Date of Award
Fall 2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
STEM Education & Professional Studies
Committee Director
Jill Stefaniak
Committee Member
John Baaki
Committee Member
Jamie Colwell
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the use of heuristics by students and gain insight into the thought process behind their problem-solving skills. The study used an adaptive narrative as the information delivery medium. An adaptive narrative was chosen because it could be designed to simulate decision making processes encountered in real world situations. Students enrolled in an introductory biology major class were chosen for the study because their fields of interest all require complex problem solving and decision-making skills. It was of interest to investigate what decisions were made when heuristics were given and how that may influence their rationale in the decision-making process. The results of this study indicate that: heuristics can enable students to make correct decisions when the heuristics are based on already familiar concepts; although students self-reported low cognitive load challenges in the NASA TLX, most of the explanations were deemed poor when graded by rubrics; students had difficulty transferring information learned in the narrative and synthesizing a complete and complex explanation past three data points. This study provides evidence that greater practice in the transfer of information to novel settings is important in education in order for students to become proficient in complex decision-making.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
DOI
10.25777/dzej-k872
ISBN
9780438900349
Recommended Citation
Csikar, Elizabeth.
"Decision Making in the Sciences: Understanding Heuristic Use by Students in Problem Solving"
(2018). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dissertation, STEM Education & Professional Studies, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/dzej-k872
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/stemps_etds/42
ORCID
0000-0002-4787-1255
Included in
Educational Methods Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Instructional Media Design Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons