FOCUS ON RESEARCH ProblemSolving Strategies in the Real World

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WORKING BACKWARD TO FORGE
AHEAD Whether you are organizing a
family vacation or preparing to sail alone
in an around-the-world race, as Ellen
MacArthur did, working backward from
the final goal through all the steps necessary to reach that goal is a helpful approach to solving complex problems.
Chapter 7 Thought, Language, and Intelligence
the branches. If you work forward by taking the “givens” of the problem and trying
to find the solution, it’s easy to branch off in the wrong direction. Sometimes the more
efficient approach is to start at the twig end and work backward (Galotti, 1999). Consider the problem of planning a climb to the summit of Mount Everest. The best strategy is to figure out, first, what equipment and supplies are needed at the highest camp
on the night before the attempt to reach the summit, then how many people are
needed to stock that camp the day before, then how many people are needed to supply those who must stock the camp, and so on until a plan for the entire expedition
is established. People often overlook the working-backward strategy because it runs
counter to the way they have learned to think. It is hard to imagine that the first step
in solving a problem could be to assume that you have already solved it. Sadly, it was
partly because of failure to apply this strategy that six climbers died on Everest in 1996
(Krakauer, 1997).
A third problem-solving strategy is trying to find analogies, or similarities, between
today’s problem and others you have encountered before. A supervisor may discover
that a seemingly hopeless problem between co-workers can be resolved by the same
compromise that worked during a recent family squabble. Of course, to take advantage
of analogies, you must first recognize the similarities between current and previous
problems. Then you will be in a position to recall the solution that worked before.
Unfortunately, most people are surprisingly poor at seeing the similarities between new
and old problems (Anderson, 2000). They tend to concentrate on the surface features
that make problems appear different.
T
FOCUS ON RESEARCH
he value of using analogies in problem
solving was beautifully illustrated in
Problem-Solving Strategies
relation to the Hubble Space Telescope.
In 1990, this telescope was placed in an earth
in the Real World
orbit to take detailed photographs of distant
galaxies, but because its main mirror was not
focusing light properly, the pictures were blurry. When NASA engineer James Crocker
happened to notice the way a hotel room showerhead pivoted, it gave him the idea for
a system of movable mirrors to correct for the flaw in the Hubble’s mirror. Shuttle
astronauts installed these mirrors in 1993, and the problem was solved (Stein, 1993).
How do people use the other problem-solving strategies we have described to solve
other real-world problems? To explore this question, researchers have reconstructed
problem-solving strategies associated with major inventions and scientific discoveries
(Klahr & Simon, 1999; Weber, 1992).
■ What was the researcher’s question?
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright successfully flew the first heavierthan-air flying machine. Gary Bradshaw (1993a, 1993b) was interested in identifying
the problem-solving strategies that led to this momentous event. He found that fortynine individuals or teams had worked on the problem of heavier-than-air flight, but
only the Wright brothers were successful. In fact, it took them only four years to develop
the airplane, whereas others worked for decades without success. Bradshaw asked, How
did the Wright brothers solve the problem of creating a heavier-than-air flying machine
when so many others had failed?
■ How did the researcher answer the question?
Bradshaw compared the written records left by all the individuals and teams who had
worked on an airplane design. Using this “comparative case study” method, he was able
to see patterns in the ways they approached the flying machine problem.