of these difficulties arises from the lack of research tools specifically designed for the collection and meaningful analysis of relevant data. This paper describes computer-based approaches developed to analyse and characterise graphic output produced during diagram processing tasks. Specializations: Mental representation and processing of scientific diagrams, characteristics of explanatory diagrams, visual aspects of problem solving, instructional design.     

和谐社会心理健康教育网络支持系统研究

和谐社会需要健康心理作基础。心理健康教育尤其需要借助信息技术。本文首先探讨:心理健康软环境对建设和谐社会的重要性和紧迫性,重视和加强青少年心理健康教育的重要性和紧迫性,青少年心理健康对未成年人思想道德建设的重要性和紧迫性,网络心理健康教育对解决专业教师不足的重要性和紧迫性;进而概述心理健康教育研究进展和心理健康教育网络支持系统研究进展;在此基础上,重点设计心理健康教育网络支持系统。     

Teachers' Planning Processes: Does ISD Make a Difference?

Do teachers who have a formal educational background in instructional systems design (ISD) differ from those who do not in how they plan and implement instruction? This question guided this pilot study of ten volunteer teachers, five who had formal education in ISD and five who did not. An open and closed item questionnaire was sent to each subject and follow-up interviews were conducted. Teachers were asked about their general planning practices, written planning procedures, mental planning, and how they implement instruction based on their plans. Results indicated that nine of the ten teachers use general ISD skills and processes in planning. Teachers reported that they (a) analyzed learners' needs and abilities, and (b) used objectives to guide the instructional process, specifically for selecting learning activities and evaluation. While there were no major differences between the two groups in their submitted daily plans, the teachers with instructional design backgrounds were more specific in their open-ended responses about the use of instructional design for some aspects of planning (e.g., using hierarchies and taxonomies to sequence instruction), and the importance of consistency among objectives, learning activities, and evaluation. In addition, four of the five ISD teachers believed that knowledge of ISD has improved both their planning processes and their teaching. Because major differences between the two groups were not observed, much of the article focuses on teacher planning processes in general.     

The ontologies of complexity and learning about complex systems

This paper discusses a study of students learning core conceptual perspectives from recent scientific research on complexity using a hypermedia learning environment in which different types of scaffolding were provided. Three comparison groups used a hypermedia system with agent-based models and scaffolds for problem-based learning activities that varied in terms of the types of text based scaffolds that were provided related to a set of complex systems concepts. Although significant declarative knowledge gains were found for the main experimental treatment in which the students received the most scaffolding, there were no significant differences amongst the three groups in terms of the more cognitively demanding performance on problem solving tasks. However, it was found across all groups that the students who enriched their ontologies about how complex systems function performed at a significantly higher level on transfer problem solving tasks in the posttest. It is proposed that the combination of interactive representational scaffolds associated with NetLogo agent-based models in complex systems cases and problem solving scaffolding allowed participants to abstract ontological dimensions about how systems of this type function that, in turn, was associated with the higher performance on the problem solving transfer tasks. Theoretical and design implications for learning about complex systems are discussed.     

论教师的心理健康教育能力的构成

提高学生心理健康教育水平 ,必须提高教师的心理健康教育能力。教师的心理健康教育能力是以教师对学生的了解为出发点 ,以教师的心理健康教育知识为基础 ,采取恰当的问题解决策略对学生实施心理健康教育的能力     

Using Deliberative Inquiry to Assess Future Needs for a Graduate HRD Curriculum: A Case Study

The many changes in today's workplace argue for equivalent changes in educating human resource development (HRD) professionals. The need for HRD curricular changes to be thought out fully and future-focused warrants the use of systematic methods for formulating, solving, and learning more about how to formulate and solve curriculum problems. Deliberative inquiry is such a method. This research methodology is directed toward curricular decision-making as it occurs within a specific context and, simultaneously, toward learning how to formulate and solve such problems. This study focuses on how faculty members in one university department used the problem formulation phase of deliberative inquiry to assess future needs for their HRD specialization. The article first overviews the research methodology of deliberative inquiry and then describes the systematic approach-subject matter analysis-that was used to structure the problem formulation relative to HRD curricular needs. The problem formulation process clarified stakeholders' values. It also resulted in reframing the situation, which led to new insights about the issues facing the HRD curriculum and ways to address them.     

Mental mathematics, emergence of strategies, and the enactivist theory of cognition

In this article, I present and build on the ideas of John Threlfall [(Educational Studies in Mathematics 50:29–47, 2002)] about strategy development in mental mathematics contexts. Focusing on the emergence of strategies rather than on issues of choice or flexibility of choice, I ground these ideas in the enactivist theory of cognition, particularly in issues of problem posing, for discussing the nature of the solving processes at play when solving mental mathematics problems. I complement this analysis and conceptualization by offering two examples about issues of emergence of strategies and of problem posing, in order to offer illustrations thereof, as well as to highlight the fruitfulness of this orientation for better understanding the processes at play in mental mathematics contexts.     

Refinements in mathematics undergraduate students’ reasoning on completed infinite iterative processes

This paper reports a teaching experiment in which two students engaged in tasks that challenged them to describe a final state for a variety of infinite iterative processes. The results from the study indicate that the students used multiple reasoning strategies for addressing these tasks. Refinements in the students’ reasoning occurred as students constructed relationships between the problems they were solving and problems they had solved previously, applying some of the reasoning strategies that they used for one problem to make sense of or solve another problem. We discuss how these findings relate to the existing body of research on infinite iterative processes.     

Developing Design through a Creative Problem‐Solving Process: A Group Community Art Project

For the past few years, creativity has gradually become an important element in the national cultivation of talent in Taiwan. Although traditionally art education is closely linked with creativity, the academic research on general art education is very insufficient. Therefore, the goal of this research is to investigate how creativity could be cultivated in curriculum planning for general art education at technology universities as well as what students’ learning process was when they participated in a course's creative activity. The research applied the theory and steps of creative problem‐solving (CPS) on a general art course to design a group practical activity combining with the local community. This involved converting the steps of creative problem‐solving into different stages of group design activities with the goal of constructing a design process equivalent to the process of problem‐solving. The main research results revealed that students could experience the problem‐solving process through group design activities and develop their divergent and convergent thinking at the same time. Moreover, the cooperative learning model is the most appropriate teaching strategy for students from non‐art‐related departments when cultivating their creativity.