Question

Chapter eight discusses problem solving strategies, and also relates it to your career making decisions. This is a good place to connect the readings this week to the resources on the Career tab.  

Has anyone used any of the milestones to begin answering these questions?

If you are not using the Careers tab, what other resource are you using to make sure you are thinking through the information needed to develop an informed career timeline?

What specific decision making or problem-solving strategy can you apply to this area?

Answer 1

What Are Problem Solving Strategies

Sometimes the problem requires abstract thinking or coming up with a creative solution. It includes  

1. Confirmation bias.
2. Mental set.
3. Functional fixedness.
4. Cognitive sciences, ect.

In cognitive psychology, has definitely made our lives easier to some extent. There are concrete psychological steps involved in problem solving, which if properly followed, can help us tackle every sort of problems. Problem solving is something that we go through on a daily basis.

Problem solving strategies :------

• Algorithms : The step-by-step procedure involved in figuring out the correct answer to any problem is called algorithm.

• Heuristics : refers to mental strategy based on rule-of thumb. There is no guarantee that it will always work out to produce the best solution. However, the rule of thumb strategy does help to simplify complex problems by narrowing the possible solutions. It makes it easier to reach the correct solution using other strategies.

• Trial and error strategy : It is the approach that deals with trying a number of different solutions and ruling out the ones that do not work. Approaching this strategy as the first method in an attempt to solve any problem can be highly time-consuming.

• Insight : is something that just occurs suddenly. Researchers suggest that insight can occur if you’ve dealt with similar problems in the past.

If we talk about the working of Career tab, it is a Web site where candidates can search and apply for a job available in an organization.

Here generally everyone use Algorithm type problem solving technique where a candidate follow step-by-step procedure in figuring out the correct answer to any problem is called algorithm.

Conclusion

Every strategy you build for solving a specific problem, be it for buying groceries or deciding your career, can be narrowed down into one of the above strategy techniques. Some strategies are a combination of Algorithms and Heuristics while others are based on trial-and-error.

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