• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.171-187
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• 2007

The 166 elementary school students of this study were divided into four groups by gender and degree of structure in problem situations. Written instruments ascertained intelligence, conceptual knowledge, science process skills, divergent thinking, intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, personality traits, and home environment. Results were that male students scored higher on problem finding in the ill-structured than in the moderately structured problem situation. In the ill-structured problem situation, personality traits, conceptual knowledge, and intrinsic motivation contributed to the scores of male students and home environment and conceptual knowledge contributed to the scores of female students. In the moderately structured problem situation, personality traits and intrinsic motivation contributed to the scores of all students, but science process skills contributed to the scores of female students only.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.63-72
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• 1993

The purpose of this research is to determine how the present use of Geographic Information Systems (GISs) can be improved for ill-structured problems in planning and design, While information-oriented GIS technology has proven useful for routine and administrative problems, it is not yet capable of providing information and knowledge interactively within a problem solving process that can be characterized as "ill-structured." This suggests that GIS technology must be embedded wi thin a large problem solving process for ill-structured problems. The hypothesis of this research is that implementation of conceptualization-oriented Spatial Decision Support Systems(SDSSs) will significantly improve the use of GIS technology for ill-structured problems.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.8-19
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to: analyze the characteristics on ill-structured problem-solving process; examine the type of memories used in their monitoring. The data were primary collected from observation and secondary the semi-structured in-depth interviews based on analysis of observation results with two students who belong to science school and a guidance. The findings of this study revealed that the ill-structured problems possess multiple representations and the upper level's problem have several sub-problems. And multiple steps simultaneously exist in particular stage of problem-solving process that is not single sequential but complex flow and have high frequency of discussion step. Type of memories used in ill-structured problems include idiosyncratic memories which is related in personal histories such as school performance, problem-related memories, abstract rules and intuition.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.189-209
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• 2014

This study designed and developed a model of ill-structured problem solving and ill-structured problems for the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. In addition, two sets of ill-structured problems has been explored to 23 4th graders, 33 5th graders, and 23 6th graders in elementary schools in order to investigate their problem solving, creative personality, and mathematical reasoning. The model of ill-structured problem solving was suggested ABCDE (Analyze-Browse-Create-DecisionMaking-Evaluate) model and analyzed participants' problem solving procedure. As results, participants showed improvement between pretest and posttest in problem solving and the high graders showed the greater creative personality.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.59-75
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• 2012

This study aims to find whether the solutions for well-structured problems learned in school can be transferred to the moderately-structured problem and ill-structured problem. For these purpose, research questions were set up as follows: First, what are the patterns of changes in strategies used in solving the mathematics problems with different level of structuredness? Second, From the group using and not using proportion algorithm strategy in solving moderately-structured problem and ill-structured problem, what features were observed when they were solving that problems? Followings are the findings from this study. First, for the lower level of structuredness, the frequency of using multiplicative strategy was increased and frequency of proportion algorithm strategy use was decreased. Second, the students who used multiplicative strategies and proportion algorithm strategies to solve structured and ill-structured problems exhibited qualitative differences in the degree of understanding concept of ratio and proportion. This study has an important meaning in that it provided new direction for transfer and analogical problem solving study in mathematics education.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.183-200
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• 2015

This study investigated the effect of learning achievements and cognitive load according to different types of presenting learning materials and epistemological beliefs (EB). Learning achievements in this study were composed by retention and transfer of ill-structured problem. A total of 80 college students participated in the study. Prior to the learning, students were guided to fill out a questionnaire regarding epistemological beliefs and a prior knowledge test. The students of each group studied with a different type of reading material: full text (FT), full text including key questions (KeyFT) and full text including a concept map (CmFT). After a session of study was finished, they were asked to complete the posttest: retention and transfer. The results showed that there was a significant difference in transfer achievements. CmFT outperformed higher scores than the other types. There was no significant difference in retention among the groups. It is strongly believed that the types of presenting learning materials may have affected the understanding of ill-structured problem solving skills. Students with sophisticated EB showed higher achievements on retention and transfer than naive-EB and mixed-EB. Even though the data showed decrease of the cognitive load on the type of materials and EB, there were no significant differences on the cognitive load. We should consider a positive effect of types of presenting learning materials and EB enhancing capabilities of solving ill-structured problems in real life.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.95-114
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• 2012

This study examines the use of ill-structured problem to help the 4th graders' problem solving and reasoning. It appears that children with good understanding of problem situation tend to accept the situation as itself rather than just as texts and produce various results with extraction of meaningful variables from situation. In addition, children with better understanding of problem situation show AR (algorithmic reasoning) and CR (creative reasoning) while children with poor understanding of problem situation show just AR (algorithmic reasoning) on their reasoning type.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.133-157
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• 2021

Ill-structured problems have drawn attention in that they can enhance problem-solving skills, which are essential in future societies. The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate students' spatial reasoning(Intrinsic-Static, Intrinsic-Dynamic, Extrinsic-Static, and Extrinsic-Dynamic reasoning) and problem solving abilities(understanding problems and exploring strategies, executing plans and reflecting, collaborative problem-solving, mathematical modeling) that appear in ill-structured problem-solving. To solve the research questions, two ill-structured problems based on the geometry domain were created and 11 lessons were given. The results are as follows. First, spatial reasoning ability of sixth-graders was mainly distributed at the mid-upper level. Students solved the extrinsic reasoning activities more easily than the intrinsic reasoning activities. Also, more analytical and higher level of spatial reasoning are shown when students applied functions of other mathematical domains, such as computation and measurement. This shows that geometric learning with high connectivity is valuable. Second, the 'problem-solving ability' was mainly distributed at the median level. A number of errors were found in the strategy exploration and the reflection processes. Also, students exchanged there opinion well, but the decision making was not. There were differences in participation and quality of interaction depending on the face-to-face and web-based environment. Furthermore, mathematical modeling element was generally performed successfully.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.570-585
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• 2012

The Korean national curriculum for secondary school emphasizes scientific problem solving. In line with the national curriculum, many educational studies have been conducted in relation to science education. The objects of these studies were well-defined and well-structured problems. The studies were criticized for overlooking ill-defined and ill-structured problems. Some research has dealt with problem finding in ill-structured problems, which is related to creativity. There is a need for a study of scientific problem finding process in an ill-structured problem situation, because this study will help teachers wanting to teach scientific problem-finding in an ill-structured problem situation. The objective of this study was to conduct an empirical study on the scientific problem finding process in an ill-structured problem situation. One task of scientific problem finding in an ill-structured problem situation was assigned to 92 university students; thereafter, 32 of them participated in the research through interviews. Results indicated that the scientific problem finding process depended on initial clues and tentative solutions. Initial clues were affected by students' experiences, such as major classes, films, and novels. Tentative solutions were influenced by background knowledge of the tasks. Students screened information browsed on the Internet. They applied some standards for selection, particularly emphasized reliability standards, which are supposed to be studied in other contexts. All the students used assumptions to make their problems appear probable, which could be a useful tool to articulate.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.221-249
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate students decision-making progress through ill-structured problem solving process. For this study, 25 fifth graders in an elementary school were observed by applying ABCDE model (Analyze - Browse - Create - Decision making - Evaluate), and analyzed their decision-making progress analyzing framework which follows 3 steps - making their own decision, discussing/revising with peers, and lastly decision making/solving problem. Upper two groups with better performance in ill-structured problem solving model among 6 groups showed active discussion in group and decision making process with 3 steps (making their own decision, discussing/revising with peers). Even though their decisions are not good-fit to mathematical reasoning result, development and application of ill-structured problems would bring better ability of high level thinking and problem solving to students.