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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 8, Issue 2, Article 4 (Dec., 2007) Representations in problem solving in science: Directions for practice |
The HOCS (higher-order cognitive skills) capabilities of critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making are considered to be the most important learning outcomes that good teaching should aim for (Zoller, Lubezky, Nakhleh, Tessier, & Dori, 1995; Zoller, 2000). It is much-lamented that students often do not succeed in applying knowledge they acquire in lessons to everyday contexts. This seems to apply especially to science lessons (Friege & Lind, 2006). As a consequence, improving students’ problem solving skills continues to be a major goal of science teachers and science education researchers. In order to achieve the ability to solve problems in science, there are two issues (Lee, Tang, Goh, & Chia, 2001): to develop in students problem solving skills through science education, and to look at the difficulties faced by students in this area and find ways to help them overcome these difficulties. Recently the types of knowledge needed to solve problems in science (Solaz-Portolés & Sanjosé 2007a) and an overview of research into cognitive variables that are involved in problem solving (Solaz-Portolés & Sanjosé, 2007b) have been reported. We now focus our attention on representations and how these representations affects problem solving.
Within the context of problem solving, it is useful to distinguish between internal and external representations. An internal representation is the way the problem solver stores internal components of the problem in his or her mind (Bodner & Domin, 2000). An external representation is something that stands for, symbolizes or represents objects and/or processes (Rosengrant, Van Heuleven, & Etkina, 2006). Examples in science include words, diagrams, equations, graphs, and sketches.
The purpose of this paper is fourfold: to present an overview of representations involved in problem solving in science; to show how representations mediate the performance of problem solvers; to emphasize relationships between internal representations of the problem (mental models) and some cognitive variables in problem solving; and to suggest some directions for classroom instruction to facilitate more effective problem solving.
