The Cognitive Map and Real–Life Problem Solving

Dorothy Howie

This chapter outlines the value and role of the Cognitive Map, particularly for addressing real-life problem-solving tasks. It discusses in detail the parameters or dimensions of the Cognitive Map. It then applies the Cognitive Map to three real-life problem-solving tasks, which vary in their level of challenge or demand. These tasks are the Plan of Search task, the River Crossing task, and real-life decision making and self advocacy. For each real-life problem-solving task, the task is first analyzed using the parameters of the Cognitive Map, and then an example of change with intervention on this task is given.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter suggests that the Cognitive Map, a key analytical tool arising from Feuerstein's theory of mediated learning experience (MLE), is of particular value in the analysis of real-life problem-solving tasks, and their enhancement. One of the arguments for the enhancement of cognitive abilities in general, and real-life problem-solving skills in particular, is the need we all have for meeting the rapid changes in our world today with a positive sense of challenge, and with the ability to creatively contribute to that change (Feuerstein, 1998; Howie, 2003b). It is of interest that an important cognitive psychologist, Professor Anne Brown, in predicting possible developments in intelligence testing in this new millennium, when writing in 1979 (Brown and French), identified a real need to analyze real-life problem-solving needs, and to develop tools to assess them. Feuerstein's Cognitive Map has some important contributions to make to this challenge.

ROLE OF THE COGNITIVE MAP

Feuerstein describes the Cognitive Map as a way to conceptualize the relationship between the characteristics of a task and its performance by a learner (Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, & Miller, 1980). In a subsequent paper, Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, Egozi and Ben-Schachar (1991) describe the cognitive map as a conceptual framework that enables them to analyze tasks that require mental operations. They see the use of its parameters to analyze and pinpoint the possible sources of failure inherent in a particular task. In a triangular model, such as that presented figurally by Howie (2003b, p. 81, following Mentis, 1999), and shown in Figure 8.1, the Cognitive Map appears in relation to “the task,” with these links shown. Below the Cognitive Map appears Feuerstein's intervention program, Instrumental Enrichment (IE), which provides MLE in a systematic way in order to enhance all cognitive functioning, including real-life problem-solving skills. The Cognitive Map allows the mediator to think about aspects or characteristics of the tasks presented

in Instrumental Enrichment, and to think about the difficulties the learner may be experiencing in responding to these characteristics. The mediator can then choose, as a mediation strategy, to modify or manipulate characteristics of the task, either to test out any ideas or hypotheses the mediator might have concerning the learner's difficulties on the task, or to provide options for manipulating the learning process through changing task characteristics. The mediator then has a wider range of options, with possible task-focused changes, as well as mediator-focused changes, and learner-focused changes.

In a similar way, the cognitive map can be used with any other task, including real-life problem-solving tasks.

PARAMETERS OF THE COGNITIVE MAP

One of the most important task centered parameters of the Cognitive Map is that of the Cognitive Operations. As communicated by David Susson (1993), in a trainer's workshop session at Shoresh, and following the distinction made by the late Mildred Hoffman, an important trainer in Instrumental Enrichment, the cognitive operations involved in the Cognitive Map play a more central role than do the cognitive functions in any problem-solving task. The cognitive operations are the central mental operations which are required to carry out the task. He used as an example the sorting of clothes, for example, in choice of new clothes. The cognitive operations involved include comparison and categorization, with drawing up a list of parameters essential to the information gathering and decision making, including size, color, style, etc. These operations of comparison and categorization are involved in transfer of information collected and generation of new ideas and choices which will help in the problem solving. They are the essential operations which characterize the problem-solving task. In contrast, cognitive functions or dysfunctions, which in Figure 8.1 are considered to belong more to learner characteristics, were viewed by Susson as more peripheral mental activities which are necessary to carry out the cognitive operations. For example, in the real-life problem-solving task of choosing clothes, one of these cognitive functions includes clear and precise perception of all of the information covering each parameter. Both the Cognitive Operations and the Cognitive Functions, as internalized mental activities, can be placed at points along the three phases of the Mental Act, another component of the Cognitive Map. However, as described by Feuerstein et al. (1980), these three phases of the Mental Act—input, elaboration, and output—help to locate the sources of inadequate response by the learner, and to determine the nature and extent of mediation the examiner must provide; so they can be seen as more learner and mediator focused than task focused. However, Feuerstein and his colleagues (1991) do assert that analyzing the Mental Act in terms of these three phases helps one to understand where in the process of carrying out a task there is difficulty, rather than just making a global evaluation based on the “end product.” Feuerstein and his colleagues (1991) also state that they used the information-processing model involving input, elaboration, and output as the major phases of the Mental Act.

This process of analyzing the cognitive operations of a task is often called “task analysis.” A mediator must be familiar with each of the key components (cognitive operations) required to carry out the process of task solution in order not only to mediate this process to the learner, but to encourage the learner to transfer that learning to new tasks which require similar cognitive operations. This is why Feuerstein outlines so carefully for each Instrumental Enrichment instrument the key cognitive operations involved, and gives many examples of bridging in the manuals for the instruments.

In their 1991 paper, Feuerstein and his colleagues note that cognitive operations may range from purely perceptual and reproductive ones, such as the operation involved in “recognition,” to more formal and abstract operations involved in inferential, inductive, and deductive reasoning.

A broader conceptualization of the dimension of operations is provided by Rand (1991), a joint author of the key publication on Instrumental Enrichment (Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, & Miller, 1980). He presents what is really a hierarchical model, with operations being the outcome of the cognitive functions. Acting within the “psychologically interiorized structure,” three main cognitive functions (listed below), made up of a complex of components, are expressed in distinctive patterns terns of behavior. He wants to include processes such as emotions and motivations within these cognitive functions, thus making his model particularly important for real-life problem solving. The three main cognitive functions are: (1) cognitive capacity (including innate and acquired abilities, both cognitive and metacognitive knowledge, and the necessary cognitive prerequisites for the functioning concerned); (2) need (“an internalized energizing psychological system which is function bound” (p. 80), and which “may result in adequate adaptations or problem-solving behavior under a wide array of conditions” (p. 80); and (3) orientation, which “determines the individual's choice of the content domain, the setting or the framework towards which problem-solving efforts are geared” (p. 81). In his broadest sense of the term “operation,” Rand wants to include both directly observable behavior and internalized mental operations, such as a thought or a more complex thinking process.

Rand concludes that “in order to evaluate such representational mental activities, assessment tools, administration and interpretational systems of the individual's performance will have to be more sophisticated and more differentiated so as to enable the examiner to distinguish between these interrelated processes … the relative impact of the basic components of the function (FU) in producing the final operation (OP)” (pp. 85–86). This conclusion is in line with the aims of this chapter.

Other parameters or dimensions of the Cognitive Map which are clearly task focused include the content around which the task is centered, what Feuerstein calls the “universe of content” upon which the mental act is centered, or in common usage, the subject matter. In our example above, the content is the problem-solving task of choosing new clothes. Feuerstein and his colleagues (1991) see the content as the parameter of least concern or importance, in that its choice should be dependent on and fitting in to what is chosen for the focus of the learning enhancement, such as the prerequisites of learning.

This content or subject matter can be presented in a number of different modalities, with modality forming another parameter of the Cognitive Map. The modality may be concrete, pictorial, figural, graphic, verbal, symbolic, etc. In the real-world problem-solving task of choosing clothes, the modality is usually concrete real-life experience, but strategies could be discussed before the application in real-life through work in a pictorial form, such as cartoons, or work in a verbal form, such as story examples. The modality can be changed to suit the learner's abilities, or the learner's preferences (learning styles). Feuerstein and his colleagues (1991) call these modalities “language of presentation” and encourage the use of different modalities in presenting concepts and problems so that use of one particular modality (such as a verbal modality) does not become a barrier to learning.

For each task the content can be varied in terms of other parameters of the Cognitive Map. One parameter is the level of complexity of the task, involving both the number of units of information involved (few to many), and the novelty of the task to the learner (familiar to novel). Another parameter is the level of abstraction of the task, involving the continuum of more concrete to more abstract. More functionally, Feuerstein and his colleagues (1991) define the level of abstraction as the distance between a mental act and its concrete component. For example, touching a table, with a direct sensorial experience, involves zero distance. The distance becomes greater as symbols and words are used at increasing levels of abstraction to describe and conceptualize the table.

The final parameter or dimension of the Cognitive Map is the level of efficiency required for a given task to be mastered. Several criteria can be used to show us how efficiently a mental act (in our case a real-life problem-solving process) can be performed. These are how rapidly it is performed, how precisely it is performed and how much effort is required to perform the task. If too much effort is required in choosing clothes (e.g., by an elderly or overweight person), or if too many mistakes are made in the choice process, this task might be avoided altogether.

THREE REALLIFE PROBLEMSOLVING TASKS: ANALYSIS, AND CHANGE WITH INTERVENTION

In this section, each task will first be analyzed using the parameters of the Cognitive Map discussed in the previous section. In particular, the cognitive functions and operations described in the Experimental Version of the Instrumental Enrichment program (Feuerstein & Hoffman, 1988) will be drawn upon. Then an actual example of change on this task in association with intervention, from research carried out in New Zealand, will be provided. Rand's model of operations will be drawn on to help interpret the change.

The Plan of Search Task

This real-life problem-solving task comes from the Stanford Binet test (Terman and Merrill, 1960), found at the 13-year level. The test manual states “the purpose of this test is to determine whether the subject can execute a plan of search that meets the logical requirements of the problem” (p. 239), so this task requires logical reasoning.

The subject is shown a sheet of paper with a blank “field” drawn on it and is asked to show where he/she would go to find his/her wallet which has been lost in the field. According to an analysis using the Cognitive Map, the parameters for this task can be described in this manner:

1. Content: searching for a lost wallet/purse in a field, a real-life problem-solving task.
2. Modality: pictorial/symbolic. The field is symbolized by a diamond shape, and the lines are drawn by the problem-solver to show where to go in the search, symbolizing the search plan.
3. Phase functions and operations.

At the input phase the problem-solver must perceive precisely and define the task, taking in and understanding the instructions and the depiction of the field presented. This requires “segregation and articulation of the field.” It also involves understanding the “rules” of the task. The problem-solver must interpret correctly the term “show me,” appreciating that lines must be used to “represent” the search; thus the operation of representation is strongly involved in this task. Representation of changes in orientation and direction are also involved. Attention to temporal sequence is also involved in this task, as the problem-solver needs to think about where to look first, then later. Several sources of information need to be considered, including the size of the field and the shape of the field.

At the elaboration phase, definition of the problem continues. How-ever, in this phase, the strongest cognitive function involved is planning behavior, required in a systematic search for the wallet/purse. This is needed to overcome a function appearing at the output phase, trial and error responding. The problem-solver needs to use several types of thinking in working out a plan, which should be done first as a possible plan, using internal thought processes, and then produced as a plan through lines on the “field.” This involves the operation of internalization for projection of the relationships between the parts, whereby the problem-solver orientates himself or herself to the field. The problem-solver then hypothesizes where the wallet might be, and therefore the ground that will need to be covered to find it. Given that no information is available about the actual location of the wallet/purse, the problem-solver ought to infer that it could be anywhere in the field. The deduction then needs to be made that the plan of search should cover systematically the entire field. The operations of both inductive thinking and deductive thinking are therefore involved in this task, and the problem-solver must draw on logical evidence in carrying out these operations.

Finally, at the output phase, the problem-solver needs accuracy and precision in drawing the lines symbolizing the search plan. This actual drawing of the plan involves the function of visual transport, with the plan as conceived “in the mind's eye” being transported to the “field” on the paper. Correct projection of the relationships of place, time, and direction will be needed in that output representation. In order to complete the task systematically, trial and error functioning, and impulsivity, should be restrained. Any blocking and lack of flexibility in this final drawing of the plan need to be overcome.

1. Level of complexity: the task occurs at the 13-year level of the Binet test, suggesting that the reasoning involved is considerable, although the units of information involved seem limited. Also, it is a task which would, in its essential aspects, be very familiar to the problem-solver. We search for lost things and people from an early age. Good search strategies may have been learnt well before the age of 13.
2. The level of abstraction: the task involves producing relationships between a drawn field, a plan at abstract level, and a plan produced at a motor level. This concrete-abstract-concrete linking is not at the highest abstract-abstract level.
3. The level of efficiency: this is delineated by the scoring criteria outlined in the Binet manual for this task.

Clearly the Organization of Dots instrument, which covers all of the functions and operations involved in this task, and with its focus on planning and strategic thinking, will be central to an effective intervention. In addition, the Orientation in Space I instrument also addresses all the required functions, and has a particular focus on the internalization, orientation, and inferential and deductive thinking operations involved in the task.

Actual case example

This case example is drawn from a project with Maori adolescents in a large urban school in Auckland, New Zealand (Howie, Richards and Pirihi, 1993). The learner, a Maori student in the lowest class of a large remedial division in a South Auckland school, when first given the Plan of Search task, held the pencil, just stared, and then said “I don't know what you mean—do you just draw on this?” He was then given the instructions several times, but was unable to respond. In terms of his general cognitive ability prior to intervention (his “capacity” in Rand's term), on the verbal subtest of the Wechsler-R Scale, his raw scores were: Information 12, Similarities 16, Vocabulary 30, and Comprehension 17. He was then exposed to a two year intensive intervention with the Instrumental Enrichment Program, but because extra enrichment lessons were included, only five instruments were completed. These were the Organization of Dots, Comparisons, Orientation in Space I, Family Relations, and Categorization instruments. Note that the Instructions instrument was not used. This learner's responses to three of these instruments, Organization of Dots, Comparisons, and Orientation in Space, were tracked before, during, and after the intervention with each instrument, using single subject research design.

On the Organization of Dots instrument, before intervention this learner had minimal (but not completely failing) success on this instrument, but quickly moved to complete success, almost consistently over repeated measurement, on training with this instrument. His comparison abilities on the Comparison instrument were at a slightly higher level than those on Organization of Dots, early in the baseline measurement. However, before intervention with the Comparisons instrument, and following some intervention with Organization of Dots he had already moved to a higher level of performance on the Comparisons instrument, suggesting some transfer of learning. Finally, for the Orientation in Space Instrument, again, in association with training on the earlier instruments, and before training within this instrument, he was already moving towards the highest level of performance on the Orientation in Space Instrument, achieved immediately on training with this instrument.

This pattern shows a strong capacity for learning from mediation with the Instrumental Enrichment instruments, and an ability to transfer such learning. It was therefore no surprise, then, that following the full two year intervention, and when presented again with the Plan of Search task, he showed a markedly different response to that shown before intervention. He drew detailed pathways through the field, while verbalizing “Its [sic] telling me to go straight through the paddock, in the middle of the paddock so I won't miss anything. Check right down to the end so I won't miss anything. Its telling me to check by the fence line so I won't miss anything: to go back to the fence again. And I check on the other side to make sure. I might have been on the other side. Its telling me to turn in a different direction, now I just go back in the middle, to overcheck it. I go back to the outside of the fence, double check it again. Now I check it on the other side. I can't think of anything else.” He also made a significant shift on the Similarities subtest of the Wechsler-R Scale, shifting the raw score from 16 to 22.

This response in association with mediation, involving transfer both to verbal conceptual tasks (similarities) and real-life problem solving (plan of search) suggests that his classroom placement did not reflect his real cognitive capacities. In terms of need, and orientation identified as important by Rand, it is possible that the novelty of the task for him, and anxiety about succeeding, may have led to some form of emotional “blocking” when initially presented with the real-life problem-solving task. He certainly appeared confident in his ability to solve the task following IE intervention, and used the strategic skills taught within the IE program. He was able to carry out the operations required by this task successfully, with very little effort, i.e., at a high level of efficiency.

The River Crossing Task

The river crossing task is a real-life problem-solving task used by Thick-penny in a project aimed at meeting the cognitive enhancement needs of able students at an intermediate school in Auckland, New Zealand, which was reported in Howie (2003b). It is a task that requires both real-life problem-solving and creativity, as required in the project. It is similar to an item in the Wechsler-R Picture Arrangement subtest (Wechsler, 1974) where a dog develops a strategy for taking her puppies over a stream. Wechsler considers such a task to be a powerful measure of metacognitive strategies. This task also appears as the cartoon “Mother Dog and her Puppies” in the Illustrations instrument of the Instrumental Enrichment program.

We therefore have the advantage of Feuerstein's own analysis of this task using the Cognitive Map:

• Content: a human experience which requires a direct solution to a river crossing problem, which also requires leadership and creative thinking. It is basically a means-end problem-solving problem.
• Modality: pictorial and symbolic.
• Phase: functions and operations.

At the input phase the problem-solver needs to precisely and clearly perceive the details within each frame presented, and the changes which occur from frame to frame. This requires “segregation and articulation” of the field, as well as “recognition, identification, discrimination and differentiation.” It also requires systematic attention to each part of the whole and the relationship between these parts through systematic frame by frame exploration, using the operations of “seriation” and “sequencing.” Key information needs to be labeled, involving “representation,” and particularly representation of changes. Use of temporal and spatial concepts or information is required, with understanding of conservation and constancy of the elements across the transformations occurring from frame to frame, i.e., understanding of the temporal sequence. Finally, the use of several sources of information is required. This problem therefore presents a heavy requirement in input phase skills and operations.

At the elaboration phase, the problem must be defined. The problem-solver needs then to select the relevant information from each frame, including using spontaneous comparison from frame to frame, to find similarities and differences from frame to frame as well as among objects and occurrences within each frame. Relationships between the individuals, objects and events shown in the frames need to be drawn, using inferential thinking. According to Feuerstein, on this task inductive, deductive, and analogical thinking operations are involved. The information then needs to be summed up (“synthesis”) before hypothetical thinking is used, with its logical evidence to support the divergent thinking needed for the solution. There also needs to be a breakdown of egocentricity through considering the solutions from the viewpoints of others.

Finally, at the output phase, the problem-solver needs to use visual transport in projecting the relationships, and clear and precise communication of the solution reached.

1. Level of complexity: the tasks are complex, with several sources of information to be used, and considered on a number of parameters.
2. The level of abstraction: there is a concrete (pictorial) to abstract relationship drawing needed, which is not the highest abstract-to-abstract level of abstraction.
3. The level of efficiency: the output in terms of a correct problem solution formed the efficiency of the problem solving.

Actual case examples from the Thickpenny project

Both of the Form I and Form II groups of more able students involved in this project made significant gains on this River Crossing Task, in association with the enrichment program provided. This enrichment program was made up of enhancement training carried out once a week over two terms of a three-term school year. In this enhancement training, key mediation concepts from Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device (Feuerstein, Rand, & Hoffman, 1979) intervention and Instrumental Enrichment were covered. These included problem definition, where students were taught to describe and define the problem carefully, using a set of 60 problem content cards covering real-life, maths, and science problems. Another element taught was obtaining relevant information as an important process, again using the problem cards as examples. Particular work was also carried out on controlling thinking in a problem-solving situation, with students taught how to use a self-monitoring “think aloud” procedure. Students were also taught how to seek strategies for solution of problems, and to generalize the problem-solving strategies to real life (including group engagement in real-life activities that involved strategic planning, such as planning a field trip actually undertaken).

It was therefore not surprising that students appeared able to generalize problem solving from this enhancement training to the River Crossing real-life problem-solving task.

In relation to Rand's intrapsychic processes, these were students who were identified as having above average cognitive capacities, as a selection criteria for the project. In terms of needs and orientation, interviews with the students involved, following the enhancement training, indicated that the students found the project “enjoyable, interesting and useful” (Project report analyzing interviews, reported by Howie, 2003b). Many of the students commented that they used the problem-solving techniques in real-life situations such as at home, in personal relationships, in thinking about their future plans, etc. They reported enjoying being able to discuss ideas freely, important in this case example for hypothetical thinking and generating creative solutions. The peer context of the training, with enjoyment of the “relaxed and friendly comradeship of the other students” (Howie, 2003b, p. 117), probably helped in overcoming any anxieties and blocking, and could be an important factor in the success of this intervention for enhancing functioning on the River Crossing real-life problem-solving task.

Decision Making and Self Advocacy

These real-life problem-solving skills were studied by Howie in a major New Zealand research project. The results were described in a report to the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (1992), in an article published in the Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology (2003a), and a detailed description of the project forms a chapter in Howie's book Thinking about the Teaching of Thinking (2003b).

The skills selected were those needed by young people with some learning and emotional difficulties, preparing to work in the wider community while attending sheltered workshops. The decision-making skills included skills like election voting, but most skills had a strong self advocacy content, such as asking a staff member for help in understanding a letter from the department of social welfare, stopping rude teenagers from bullying them, asking for the training which had been promised to prepare them for shifting to a more skilled work area, having a say in how the lunch facilities operated, asking to try a job at the workshop which only some people do (e.g., either only males or females), asking for a key to their residential setting, and confronting a staff member thought to have passed on something discussed with them in confidence. Emotional and motivational aspects of each of the problem-solving tasks were explored.

The Cognitive Map analysis of the parameters of these tasks indicates that they share these characteristics, while individually unique:

• Content: deciding what to do, speaking up for, and making a request, on behalf of oneself.
• Modality: verbal, in response to a pictorial representation of the real-life problem in cartoon form.
• Phase functions and operations.

At the input phase, the tasks require precise perception, definition, and articulation of all the information provided about the problem, including who is involved, what they are doing or saying, and what the cognitive or affective aspects of the situation are. Relationships between people, and between people and events, need to be understood, with “representation” of them. Key words, given in the spoken information (presented in speech bubbles) as cues, need to be inputted. Changes in terms of identifying what happened first, next, and the consequences of that, need to be grasped with attention to the temporal sequence. Several sources of information, in pictorial (cartoon) and written (speech bubble) form, need to be worked with.

At the elaboration phase, the problem needs to be defined, with selection of all relevant information, including emotive or affective aspects. This information needs to be internalized, with a projection of relationships between each key part. Hypothetical and logical thinking is needed to plan an appropriate problem-solving response, in the form of either a decision, or self advocacy. In the course of this problem solving, some divergent thinking could be helpful, along with a summing up of the possible responses, comparing and analyzing the response in terms of the parameters of advantages and disadvantages of each, along with possible consequences. There is a strong need to consider other people's viewpoints as a parameter for deciding on the best action, with particular attention to the viewpoint of the key player with whom the problem-solver is self advocating.

At the elaboration phase, the problem-solver needs to respond precisely, adequately, and completely, projecting relationships according to the rules and requirements of the social situation involved. Impulsivity needs to be restrained, and if any form of blocking occurs either within the problem-solver (for example, because of anxiety or lack of self confidence) or externally (for example, from a negative initial response by the key person with whom the problem-solver is self advocating), an effective or new response will need to be developed.

• Level of complexity: the tasks are complex, involving several sources of information, which need to be considered on a number of parameters.
• The level of abstraction: relationships need to be drawn between pictorial representations of problems and the problem abstracted in real life. However, in thinking about solutions, the highest level of abstraction is required in considering possible solutions and their consequences.
• The level of efficiency: efficient problem solving includes not only an outcome in terms of an appropriate problem solution, but scoring on measures of metacognitive knowledge, including strategy knowledge, strategy planning, self thought and feelings.

Actual case example

The project itself used in particular the principles underpinning the Organization of Dots instrument in teaching the key information gathering and strategy planning skills required. Feuerstein sees the Illustrations instrument as useful in shaping the problem-solver's awareness of the problem in terms of attending to the details of the problem-solving situation, and the project used some of the Illustrations cartoons to support its information gathering work. Considerable attention was paid to gathering information as part of the input phase, (including self questioning about the information and describing the emotive or affective aspects of the situation). Considerable help was needed in developing the verbal labels (representation) for adequate description of the feelings involved.

In working on the elaboration phase, mediation of meaning and relational links were forged through communication of a broader knowledge base of human rights, and in particular, the right to use of their “voice” in self advocacy. In solution planning, particular attention in the training was given to systematic consideration of possible solutions, with metacognitive self questioning (“who should I go to?”, “when should I go?”, etc.) Some problem-solvers encountered difficulty in understanding their own and others' viewpoints, orientations and feelings, and would have benefited from a detailed coverage of the Orientation in Space instrument, applied to these skill needs, but it was not possible to incorporate this instrument fully in the intervention provided.

Considerable time, however, was given to the output phase skills of appropriate communication of the decisions, and self advocacy, with attention to clear and precise communication. Modeling and role play assisted with this. Work was needed in helping the problem-solvers to overcome blocking when the role-played initial response to their self advocacy was negative.

The outcome of this work showed considerable advantage to the groups receiving the intervention, compared to groups that did not, particularly for planning strategy. In terms of Rand's dimension of capacity, these problem-solvers were able to show considerable potential for strategy learning. At the beginning of the study, few of the young people demonstrated independent reflection about themselves as problem-solvers, but in association with work throughout the intervention and the whole study (including considerable metacognitive assessment), metacognitive knowledge development occurred. It clearly takes considerable work and time to shift the more negative affective or emotional aspects involved in these problem-solvers' responses to these types of real-life problem-solving self advocacy tasks. However, there are indications that these needs (in Rand's dimensions of “need” and “orientation”) can be addressed by the type of intervention provided in this study, and certainly some problem-solvers were able to plan appropriate strategies for self advocacy in the final assessment even when under stress and facing emotional difficulties. In Rand's terms, the orientation to the tasks, and efficiently carrying out the self advocacy involved, clearly takes considerable effort, both cognitively and emotionally.

CONCLUSION

In the three examples on the role of the Cognitive Map in relation to the analysis of, and enhancement of, real-life problem-solving tasks, it was surprisingly easy to apply the Cognitive Map to the analysis of the three types of tasks of varying complexity. Feuerstein and Hoffman's (1988) delineation of the phases and operations proved particularly useful in analyzing the component skill requirements for the training.

Rand's interpretation of parameters of the Cognitive Map was useful in discussing the outcome of the training given in those three different studies.

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