Can Students Identify the Relevant Information to Solve a Problem?

Solving non-routine problems is one of the most important skills for the 21st century. Traditional paper– pencil tests cannot assess this type of skill well because of their lack of interactivity and inability to capture procedural data. Tools such as MicroDYN and MicroFIN have proved to be trustworthy in assessing complex problem-solving performances in the dynamic environments representing linear structural equations and finite state automata. In contrast to previous studies, this paper introduces a system that assesses how an individual acquires information to solve real-life problems. Specifically, the system investigated whether fifth-grade students could recognize a situation in which additional information is needed, acquire the relevant information, and finally apply it to solve their problems. By running an experiment with a total of 32 fifth-grade students, we found that the students were usually able to recognize situations when they needed additional information. However, students sometimes spent too much time reading irrelevant materials, which was significantly correlated with worse problem-solving performance (r = 0.417, p = .018).