WHY GOAL-FREE PROBLEMS CAN FACILITATE LEARNING

Novices solving two-move mathematics problems which require the calculation of a subgoal and a goal make significantly more errors on the subgoal stage. The increase in errors at the subgoal stage is called the stage effect and occurs because of increased cognitive load at the subgoal stage during application of a backward-working heuristic such as means-ends analysis. This experiment found that presentation of goal-free problems, which automatically reduces the use of means-ends analysis, prevents the stage effect from occurring. In contrast, the same problem set presented in a conventional fashion generated a strong stage effect. A comparison between the groups also found that the goal-free group was superior at finding the correct solution path through the problem space. It was concluded that presentation of goal-free, two-move problems will enhance learning in comparison to conventional problems because there is both a reduced cognitive load and an automatically simplified path to solution. © 1993 Academic Press. All rights reserved.