Victoria Smy

Sensemaking and metacognitive prompting in ill-structured problems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of generic prompting principles and a framework of prompts that have the potential to foster learning and skill acquisition among adult novices when performing complex, ill-structured problems. Design/methodology/approach – Relevant research in the literatures surrounding problem structure, sensemaking, expertise, metacognition, scaffolding, and cognitive load were reviewed and synthesised in order to derive generic prompting principles and guidelines for their implementation. Findings – A framework of generic principles and prompts is proposed. Differentiation between prompts supporting cognition either within, or after an ill-structured problem-solving task was supported. Practical implications – Prompts such as those proposed in the framework developed presently can be designed into technology-enhanced learning environments in order to structure and guide the cognitive processes of novices. In addition, prompts can be combined with other learning ...

The influence of training and experience on memory strategy

This paper investigates whether, and if so how much, prior training and experience overwrite the influence of the constraints of the task environment on strategy deployment. This evidence is relevant to the theory of soft constraints that focuses on the role of constraints in the task environment (Gray, Simms, Fu, & Schoelles, Psychological Review, 113: 461–482, 2006). The theory explains how an increase in the cost of accessing information induces a more memory-based strategy involving more encoding and planning. Experiments 1 and 3 adopt a traditional training and transfer design using the Blocks World Task in which participants were exposed to training trials involving a 2.5-s delay in accessing goal-state information before encountering transfer trials in which there was no access delay. The effect of prior training was assessed by the degree of memory-based strategy adopted in the transfer trials. Training with an access delay had a substantial carry-over effect and increased the subsequent degree of memory-based strategy adopted in the transfer environment. However, such effects do not necessarily occur if goal-state access cost in training is less costly than in transfer trials (Experiment 2). Experiment 4 used a fine-grained intra-trial design to examine the effect of experiencing access cost on one, two, or three occasions within the same trial and found that such experience on two consecutive occasions was sufficient to induce a more memory-based strategy. This paper establishes some effects of training that are relevant to the soft constraints theory and also discusses practical implications.

Some effects of increasing external constraint rules on design performance in a timetabling task

Motivation -- To take steps towards identifying how the number of explicit external constraints may affect performance in a constraint satisfaction task, here timetabling design. Research approach -- Thirty-seven psychology students, with no/little formal design training took part in a computer-based experiment wherein they completed three timetabling designs. Tasks varied in the number of external constraints implemented by varying the number of rules applicable to each task. Performance measures included number of successful class placements, task completion times and number of constraint violations during problem solving. Findings -- The results suggest that having a greater number of rules/constraints is associated with poorer design performance. Originality/Value -- The research provides some initial quantitative evidence in an area of design problem solving, specifically constraint satisfaction, in which there is a shortage of human-centred research. Take away message -- Increasing the number of external constraints reduces design performance.

The nature of complexity facing novice designers in a constraint satisfaction task.

This paper examines the effects of different types of complexity facing novice designers in constraint satisfaction tasks. The nature of the complexity in a design task was varied by manipulating different aspects of the extrinsic constraints, which refer to restrictions concerning how design components can be assembled. We investigated the effect of the number of constraints (Study 1) and the number of different types of constraint (Study 2) in a simulated office design task. Results indicated that tackling a design task with a greater number of constraints, or more types of constraint, resulted in decrements in performance. Study 3 examined the effect of reasoning about constraints that involved a fixed location in the office layout and those that did not. It was found that having a higher proportion of constraints that referenced a fixed location led to better design performance. The theoretical and practical aspects of these results are discussed. Practitioner summary: This paper identifies sources of constraint complexity facing the novice designer in an office design task. Three features of constraints proved problematic: the number of constraints, the number of types of constraint and whether the constraint involved a specific location. Training and decision support solutions are discussed.

Novel Training Techniques for Novice Timetablers

This study investigates the efficacy of training in facilitating human-computer interaction during a timetabling task. A computerized feedforward facility highlighted timeslots that could accommodate class requirements, thus integrating relevant constraint information and easing the computational workload of the timetabler. Feedforward training was compared to: metacognitive training that prompted individuals to plan and evaluate their timetabling decisions; a metacognition plus feedforward condition; and a control no training condition. A training and transfer design was used. Results indicated that feedforward training did not improve performance. However, metacognitive training resulted in more classes successfully scheduled and fewer timetabling errors than in control or feedforward conditions. The addition of feedforward to the metacognitive training did not result in additional improvement. Therefore, feedforward training, in its present form, offered no advantage, unlike metacognitive training. Practical advantages of metacognitive training is that it is inexpensive and quick to develop.

Designing the Interface to Encourage More Cognitive Processing

Cognitive engineering aims to provide operators with immediate access to as much relevant information as possible. However, this can encourage display-based strategies that do not involve committing information to memory. To overcome this problem, a somewhat counterintuitive method is discussed, based upon the theory of soft constraints [1], that involves delaying access to some critical information by one or two seconds. This design technique induces a more planful and memory-based strategy that can improve recall, develop more planning behavior, improve problem solving, and protect against the negative effects of interruption. Furthermore, we provide some preliminary results that this more memory-intensive strategy can be trained through past experience with high access cost and then used in situations where access cost is minimal. This was the case when only half of the training trials involved a higher access cost. Further research is needed to ascertain how long training effects last and what are the ideal training regimes for different types of task.

A Novel Approach to Cognitive Engineering: Manipulating Access Cost

The traditional approach to cognitive engineering involves reducing workload by providing operators with immediately accessible relevant information. We suggest that such immediate access may not always improve human performance. Somewhat counter-intuitively, making some information harder to access by slightly increasing the time, physical and mental effort to view it can induce a more memory-based planning strategy that can improve performance. Studies are described that find increasing access cost leads to improved recall, more efficient problem solving, and resilience to interruption. Implications for cognitive engineering are discussed.