Claims

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) · causal r? · 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

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

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