Stress and Resources in Vocational Problem Solving

By adapting the job demands-resources model of Demerouti et al. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499–512, (2001) to vocational problem-solving situations, we aimed to investigate how, and to what extent, problem-solving demands and personal resources affect stress responses and task interest. Therefore, we used a problem-solving task from the business administration domain in a computer-based office simulation. We assigned 58 participants into two groups. The treatment group worked on the problem scenario, whereas the control group was instructed to inspect the computer-based scenario and to check the software’s usability without solving the problem. Problem-solving demands, perceived stress, task interest, cardiovascular parameters, and cortisol concentration were assessed before, during and after the task at several time points. The vocational problem-solving task was associated with perceived time pressure, uncertainty, mental effort, task difficulty, and perceived stress. In addition, we found higher heart rate and cortisol concentration and lower heart rate variability values in the treatment group (compared to the control group) at the end of the task. Furthermore, we found that content knowledge buffers the impact of problem-solving demands on stress responses and it maintains task interest under high mental effort. Overall, we found evidence that vocational problem-solving activities bear stress-evoking potential and personal resources may provide buffering and maintaining functions.     

Preservice teachers’ use of contrasting cases in mathematics instruction

Drawing comparisons between students’ alternative solution strategies to a single mathematics problem is a powerful yet challenging instructional practice. We examined 80 preservice teachers’ when asked to design a short lesson when given a problem and two student solutions—one correct and one incorrect. These micro-teaching events were videotaped and coded, revealing that fewer than half of participants (43%) made any explicit comparison or contrasts between the two solution strategies. Those who did were still not likely to use additional support strategies to draw students’ attention to key elements of the comparison. Further, correlations suggest that participants’ mathematical content knowledge may be related to whether participants’ showed contrasting cases but not to whether they used specific pedagogical cues to support those comparisons. While these micro-teaching events differ from the interactive constraints of a classroom, they reveal that participants did not immediately orient toward differing student solutions as a discussion opportunity, and that future instruction on contrasting cases must highlight the utility of this practice.