Eighth-grade students defining complex problems: The effectiveness of scaffolding in a multimedia program

This pilot study investigated the effectiveness of a multimedia learning environment called Pollution Solution on eighth-grade students' ability to define a complex problem. Sixty students from four earth science classes taught by the same teacher in a New York City public school were included in the sample for this study. The classes were randomly assigned to one of four comparison groups who each received different treatments of the software. The different treatments included varying types of scaffolding to help the students define the problem. The preliminary findings indicated that the organization scaffold was most effective in helping students to understand the problem, develop hypotheses, and ask more specific questions inside the problem domain. The higher-order thinking scaffold was most effective at helping students grasp the multiple perspectives of the problem. However, the combined scaffolding did not do as well as these scaffolds did individually. Further research needs to be done to determine if this was due to lack of time or some other issue. ********** A critical element of problem solving is the area of problem finding. Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, "To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions with a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science" (cited in Czarnik & Hickey, 1997, p. 2). To solve complex real-world problems, scientists and other problem solvers must first be able to define the problem situation. The challenge of problem finding becomes evident in research conducted by Rowell, Gustafson, and Guilbert (1999). When the researchers asked engineers how they learned to solve technological problems, many responded that defining the problem was the hardest part for them to learn. The issue is that problem finding is not typically taught in schools. One of the engineers in the study crystallized this problem in her statement: I think the traditional method [of instruction] is to be given all the right information in the problem and it's all set up for you and all you have to do is take this equation and you just plug in those things. There is no intermediate analysis that needs to be done before you do it and engineering requires that you do that. It's something that you don't learn in school. (Rowell et al., Learning to Solve Technological Problems section, para. 2) Thus, this pilot study focused on the problem-definition phase of problem solving. In order to study this area, a multimedia learning environment called Pollution Solution was developed specifically for this research. This program places the students in the role of an intern for an environmental consulting firm. They are given a client who is facing a number of environmental issues and are asked to identify the problem and recommend a solution for the company. To do this research, the students "interview" experts and "conduct" site visits. The students also get to hear multiple perspectives on these topics, so they can wrestle with these issues and draw their own conclusions. The design of the complex, ill-structured problem presented to the students is based on principles from the cognitive flexibility theory (CFT) and situated learning theory. For example, this learning environment employs aspects of CFT by providing students with different expert perspectives on the issue, presenting multiple cases for contextualizing the problem, stressing the overlapping connections between the related domains of knowledge, and providing opportunities to construct knowledge (Jacobson & Spiro, 1995). Although CFT does not prescribe that the cases be authentic, situated learning complements CFT because cases drawn from the real world are inevitably richer and more complex than ones that are made up (Li & Jonassen, 1996). The drawback of using CFT for the purposes of engaging young learners is that it was developed for advanced (post introductory) knowledge (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, & Anderson, 1991). …