Analysis of Learners’ Thinking Process which Prevent the Application of the Rule

: Difficulty of Hypothetical Judgment by the Rule

Abstract

Students sometimes exhibit difficulties in applying the rules they learned to problem solving. This article hypothesizes that the problem occurs due to the insufficiencies of hypothetical judgment in the learner’s thinking process. 7 university students participated in this study. They solved a problem which requires applying the definition rule of the square and discussed the process of solving the problem. The main results are as follows. (1) The participants often rejected the judgments derived through the application of the rule and used instead intuitive solutions based on their experience. (2)They accepted the judgment when they could confirm it through their own knowledge or information not apparent in the rule. These results suggest that learners have difficulty thinking solely by the rule and that in order to encourage rule learning it is important to perform hypothetical judgments using the rule first and derive testable propositions.