Problem Solving/Creativity - Research Paper Example

Problem Solving/Creativity Interviewing and Observational Strategies Assignment Underlying Meaning The interview involved a relative who is a student in a neighboring school, and focused on the student’s narrow perceptions in his learning including perceptions of his teachers. It was a standardized interview and the questions were in an open ended format. The student’s responses revealed a tendency to repeat certain words. The first question required the student to describe teachers who make learning enjoyable.

He responded that: “Our classroom teacher, Mr. Johnson teaches literature very well and makes the lesson interesting. In addition, our physics teacher; Mr. Collins is a very interesting teacher and I like him. Generally, I like teachers who make lessons interesting.” Remarkably, the word ‘interesting’ was repeated severally in the response. I questioned the meaning of the word interesting as used in his reply. He posed a bit and I assisted him by suggesting that he meant teachers who made good comments in class.

“Yes”, he replied and added that interesting teachers to him were teachers who made good comments in class, who gave good information from different text books, and who gave different tests and good materials to read. Moreover, repetition of the words ‘was good’ was evident, which the interviewee used in describing education material or course work. This time, I assisted the interviewee by suggesting the meaning of the word ‘good’ as he used in his statements. I suggested that the word ‘good’ meant educational materials that were not boring, and those that were not too difficult for him to handle.

“Exactly” he replied. Generally, I realized that when the interviewer suggests the underlying meaning to something that the interviewer says, it becomes easy to uncover the meaning of the words or phrases with vague meanings, and helps the interviewee to express their views without much hustling (McInerney et al, 2011). On the other hand, the client may feel a bit challenged often when is asked to explain the words or phrases with vague meanings (McInerney et al, 2011 & Runyan & William1977).

Class #2 Cognitive Psychology Assignment #2 Problem Solving There are various barriers that impede people from solving problems effectively. One of the barriers is focusing on irrelevant information. In solving problems that use numerical information for instance, people often assume that all the numerical information related to the problem is required to solve it (Weiten, 2010). They end up focusing on irrelevant information, which in most cases, adversely affects reasoning and problem solving.

The other problem is rigid thinking which occurs when the mental set interferes with effective problem solving. This occurs when people persist in using only problem solving strategies that have worked in the past (Weiten, 2010). In addition, the presence of unnecessary constraints is another barrier to solving problems effectively (Freeman et al, 2008). Functional fixedness also acts as an obstacle in successful problem solving. This is the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use.

One of the best options to tackling problems is to form sub-goals or intermediate steps towards a solution. A good illustration of this is a situation in which a general targets to capture an enemy’s city. Successful capturing of the city would require an attack by a large army, but the roads leading to the city might have been blocked by mines. The roads around the mines may be designed in a way that large groups of people may not pass at that same time, but it would be possible for small groups of people to pass safely.

The best approach in this case would be to divide the army into several small groups, which would pass the roads around the mines safely such that the small groups will meet at the enemy’s city from different angles. All that would be necessary to vary the speed of the different groups so that they would all meet at the destination point at the same time (Weiten, 2010). In short, to solve such a problem effectively would require formulation of sub-goals and to take any advantage available in the situation.

Class #2 Assignment #3 Cognitive psychology Creativity is a process of using ingenuous ways to solve problems that seem normal or rather simple to the majority. Such solutions involve the use of the commonly known principles to bring about the required results in a situation that seems too obvious to many, who have not thought of such an approach before. Runco (2007) explains that creativity has to be completely separated from intelligence. Early researches studied the relationship between the two observed have revealed that creativity is not dependent on intelligence, though with intelligence creativity can be easily indentified (Runco, 2007).

This means that creativity can be applied by anyone in any daily activity and is not a preserve of some people. VanGudy (2004) further elaborates that the rapid changing environment that involves diverse and sometimes complex elements would require flexible and innovative problem solution responses. This calls for and justifies creativity in our daily lives. Assume a situation where people live in a remote and dry place, where water is scarce and can only be found deep beneath the earth service.

As people have to use water to survive, a way has to be found by such a community to get the water for their daily usage. The place is remote with no electricity coverage, and the people cannot afford to fuel nor do they have enough knowledge involving generators. One creative way that was used to solve this problem creatively was to design a set of pulley system, a rope and a trunk that runs across the hole. By using the pulley system to wind and rewind the rope around the trunk, the people could comfortably and easily draw the water from deep beneath with little effort.

This was a case that portrayed a high rate of creativity among the ones who designed the system, even though they came from a remote village where machinery had to come by. Creativity is thus a preserve for all in their daily activities to solve any problems that have to be encountered on a daily basis. References Freeman, A., Felgoise, S. H. & Davis, D. D., (2008). Basic techniques for clinicians, Clinical Psychology: Integrating Science and Practice, London: John Wiley and Sons McInerney, D. M., Walker, R. A. & Liem, G. A. D., (2011). Learning approach, Socio-cultural Theories of Learning and Motivation: Looking Back, Looking Forward, New York: IAP Runco M. A., (2007).

Creativity: theories and themes: research, development, and practice. MA: Elsevier Academic Press. Runyan & William M., (1977). How should treatment recommendations be made? Three studies in the logical and empirical bases of clinical decision making, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 45(4), p. 552 VanGundy B.A., (2004). 101 activities for teaching creativity and problem solving. NJ: Wiley & Sons. Weiten W., (2010), Problem Solving: in search of Solutions, Psychology: Themes and Variations.

CA: Cengage Learning