Talk:Problem solving

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 September 2019 and 18 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nigelmh.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Reference farm
There are a huge number of "references" that have no citation in the text. I recommend we delete them all, keeping only those directly associated with a specific citation. - Do c  t  orW  07:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Many of them are being used as reference, they're just formatted unexpectedly. I think the first step is to reformat all the Problem_solving#Reference-(NAME) references with formatting. --Ronz (talk) 17:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Here's an example of how to reference them . I copied the wikicite-formatted information from the References section into ref formatting, naming the reference for future use. --Ronz (talk) 20:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Why only people?
I really think there should be information about problem solving as it relates to non-human species. This is supposed to be an article about "problem solving," not simply "human problem solving."

IMO there should be a summary of this current page, while the full contents should be moved to a new article named something like "Problem solving capability of humans." New sections should then be added to this article about problem solving as it relates to non-human life in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.10.191.192 (talk) 10:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I would think that one of the problems with problem solving is that there are too many different ways to solve the problem. How about: (1)What is the problem?, (2)What are the solutions to the problem?, (3)What is the best solution for the problem?, and (4)How do we implement the best solution? I forget where I learned that in a problem solving seminar, But I don't even know where it fits into this elaborate discussion.WFPM (talk) 17:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC) - I came to this page because Finland is ranked the best worldwide in Math, Reading and Science, but only 2nd in Problem Solving. So what nation is ranked the highest in problem solving at the secondary education level?!?!?!

writting books does a great difference when using this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.206.15.18 (talk) 09:23, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

,,,,
analyse world problems: choose an operation

to choose an operation for a problem, think about the action taking place... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.51.29.227 (talk) 14:21, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

'Problem Solving Techniques' needs refinement
A lot of the 33 techniques listed are actually the same or very similar, and one of the techniques is actually another list of techniques that seems to be focused on engineering/science rather than the general principle of solving a problem. And I seriously doubt that the 'WWXXD' method is either useful or practical -- I mean seriously, when has 'What Would Chuck Norris Do' ever solved a problem, let alone a real one?

I suggest that techniques be grouped into types, e.g. general, mathematical, logical, with AI, etc. Ideally, each item should link to another article and there should be no repeated items.

--Sg gower (talk) 04:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong agree. All what you say. Will you do the changes? BertSeghers (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made some changes. Most notably, I've just about halved the number of items in the list... Anything that was repeated or didn't have a corresponding article is gone. I've also split the section up into 'problem-solving techniques' and 'problem-solving methodologies', as the things that I am now calling methodologies used other or combinations of techniques rather than something different. Since there are now so few things on the list, it no longer seems apt to subdivide it into general, mathematical, etc. Tomorrow, I intend to slim down the extensive 'see also' section. Some things already linked to in previous sections are also there (like TRIZ and Reduction), and I'm sure some of things in that list belong in techniques or methodologies instead. SG Gower (talk) 22:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made all the changes that were really bugging me (more than halved 'see also'), but this article still could use some work. SG Gower (talk) 22:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Changing heading levels
It has occurred to me that 'Europe' and ' USA and Canada' should be sub-headings of 'Overview', as really they are extensions of the overview. Before making the change, I'd like to see what others think. --SG Gower (talk) 22:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is done, Overview is also renamed to History of the field. --Aleksd (talk) 16:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Is plaigarism an issue?
The second paragraph in the section 'Overview' is cut and pasted from "complex Problem Solving: The European Perspective - 10 Years After" by Funke and Frensche which is chapter 2 of D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), "Learning to solve complex scientific problems" (pp. 25-47). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007. In fact I suspect a large amount of the page comes from this in a pretty much unedited form. This is understandable as the chapter is one of the few English language publications by these important authors freely available on the net and is a great overview discussion.

I am not sure of where Wikipedia stands on this sort of thing. DrPutty (talk) 05:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm adding a copyvio tag so the issue will be investigated further. The original version (Feb. 2002) was taken from the sections "Historical Roots" and "The European Situation" on pp. 16-17 of Complex problem solving: the European perspective by Peter A. Frensch, Joachim Funke, Psychology Press, 1995 and was added by User:JoachimFunke, possibly one of the authors of a 1995 book from which nearly all the material was taken. The material was later deleted for COPYVIO but restored again with no explanation. I don't think the unquestioned material is enough to make a viable article and I don't have the expertise to rewrite it.--RDBury (talk) 06:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * What kind of template is that? You cannot blackout a whole issue for a paragraph, edit it if you want but what is this? --Aleksd (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am removing the template. Please do not use it on other articles. --Aleksd (talk) 16:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is that most of the article is under copyright and, as I understand it, it's actually illegal for it to be in Wikipedia, I'm was only trying for follow Wikipedia policy.--RDBury (talk) 02:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I reworked the intro and now I'm working on the copy-pasted text that possibly has some issues with authorship, however I wouldn't call it illegal if the author himself put it here. The text must be changed to fit W standards, needs addition of facts and removal of not so important details. Thence we can source it with the published book of the author rather than having something like multiple citations that has no real encyclopedic importance since sound more like a research. The article need major rework but deletion or blackout is too far as a measure. --Aleksd (talk) 14:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Also I would suggest for this kind of articles to be categorized in a way that people 'having the expertise' to rework them, there are W Projects in almost all areas and expert editors could help. --Aleksd (talk) 14:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Whether an author can add their own work to WP needs to be checked, generally the copyright is owned by the publisher and not the author and we have no way of knowing that the person claiming to be Joachim Funke was actually the person who added the material; WP does not ask people to verify their identity when they create an account. I agree that much of the article needs to be rewritten for style, but the result may not be sufficiently different to avoid copyright infringement.--RDBury (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you want? No article, maybe you are against Wikipedia too?
 * The intro is not of the author, you delete it all, the following paragraph is majorly restructured, the article will change, will you be calling it illegal still because of a historical reference? What is this? --Aleksd (talk) 10:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * What is this? This is policy: Copyrights, Copyright violations. What RDBury did was a completely proper response to the situation he found: WP:CV101. This template you told him not to use is one of the recommended responses for this situation. Thanks to RDBury, we now have confirmed license with the contributor for the content. Comments like "maybe you are against Wikipedia too?", on the other hand, contradict policy: Assume good faith, Civility. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I assume that you know the meaning of the word illegal, you cannot call something illegal in obviously not being such case, to say that the author confirmed after the illegal defining of the situation I rather call it an embarassing situation if not something else. --Aleksd (talk) 13:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The focus on the word "illegal" isn't really helpful, as what's at question here is the policy. It is illegal for Wikipedia to host substantial copyrighted content without permission beyond the allowances of fair use. It is policy when content is previously published to verify that the author is able to license the content. The template that is used (see here) says nothing about the legality of the content, nor does it even confirm that the content is an infringement of copyright. It is used for investigations and includes directions for copyright holders on how to verify ownership. The author of the content was not in any way upset with us for verifying this and in fact thanked us in his letter. It is a service to copyright holders as well as to our reusers to make sure that material is compliant with the law. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, it was only me who used the word "illegal" and I said it was under my (apparently limited) understanding. So I apologize if the word is causing confusion as the to reasons for WP policies and procedures. To me, the priority now is to get past this issue and go on to fix the other problems with the article. This is an important subject and the article gets a large number of views, so it would be nice if the article was of correspondingly high quality.

I come here because of a post to User talk:Moonriddengirl, a page I'm normally watching due to the amount of posting I do to it. I've restored the copyvio tag and it should not now be removed. Having taken a quick look between the very first version of the article and the current version there's way too much similarity there and so we must proceed as if this is a copyright violation. Now we are aware of the situation we would be remiss not to remove the text while it is investigated. Yes, the tag is big and ugly but that's the agreed upon process, partly because of the potential legal issues, and shouldn't be removed just because you don't like it.

In this instance it seems likely that the author uploaded the original text but we cannot take that at face value. On wikipedia there is no verification of user names is done when accounts are created so we have no way to be certain that the person is who they say they are, hence why they must follow the OTRS process. This can also be useful in verifying that the author knows what rights they are releasing (i.e. to modify as well as to copy).

As per the instructions on the tag the process if you wish to rewrite the page is to create a temporary page and leave the tag on the original page until an admin, OTRS agent or clerk comes and deals with it. In creating a temporary page you also need of be very careful of creating a derivative work as this would still be copyrighted to the original author. Dpmuk (talk) 18:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I should also add that text in question may well have been added before OTRS existed but I see no sign on talk here of the (quite dubious) procedures used before that. Normally, at this stage, I'd leave a message on the contributor's talk page telling them of the situation but as they haven't edited in other four and a half years I'm not sure how much help that would be. I'll mentions this at User talk:Moonriddengirl as she may be willing to try to contact the author through OTRS. Dpmuk (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I am indeed; I've written him, and let's hope that he's able to confirm soon. At that point, we'll be able to restore the content without issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Grammatical errors in "Computer Science and alogorithmics" along with a lack of references.
There are a few grammatical errors at the end of the section entitled "Computer science and algorithmics". These petty errors should be fixed speedily. There are also no references for this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.44.119.89 (talk) 23:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Theory of problem solving
Should this redirect here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:07, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Section "Collective problem solving"?
What do you think about a new section (or even article?) "Collective problem solving"?

It could feature relevant content from Collective intelligence.

It's relatively broad - just as the topic of "Problem solving" and could feature broad and diverse content on the topic of societal problem solving and other forms of collective problem solving...

Could anybody help out with it?

--Fixuture (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * "Collective problem solving" sounds interesting, but also note the section titles "Computer science and algorithmics", "Engineering", and "Military science", which are all collective endeavors. And some of the methods listed in the section titled "Problem-solving methods" are used in collective problem solving, no doubt. Before creating an article titled "Collective problem solving" you would need to be prepared to prove that the topic is sufficiently notable to merit an article separate from this one. For example, I created the article on problem structuring methods, and I am confident that that topic meets the general notability guidelines. Notability is less of an issue for a new section. Biogeographist (talk) 18:27, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. However, I could not find any content on collective problem solving in any of the three sections you named. There are many things that the section might cover, including crowdsourcing and from a quick research it looks like it meets WP:N. --Fixuture (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I meant that computer science, engineering, and military science are all collective endeavors (not just the work of one person), and so could be considered examples of collective problem solving in general. I didn't intend to imply that those sections would substitute for a section on "collective problem solving", only that they are related. If you think you have enough content for a new section, be bold and start it. You may not get a lot of help, as this article doesn't appear to receive much attention. This article and the article on decision-making share, I think, the similar problem of applying to such a large range of behavior and areas of study that both articles are rather diffuse and neglected (in need of intensive attention from multiple experts but perhaps unlikely to receive it). Biogeographist (talk) 20:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Problem structuring methods (PSMs) section
Following the problem-solving methods, I think it would be helpful to add a short section about Problem structuring methods. Problem-solving is a broad topic, and not all problem-solving methods are valid/useful/possible in a given problem space. The Cynefin framework is an example of a tool to help problem-solvers determine what methods they can use. It would useful if we can research more PSMs apart from the Cynefin framework and expand on existing references given in the PSM wiki page (i.e. 'soft systems methodology, the strategic choice approach, and strategic options development and analysis (SODA)'). LithiumEnergy (talk) 09:49, 24 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I created the article on PSMs. I am not sure that inserting a section about PSMs would help this article; the article has more serious issues that need to be addressed. I consider the Cynefin framework to be not a PSM but an aid to decide (among other things) when to use PSMs. There is a link in this article's See also section to the article on PSMs. In the most recent edit I added Template:See also links to Category:Problem solving skills, Category:Problem solving methods, Category:Problem structuring methods. Biogeographist (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, there is no mention of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning in the problem-solving article, although they're both closely related! Oliver siegel (talk) 22:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

merge from collaborative problem-solving: proposal
collaborative p. s. adds nothing in terms of new insights or different perspectives. if collective p. s. is not collaborative, what is? -- Kku (talk) 13:16, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 21:02, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Descriptive versus prescriptive problem solving methods
This article fails to distinguish between descriptive studies of problem solving in psychology and prescriptive studies in other disciplines. Logperson (talk) 08:48, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

RELEVANCY
The definition of the word problem solving is the process or act of finding a solution to a problem.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/problem-solving

Under the section DEFINITION it states the following:

The term problem solving means slightly different things depending on the discipline. For instance, it is a mental process in psychology and a computerized process in computer science. There are two different types of problems, ill-defined and well-defined: different approaches are used for each. Well-defined problems have specific goals and clear expected solutions, while ill-defined problems do not. Well-defined problems allow for more initial planning than ill-defined problems.[1] Solving problems sometimes involves dealing with pragmatics, the way that context contributes to meaning, and semantics, the interpretation of the problem. The ability to understand what the goal of the problem is, and what rules could be applied, represents the key to solving the problem. Sometimes the problem requires abstract thinking or coming up with a creative solution.

There is a clear inconsistency in the true definition of the word and the definition shared on this page.

With regard to the inconsistent and false definition of the word PROBLEM SOLVING

I agree that the word problem solving means something different to different people but that does not mean the definition of the WORD is different.

THEREFOR, the Top section, should begin with the definition of the term. And the definition of the word problem solving should stay true to the true definition.

Problem solving is the process or act of finding a solution to a problem.

Next, the section below should STATE

PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS

The Problem Solving process consists of a sequence of sections that fit together depending on the type of problem to be solved. These are:

Problem Definition. Problem Analysis. Generating possible Solutions. Analyzing the Solutions. Selecting the best Solution(s). Planning the next course of action (Next Steps) — Preceding unsigned comment added by StarkeSolutions (talk • contribs) 20:59, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Organization and Clarity
Problem solving is such a broad topic. It can involve a number of things and subtopics. There either needs to be better organization of the sections, or this page should focus solely on cognitive psychology/human problem solving. That would make this article, better and more clear. Having less topics in each section will bring clarity.

The lead includes many different techniques to problem solving, such as, philosophy or medicine, but then they are hardly mentioned at all in the rest of the article. They could be added if they do support the topic, but otherwise it is better off to rewrite the lead. The focus is to write about what is mentioned in the rest of the article. Otherwise it may cause confusion for readers. The lead can also include how the article mentions specifically the definition, strategies, etc. There can be references to other methods of problem solving, but make it breif.

I don't see the need to add the military science, engineering, and computer science as part of the definition. Military science wasn't even mentioned in the lead. All these changes I suggest only enhance the article. --Aheuer15 (talk) 20:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree! Also, there is no mention of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning which is closely related, especially in methodologies. Oliver siegel (talk) 22:08, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

"General Problem Solver" is not mentioned as a method
I tried to make an edit to list it as a problem-solving method, but it got rejected. Not sure why!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Problem_Solver Oliver siegel (talk) 23:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * You added a link to Global Positioning System, not that article. I removed it rather than fixing the link because I do not believe that adding a link to an obsolete software program from 1959 is an improvement to this article. MrOllie (talk) 00:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

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