Why Solve Problems? – Interviewing College Faculty about the Learning and Teaching of Problem Solving

In this paper we describe the design and initial data analysis of an ongoing study that aims to determine the important elements, as perceived by faculty, of the learning and teaching of problem solving in the context of the introductory calculus based physics course. To elicit instructors’ beliefs that inform their instructional choices we designed an interview around three concrete situations: 1) instructors’ solutions, 2) students’ solutions, and 3) problems posed for students to solve. In each of these contexts we asked questions about 1) the perceived options, 2) instructional goals, and 3) actual practice. The interview was administered to 31 physics faculty. This paper, however, will discuss the preliminary results of a comparison of two instructors who are known to differ primarily in their approaches to the teaching of problem solving. There is evidence to suggest that the main difference between these two instructors (besides their actual practice) is not in their vision of the expert problem solving process. The main difference appears to be in the presence and treatment of competing models of learning and instruction.