A Study of the Genericity of Problem-Solving Skills Acquired in Specialized Education

Focusing on Far Transfer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify whether the problem-solving skills acquired in specialized education could become generic. First, the degree of mastery of the problem-solving process was directly assessed using performance assessment for third-year students of the Faculty of Dentistry at University X, who had been studying the specialized field of oral health and welfare under the problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. Then, 15 of them were interviewed regarding their understanding of the problem-solving process they had acquired during their specialized education and its application to everyday situations. The results suggest that as the level of understanding and mastery of the problem-solving process increases, the acquired problem-solving skills can be transferred to everyday situations far from specialized education contexts. In addition, it was shown that collaborative learning, setting learning tasks, and searching for information in PBL may be effective in improving understanding and mastery of the problem-solving process. These results exemplify the process by which skills acquired in specialized education become generic.