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Self-schema representation in problem-solving: Its use as an organizational construct represented on a visual field for use in counseling and psychotherapy
Abstract
This study presented counseling and psychotherapy in the context of problem solving. Using the information-processing paradigm of Newell and Simon (1972), of which problem solving is a principal tenet, this study examined the effects of explicitly representing client data on a visual field for the following purposes: to permit problem analyses based on a greater conceptual whole; to provide the flexibility for the organization and categorization of the data, thereby allowing for clearer and more immediate recognition of interrelational and interactional components comprising the problem situation(s); and to create a framework wherein problem solving can be approached in a more organized and progressive fashion. Previous research on the presumed operations of the memory system, incorporating such concepts as schemata and perception, has emphasized the orderly processes of the cognitive system, and has suggested that sole reliance on verbal memory does not facilitate effective problem solving when considered from the information-processing paradigm perspective. Forty-one undergraduate students from educational psychology courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln voluntarily participated in this experimental study. Participants were randomly assigned to Treatment I (using verbal analysis plus visual representation), to Treatment II (using verbal analysis alone), or to a no-treatment control group. Treatment extended over a four-week period. The dependent variables included measures of comprehension of personal problems, recall ability, problem-solving abilities, and depression. The results of this study yielded significant effects for verbal analysis plus visual representation over the use of verbal analysis alone and the no-treatment condition for two of the four hypotheses tested.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Academic guidance counseling|Developmental psychology
Recommended Citation
Brockbank, Linda, "Self-schema representation in problem-solving: Its use as an organizational construct represented on a visual field for use in counseling and psychotherapy" (1992). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9314392.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9314392