| One of major goals of education is to prepare effective and efficient problem solvers. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the DEEPER framework of scaffolding problem solving on three important variables: problem-solving performance, domain knowledge acquisition, and transfer of knowledge in a problem-based learning environment in higher education. In this quasi-experimental study, the pretest-posttest control group design was used to collect data. One hundred and nine students participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to two groups: the treatment group and the control group. The two groups were asked to solve an ill-structured problem on the role of aqua insects in the biological assessment of river water. The control and treatment groups differed in the nature of instructional scaffolding that they received during problem solving. The treatment group used the DEEPER process scaffolds, and the control group was asked to solve the problem using a more traditional, rationale-based scaffold. The data was gathered to determine if there were any differences between the groups on three dependent variables: domain knowledge, transfer of knowledge, and problem-solving performance. The findings of this study demonstrate that while the implementation of the DEEPER scaffolding of problem-solving resulted in improved problem-solving performance in the treatment group, differences were not observed on the measure of domain knowledge acquisition. Transfer of knowledge was not significantly impacted according to a test of the differences in group means, however correlational analyses revealed a positive relationship between two of the DEEPER tasks and performance on the measure of knowledge transfer. Most of the tasks embedded within each of the DEEPER scaffolding steps were positively correlated with students' problem-solving performance and the magnitude of these relationships was moderate to strong. Thus, it appears that the DEEPER framework for scaffolding problem solving provides a useful method for designing and structuring problem-solving activities for novice science learners at the higher education level. |
