Beyond the purely cognitive: Belief systems, social cognitions, and metacognitions as driving forces in intellectual performance

This study explores the way that belief systems, interactions with social or ex-perimental environments, and skills at the “control ” level in decision-making shape people’s behavior as they solve problems. It is argued that problem-salvers ’ beliefs (not necessarily consciously held) about what is useful in mathematics may determine the set of “cognitive resources ” at their disposol as they do mathematics. Such beliefs may, for example, render inaccessible to them lorge bodies of information that are stored in long-term memory and that are easily retrieved in other circumstances. In other cases, individuals’ reactions to an experimental setting (fear of failure. or the desire to “look mathematical ” while being videotaped) may induce behavior that is almost pothalogical-and ot the same time, so consistent that it can be modeled. In generol, such “environmental ” factors establish the context within which in-dividuals access and utilize the information potentiolly ot their disposal. Protocols illustrating these paints are presented and discussed. A model based on an axiomatizotion of students ’ beliefs about plane geometry is out-lined, and is shown to correspond closely to their problem-solving perfar-monce. A fromework is offered for analyzing problem-solving performance ot three qualitatively different levels: access to cognitive resources stored in LTM. executive or control decision-making, and belief systems. This discussion is one of two whose purpose is to delineate a series of psy-chological and methodological issues related to the use of verbal methods (clinical interviews and protocol analyses) for research into human prob-lem-solving processes. Both works are based on the same foundation, th