Problem-Solving Before Instruction (PS-I): A Protocol for Assessment and Intervention in Students with Different Abilities

A great proportion of the students find learning and motivational problems in courses that require critical thinking. This protocol is significant because it provides educators and researchers with guidelines to implement an approach that can be effective to face this challenge, the problem-solving before instruction approach. This approach consists on:before explaining a concept in class, giving the students the opportunity to invent personal solutions in relation to that concept.

Also, this protocol is significant because it makes accessible and experimental evaluation about the efficacy of problem-solving before instruction, integrating this evaluation with the real educational practice, and attending to the variability of a student in terms of capacities and motivational predispositions. The protocol is contextualized in a statistics class of variability. Concretely, the problem-solving before instruction condition consists in having students to invent variability measures before they receive instruction about this topic.

One of the reasons why we think it's important to make accessible the problem-solving before instruction approach into the educational practice is that it can help promote critical thinking. It is an opportunity for the students to face novel problems and try to find creative solutions for these problems. Another reason is that this experience is compatible with the teaching of the content in class.

Specifically, several studies suggest that inventing personal solutions in these series of problem can help the students to activate previous knowledge, to become more aware of the knowledge gaps, to feel more motivated, and finally, to account a higher understanding of the contents covered and to be able to transfer this understanding to different situations. Nevertheless, it is a great importance that we continue investigating about the efficacy of problem-solving before instruction, especially because its implementation can generate negative reactions in some students. For example, some students can feel over challenged or even frustrated with the different options to consider in this first invention task.

It is especially important that we evaluate how our students with different cognitive and motivational predispositions can benefit more or less from this approach. The protocol can be just used as a guide for implementing the problem-solving before instruction approach. However, if the user is also interested in the experiment evaluation before implementing the protocol, it should be explained to students the ethical considerations.

It is important to warranty their free consent to participate by explaining them that if they do not want to participate in the investigation, they can perform the learning activities with a handing them in. Inform about ethical considerations verbally and with a written informed consent, allowing students to keep a copy of the informed consent. If students are below legal age, a parental informed consent should be requested.

To warranty the anonymity of the data, randomly assign students an arbitrary identification number. Ask students to complete the different assessment tool to measure the cognitive and motivational predispositions. This assessment will prevent on the interest of the researcher.

Nevertheless, in the protocol, it's described a proposal to measure the predispositions of previous academic knowledge, motivational goals, sense of competence, divergent thinking abilities, and metacognitive regulation abilities. After this assessment, students will be assigned to two learning conditions, the problem solving before instruction condition in which they problem solve in relation to the target concept before receiving instruction. Under direct instruction condition in which they problem-solve only after receiving some instructions.

Have the task books, containing the materials, for the two conditions properly prepared. In this protocol, the task book for the problem-solving before instruction condition contains two activities. First, the problem where students invent variability measures.

Second, a worked sample providing instructions about variability measures in the context of this problem. The task book for the direct instruction condition also contains two activities. First, instruction through the work example.

Second, a practice problem where students applied the contents learned. To prevent the students to see the contents of the second activity while they are performing the first activity, attach together the papers corresponding to the second activity. Randomly assign the two task books to the students of the class.

The assignments should not depend on how students are seated. After having the students work for 15 minutes in their first assigned activity, give them another 15 minutes to work in their second assigned activity. All instructions are written in the task books.

It is recommended that a teacher is available to guide the students. However, it is important that during the invention phase, the teacher does not give the students any clues about the conventional solution because it can shortcut the development of their personal ideas. To help students explore the problem from their into deep ideas, the problem is designed based on the technique of contrasting cases.

It means the data of the program are presented with some refined examples that students can easily compare side by side in a way that each comparison differs only in one or few relevant characteristics. If students need help, the teacher can guide them through metacognitive prompt, such as asking them to explain what type of solution they are trying to do. And by helping them identify the goal of the program by providing them with examples of how to generating a general procedure.

To compliment the learning of both learning conditions, provide instructions through a lecture. For the specific context of this protocol, there is a document including animations and instructions proposed for this lecture. At the end of the lesson, ask students to complete the assessment for the dependent variables of interest.

In the protocol, there is a proposal to measure curiosity filled by students and three types of knowledge performance, procedural knowledge, conceptually knowledge, and task for knowledge. Code for the final score in each assessment. For the assessments proposed in this protocol, guidelines are provided in the coding of the data section.

The identification number will be used to connect all assessment belonging to each student. Perform the analysis of interest. Different guidelines are provided in the analysis of the data section in this protocol for the programs, SPSS and PROCESS.

This images show common responses to the invention problem solved by students in the problem-solving before instruction condition. None of these solutions correspond to the target concept of the standard deviation. However, they are partial solutions and reveal reflections about important conceptual aspects.

In contrast, the solutions in the practice problems of the direct instruction condition are more homogeneous and aligned with the canonical concept of the standard deviation because students solved this problem after receiving instruction with the worked example. An interesting result from the experimental evaluation of the protocol is the comparison between the problem solving before instruction condition and the direct instruction condition for each dependent variable considered. It can provide information about the general efficacy of problem-solving before instruction.

Also, it can be interesting to explore the process that can mediate the effect of problem-solving before instruction or learning or the moderating role of students with disposition in this effects. For example, a potential moderation result can be that the efficacy of problem-solving before instruction depends on the students'metacognitive abilities. According to this graph, the students who have hight metacognitive skills benefit more from problem-solving before instruction, while those students with low metacognitive skills benefit more from direct instruction.

In conclusion, this protocol can be useful to make the problem-solving before instruction approach and experimental evaluation more accessible to educators and researchers. This protocol has three important advantage. First of all, its flexibility to be adapted to the different educational and research interests.

Secondly, its easy integration with the normal educational practice, and finally, the experimental evaluation considers the variability of students with different cognitive and motivational profiles. Problem-solving before instruction is a technique that can help to promote critical thinking, motivation, and deep learning. Investigating about its efficacy in different types of students can help educators to take useful decisions about its general implementation in educational practice.