Student Categorization of Problems—An Extension

As part of gathering baseline data for a study on problem categorization, first‐year engineering honors students who had recently completed a two‐quarter sequence in physics were interviewed. The primary task in this interview was much like the problem categorization study described by Chi et al. There were, however, at least two distinct modifications: 1) in addition to the problem statements, solutions were included on the cards to be sorted 2) the problems were written such that they could also be grouped according to the nature of information presented in the problem statements and/or the number of possible solutions. The students in this baseline study, although similar in background to the novices described by Chi et al., in many ways performed more like experts. Several possibilities for this behavior are discussed.