Problem Solving: A Problem for Teachers To Solve One of the most common difficulties that students of chemistry have is knowing how to apply the information and theoretical concepts they learn in class to solve their homework and examination problems. This is particularly true of students in introductory chemistry classes but can also applv to more advanced students when they are confronted kith brand new ideas. Teachers can become extremely frustrated when, after working a series of example problems in class, they discover that their students cannot solve a prohlem that contains even a minor variation in wording or content. The students gamely plunge in, either rotely following procedures they learned for a previous example that are inappropriate for the ~ u r r e n case t or, recognizing that they have a new situation, make random stabs at coming up with a solution, oblivious to the possibility of adapting the paradigms they have just been shown. Their ineptitude at prohlem solving should perhaps not surprise us so much. Mort introductory chemistry students are still young and their skills in solvine all urohlems in life-from how to handle an errant boylgirTfriend to what to do with the rest of their lives-seem equallv erratic. When we rehize-that teaching students t o solve chemical problems successfuly is just a subset of their learning how to solve problems in general, we are led to examine how people develop successful strategies for solving problems of all kinds and to learn more about how the human mind develops. The insights we gain from learning theory can be apd i e d to solvine our own "~rohlem":how t o eet our students to solve problems correctiy and efficient~y.~~everal articles in this issue discuss aspects of various theories of learning and how they relate to difficulties students have with problem solvine. Niaz (page 502) presents the modifications of &t forth by Pascual-Leone; these inthe ~ i a ~ e t y mod2 an volve an overall ratine of a student's information-processing capacity, which is expected to increase with age. ~e gives the results he obtained when testing these theories on a group of college freshman and lays out
