Problem-solving with computers

Problem-solving skills are an important component of mathematics learning and teaching and they are assessed systematically through small and large-scale studies. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is such a large-scale study, which uses computer-based assessments to measure pupils' problem solving skills across countries and across time. In the last decade, however, we went from computer-assessed problem solving skills to computer-enhanced problem solving skills. Computational Thinking, for example, assesses pupils' problem-solving skills that require the additional use of computer code or computer algorithms to solve a problem, as assessed by the ICILS study (International Computer and Information Literacy Study) across countries and across time. This shift towards computer-enhanced problem-solving skills implies that students need to learn how to solve a problem while mastering the additional computer algorithm necessary to solve that problem. There are many theoretical and empirical frameworks describing the problem solving process (e.g., Bransford & Stenin, 1993; Gick, 1986; OECD, 2014), mostly through the well-known model proposing four steps: Exploring and understanding the problem, Representing and formulating the problem, Planning and executing, and Monitoring and reflecting on the process (OECD, 2014, p.33). Many authors have also investigated how pupils apply problem-solving skills, identifying the novice and the expert problem-solving strategies (Gick, 1986), to be used in the knowledge acquisition and the knowledge application phase (Schweizer, Wüstenberg, & Greiff, 2013). Through this shifts towards an active use of computer algorithms to solve problems in a virtual environment, pupils need to go through an additional computer-based knowledge acquisition phase, when they acquire the knowledge of the problem-solving virtual environment (Wüstenberg, Greiff, & Funke, 2012). Frequently, the knowledge application phase is most associated with the problem-solving skills, when students need to apply the knowledge acquired to control the problem-solving virtual environment and solve the problem. This is why most studies have investigated the strategies pupils use when solving a problem in a virtual environment, capturing the problem-solving strategies they use to solve the problem. Moreover, not many studies focused on how students acquire these problem-solving skills with the use of instructional games purposely designed to guide pupils in their knowledge acquisition phase of problem-solving skills.