Providing subgoals did not help on the Missionaries and Cannibals problem but facilitated performance on an extended 5-Missionaries and 5-Cannibals variant¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causalr?·q2
Currency · newest study 1991 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Providing subgoals was not beneficial on the Missionaries and Cannibals problem due to limited alternative moves and problem space. → Ahmad Tarmizi 1991
q2 i? On an extended 5-Missionaries and 5-Cannibals variant, providing subgoals facilitated subjects' performance. → Ahmad Tarmizi 1991 (2)
Evidence¶
Ahmad Tarmizi 1991¶
Ahmad Tarmizi, Rohani. (1991). Guidance During Mathematical Problem Solving. Doctoral thesis, University of New South Wales. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/69310
q2 · i? · causal · r?
The thesis reports, citing Reed and Abramson's experiments on the Missionaries and Cannibals problem with two subgoal variations, that "providing subgoals was not beneficial" on the shorter problem. No effect size is printed.
"Results indicated that providing subgoals was not beneficial due to a lack of alternative moves at most states and the limited problem space."
Ahmad Tarmizi 1991 (2)¶
Ahmad Tarmizi, Rohani. (1991). Guidance During Mathematical Problem Solving. Doctoral thesis, University of New South Wales. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/69310
q2 · i? · causal · r?
The thesis reports, citing Reed and Abramson, that on the extended 5-Missionaries and 5-Cannibals version "subgoals facilitated subjects' performance" (the page's printed sentence is garbled OCR). No effect size is printed.
"In contrast to the problem, subgoals facilitated subjects' performance. Reed problem which shorter The issue of learning after problem solving was investigated by Reed and Johnsen (1977)"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Compliance with MetaTutor's summarize, stay-on-subgoal, move-to-next-subgoal, and open-diagram prompts shows no significant effect on learning gains — related
- No behavioral measure of compliance with MetaTutor's stay-on-page and move-to-next-page prompts relates to learning gains — related
- Higher compliance with MetaTutor's suggest-subgoal prompt is associated with larger proportional learning gains — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
subgoals-facilitate-performance-larger-problem-space |
title |
Providing subgoals did not help on the Missionaries and Cannibals problem but facilitated performance on an extended 5-Missionaries and 5-Cannibals variant |
description |
Providing subgoals did not help on the Missionaries and Cannibals problem but facilitated performance on an extended 5-Missionaries and 5-Cannibals variant |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
1991 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-16 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
2 — ahmad-tarmizi-1991, ahmad-tarmizi-1991-2 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.