problem solving skills and academic performance

Academic Problems and Skills

Learning Problem, Learning Skill

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Every school wants every child under its charge to receive the same educational opportunities. However, some students develop academic problems that may cause them to underachieve and, in extreme cases, drop out of school entirely. These problems include confusion about or disinterest in a subject, time management (including procrastination ), lack of attention from teachers, bullying , and inappropriate or violent behavior toward others. While many academic problems can be resolved if caught early and tackled with the help of professionals, some difficulties can persist for years, wreaking havoc on the student’s self-esteem and social relationships.

Conversely, academic skills can be protective influences for students, driving them to achieve their goals . Examples include staying organized, using time wisely, prioritizing effectively, concentrating on tasks, and keeping motivated. With all of the responsibilities that students need to manage at school and at home, these abilities are essential to their success.

• Signs and Causes of Trouble
• School and Mental Health
• Academic Strengths

Teachers and parents are often the first line of defense against academic problems. They should be attuned to any changes in the child’s behavior—such as a drop in grades, a sudden lack of interest in the classroom or at home, skipping classes, or a tendency to act out with teachers or peers or family members. These behaviors may signify an underlying cause that needs to be addressed. It’s important for adults to identify any contributing factors of trouble. A person’s physical health can have a powerful effect on academic performance, and vice versa. If adults see concerning behavior, they should find out if the student is experiencing a lack of sleep, poor nutrition , chronic illness , or a newly developed loss of vision or hearing.

Academic problems can also indicate a possible learning disability, such as  dyslexia  or  ADHD . In such cases, student performance may benefit from school accommodations, such as extra time on tests or additional visual or auditory learning aids for lessons. Parents may also want to consider whether there is a better fit for their child, including  placement in a special education classroom  with fewer students and specially trained staff.

Children and teens are more anxious than ever before. Risk factors like poor sleep and exposure to violence are on the rise. Parents and school personnel  need to know  how to identify the warning signs, deploying intervention immediately to prevent at-risk students from harming themselves and others.

Trouble at school can be both a symptom and a risk factor of mental health conditions. Students today are under extraordinary pressure to excel at academics and extracurriculars, leading to massive stress and worry. When students feel like they cannot measure up to these high and unfair standards, they may develop problems ranging from general anxiety to depression to thoughts of suicide .

Students also have to cope with greater insecurity and a feeling that the world is less safe, given the rise of political instability and violence at schools, particularly mass shootings . This can cause great emotional upset and make it difficult to perform at peak levels.

Ordinary disciplinary measures increase aggression in students. And in turn, this increases everyday violence. Students and teachers are on edge. Plus, anxiety about the possibility of a school shooting is common among students, parents, and school staff, despite the additional safety precautions that many schools are taking.

Students can build up resilience to the stress and anxiety they feel daily in several ways. They can cultivate strong relationships with their peers and teachers and look for opportunities to maximize their strengths as well as engage with the school community. They should also pay attention to their bodies and understand the importance of self-care—getting enough rest, hydrating, eating healthy foods, and exercising. 

Healthy ways to address these fears include making sure students have accurate information, keeping an open line of communication, asking questions rather than making statements, discussing emotions in an age-appropriate manner, and having students describe what would make them feel safer. 

Students who are confident and successful in school tend to share particular academic strengths. While some of these skills may come more easily than others, with time and attention, students can build up their proficiency in most of these areas. Not only do colleges and universities look for these qualities when considering applicants, but they also will serve people well as they transition into the workforce and adult life. Important academic strengths include:

Attention to Detail: Someone with this strength is able to follow instructions while making fewer mistakes. They find it easier to focus on the task at hand and complete an assignment.

Cognitive Flexibility: The most successful students are cognitively flexible and able to adapt to new challenges and changes. A flexible mind moves from task to task, applying what was previously learned to new contexts and problems.

Communication: Humans are social by nature and communicating well, both orally and in writing, is crucial. The ability to clarify goals and expectations furthers cooperation .

Creativity : Innovation and the ability to think more abstractly are in high demand both academically and professionally. Creative thinkers generate great works of art as well as smart solutions to modern problems. Technology evolves daily and creativity is a valuable strength.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Over time, students may forget the details of what they formally studied. However, the ability to think critically allows one to learn efficiently, identify problems, find solutions, evaluate progress, and make plans for the future.

Organization: Students must juggle competing demands, including school assignments, exams, extracurricular activities, family obligations, relationships, and more. Planning ahead, stating clear goals, prioritizing tasks, and managing time can help organizational skills.

Passion: Being thoroughly engaged in a subject can be a powerful motivation for students. A person who is curious and enthusiastic shows a commitment to learning, a positive quality that stands out.

Resilience : Even the best students face academic challenges. After a failure, the resilient learn from their failures and bounce back. They persevere and overcome new obstacles readily.

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MSU Extension

Problem-solving skills are an important factor in academic success.

Elizabeth Gutierrez, Michigan State University Extension - May 11, 2012

Updated from an original article written by [email protected]..

Parents and caregivers can ensure their children's success by teaching and modeling effective problem-solving at home.

Helping your child learn how to problem solve is a critical skill for school readiness. Parents and caregivers are a child’s first and most important teacher; therefore, modeling good problem solving skills is very important. Children learn by watching parents and caregivers handle different situations and solve problems. If a parent handles problems by yelling, throwing things, hitting, grabbing or using other unacceptable strategies, a child will learn to do the same thing.

Often, adults will prevent their children from seeing all conflicts or disagreements. Remember, it is important for children to see adults negotiate differences, compromise and resolve conflicts. Learning to negotiate differences in a constructive way and allowing children to see how this is done is very effective and important. If parent and caregivers handle these situations privately, there is no example for the child/children to learn from.

Children can learn how to be assertive verbally as a result of seeing and listening to how adults resolve conflict. Another simple way a child can learn how to be assertive verbally is by role-playing with puppets and through pretend play with an adult. When using these techniques, it is important to help your child think of constructive ways to respond to different situations. By using puppets and role-play, your child can also learn about how others may feel in specific situations. When using these techniques, it is important not to criticize or label the child for past misbehavior.

There are some basic steps to problem solving from Incredible Years :

• Identify the problem.
• List the possible solutions or courses of action.
• Weigh the possible solutions.
• Choose a solution to try.
• Put the solution into practice.
• Evaluate the solution.

Using effective problem solving techniques will help children avoid conflict with others in a school setting and in their everyday lives. It will also strengthen children’s beginning empathy skills and help them learn more positive attributions about another person’s intentions. Effective problem solving skills is essential for academic and social success.

For more articles on child development, academic success, parenting and life skill development, please visit the Michigan State University Extension website.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension . For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu . To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters . To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts , or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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Algorithmic thinking, cooperativity, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving: exploring the relationship between computational thinking skills and academic performance

• Published: 11 August 2017
• Volume 4 , pages 355–369, ( 2017 )

Cite this article

• Tenzin Doleck 1 ,
• Paul Bazelais 1 ,
• David John Lemay 1 ,
• Anoop Saxena 1 &
• Ram B. Basnet 2  

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The continued call for twenty-first century skills renders computational thinking a topical subject of study, as it is increasingly recognized as a fundamental competency for the contemporary world. Yet its relationship to academic performance is poorly understood. In this paper, we explore the association between computational thinking and academic performance. We test a structural model—employing a partial least squares approach—to assess the relationship between computational thinking skills and academic performance. Surprisingly, we find no association between computational thinking skills and academic performance (except for a link between cooperativity and academic performance). These results are discussed respecting curricular mandated instruction in higher-order thinking skills and the importance of curricular alignment between instructional objectives and evaluation approaches for successfully teaching and learning twenty-first-century skills.

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Doleck, T., Bazelais, P., Lemay, D.J. et al. Algorithmic thinking, cooperativity, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving: exploring the relationship between computational thinking skills and academic performance. J. Comput. Educ. 4 , 355–369 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-017-0090-9

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Received : 27 May 2017

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Accepted : 07 August 2017

Published : 11 August 2017

Issue Date : December 2017

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-017-0090-9

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This descriptive-correlation study assessed the comprehension level of selected Grade 4 pupils by subjecting them to three types of test (informal reading inventory, cloze test, and retelling) in two kinds of texts (narrative and expository). The results revealed that the pupils had the same comprehension levels for each test type no matter the genre of texts although of varying levels: frustration in cloze test, instructional in informal reading inventory, and independent in retelling. Overall, the comprehension levels showed slight correlation between text types, where an increase in narrative comprehension level slightly increased the comprehension level in expository texts. Meanwhile, a negative negligible correlation was observed between comprehension levels and test types using informal reading inventory and cloze test while high positive correlation was observed between comprehension level and test types using retelling. Results suggested that comprehension l...

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The Effects of Chess Instruction on Pupils' Cognitive and Academic Skills: State of the Art and Theoretical Challenges

Giovanni sala.

1 Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

John P. Foley

2 Chess in School & Communities, London, UK

Fernand Gobet

Introduction.

Chess instruction has been claimed to enhance primary and middle school students' mathematical abilities. The “Chess Effect” hypothesis has received some scientific support but it is yet to be convincingly demonstrated. This note briefly reviews the prevailing research, identifies some common pitfalls, and recommends directions for future research.

Mathematics proficiency is seen as a necessary prerequisite for gaining jobs in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, which underpin our technological future. While the level of the required mathematical skills is increasing, the global educational surveys PISA and TIMSS have documented striking differences in proficiency levels between countries, which have created concern in several countries on their relative performance in mathematics. For example, from the USA perspective, researchers have conducted comparative analyses of performance trends (Hanushek et al., 2012 ) and also of mathematics pedagogy (Richland et al., 2012 ). There is a general feeling that novel methods of teaching have to be developed to make mathematics instruction more effective.

Chess instruction in school has been proposed as an intervention to address this objective. The conventional wisdom that chess instruction may enhance pupils' academic performance has stimulated numerous research projects worldwide over the last two decades. Most of the studies have focused on the putative benefits of chess instruction on achievement in mathematics.

A meta-analysis of the available evidence

A recent meta-analysis has evaluated the effectiveness of chess instruction (Sala and Gobet, 2016 ). The meta-analysis, including 24 studies and 40 effect sizes, shows that chess does seem to enhance primary and middle school students' achievement in mathematics ( d ̄ = 0.38) and overall cognitive ability ( d ̄ = 0.34). The effects on achievement in literacy appear to be modest ( d ̄ = 0.25). Moreover, the size of the effects is positively related to the amount of training, suggesting that 25–30 h, equivalent to a lesson per week during the school year, is probably the minimum threshold to obtain meaningful benefits. However, in spite of the promising results, this meta-analysis also points out that almost none of the reviewed studies compared chess-treated groups with active control groups to rule out possible placebo effects. At present, this is the most serious methodological issue in the field.

The IoE study

A new study by the Institute of Education, London (the “IoE study”) has challenged the Chess Effect hypothesis (Jerrim et al., 2016 ). The study compared a large group of Year 5 pupils (age 9/10) ( N = 1,965) engaging in 1 year of chess instruction (25–30 h) with a passive control group of peers ( N = 1,900). The school classes were randomly assigned to the two groups and pre-tested via Key Stage 1 public examinations for literacy, science, and mathematics. One year after the end of the treatment, the participants were post-tested via Key Stage 2 public examinations in the same disciplines. The two groups did not differ in any of the outcome measures. This result attracted some attention from the UK press (e.g., Pells, 2016 ) because it contradicts not only the previous research, but also the common view of many head teachers and educationists about the presumed benefits of chess. For these reasons, this study is worth some further discussion.

The IoE study possesses some strengths: a large sample, administrative data for both the pre-test and the post-test, and group allocation by randomization. However, there are two major weaknesses in the experimental design that lead us to doubt the reliability of the null results, especially in relation to mathematics. First, as previously mentioned, the post-test was administered 1 year after the end of the instruction. Thus, the IoE study sought to derive the “long-term” impact of chess instruction. However, the lack of an immediate post-intervention measure allows no direct comparison with previous studies, as the literature has focused on the short-term impact. Previous research indicates that 25–30 h of instruction and play is the minimum required to gain a significant short-term impact (Sala and Gobet, 2016 ). Hence, it is improbable that the same amount can induce a long-term impact. Second, the results may be vitiated by a ceiling effect. The IoE study reported an overall mean of 70% and a standard deviation 20% in Key Stage 2 mathematics. Moreover, the distribution was highly negatively skewed (Jerrim et al., 2016 , Figure 2, p. 27), with approximately half of the sample performing above 75%. These sample scores are consistent with those at the national level published by the Department for Education (for details, see Statistics: key stage 2, 2017 1 . Given that the exam system generates an artificially constrained distribution of test results, measuring the effect of any intervention is problematic.

Unresolved issues of the research on the benefits of chess instruction

Even if the IoE study does not provide any clear evidence against the alleged benefits of chess instruction, the evidence produced so far is insufficient to establish those benefits either. Some essential design-related and theoretical questions are yet to be resolved.

The problem of placebo effects

Apart from this single IoE study, previous research on the effects of chess instruction plausibly indicates a positive impact on mathematics performance. However, we cannot rule out placebo effects because almost none of the experiments in the field of chess and education were designed with active control groups. (The exception is Sala et al., 2016 , where the chess group was compared to both a passive control group and a group playing go.) All the qualitative analyses, including the IoE Study, show that most pupils are enthusiastic about chess. This enthusiasm may make the pupils more motivated about school—which in turn boosts academic performance. Many other activities may be as motivating as chess and, hence, obtain the same positive results.

The necessity of active control groups to control for placebo effects goes beyond the particular case of chess and encompasses training interventions in general (Moreau et al., 2016 ). Crucially, it has been recently observed that the type of control group (active or passive) is often a significant moderator in meta-analytical models. For example, comparisons between treatment and active control groups systematically provide smaller effect sizes than comparisons between treatment and passive control groups in domains such as working memory training and music instruction (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2016 ; Sala and Gobet, 2017a ).

The lack of a cognitive link

The generalization of chess skill to the domain of mathematics would be an example of far transfer . Far transfer occurs when a set of skills generalizes across domains only loosely related to each other (Thorndike and Woodworth, 1901 ; Anderson, 1990 ; Barnett and Ceci, 2002 ). Substantial research on transfer has strongly suggested that far transfer occurs, but rarely and with minimal effects (Donovan et al., 1999 ; Gobet, 2016 ). Examples of failed far transfer include music instruction to improve children's (aged 3–14) cognitive ability or academic achievement (Sala and Gobet, 2017a ) and working memory training to enhance overall cognitive ability (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2016 ; Sala and Gobet, 2017b ).

So, why should chess instruction improve academic performance? The proposed explanations refer to the fact that chess is a cognitively demanding activity. Chess requires domain-general cognitive abilities that may be trained by the practice of the game. Then, those cognitive abilities may transfer to other domains. For example, Bart ( 2014 ) suggests that chess involves, and possibly boosts, cognitive abilities such as working memory, fluid intelligence, and concentration capacity (see also Burgoyne et al., 2016 ; Sala et al., in press ). These abilities are predictors of achievement in mathematics (e.g., Deary et al., 2007 ; Peng et al., 2016 ), which would explain why chess increases pupils' mathematical ability. A similar argument is deployed in the IoE Study (Jerrim et al., 2016 ; p. 6 et seq .). Chess may be beneficial for mathematical ability and, more widely, academic achievement by enhancing concentration and problem-solving skills.

These explanations, albeit lacking detail, are plausible and provide the basis for the hypothesis that chess instruction strengthens cognitive abilities that are positively correlated to achievements in mathematics. Unfortunately, only a few studies have investigated the effects of chess on both cognitive abilities and academic outcomes. The results so far have been mixed (Scholz et al., 2008 ; Sala et al., 2016 ). In brief, the causal mechanisms remain substantially untested.

Recommendations for future research

Combining the research results so far, we may conclude that exposure to chess instruction is associated with positive results in mathematics performance in the general population of primary and middle school students in the short term but not in the long term. Consequently, the validation of chess as an educational tool must undergo further research. A rigorous experimental design is needed to shed some light on (a) the potential placebo effects of chess instruction, (b) the cognitive mechanisms underlying the transfer from chess to mathematics skills, and (c) the appropriate type and duration of the teaching for this transfer to occur.

An active control group is necessary to understand whether the observed impact on pupils' achievement in mathematics is chess-specific or due to placebo effects (Gobet and Campitelli, 2006 ). Chess could be matched against another enrichment activity such as music or drama lessons. However, such a design would not rule out the possibility that both the treatments are equally effective for treatment-specific reasons and not just for placebo effects (e.g., because chess instruction enhances fluid intelligence and music training enhances spatial skills).

Another option is to compare the effects of chess with and without instruction. While exposure to unstructured chess activities (e.g., free play with peers) is not supposed to provide any particular benefit apart from placebo effects, a set of chess activities specifically designed to train cognitive/academic skills may be more effective. This design is the equivalent of the one often used in the field of working memory training (e.g., Jaeggi et al., 2011 ), where the effects of treatment are compared to the ones exerted by a non-adaptive version of the training program. The exposure of both the groups to the same stimuli (e.g., chess boards, pieces, playing games) guarantees the isolation of the placebo effects. Moreover, using two different versions of the same activity allows the same person(s) to deliver the treatment to both the groups, instead of a chess instructor for the chess group and another expert for the active control group. The advantage of this approach is that it allows us to control for possible Pygmalion effects.

With regard to the cognitive benefits of chess instruction, the empirical evidence is quite sparse. Future studies should investigate the effects of chess instruction on a wide set of cognitive skills related to mathematics, such as fluid intelligence, planning, working memory, and spatial ability. Multivariate measures of mathematical ability would help to understand the particular mathematical skills enhanced by chess instruction (e.g., logical analysis, problem-solving, arithmetic, geometry). A well-defined and testable causal model linking chess, cognitive and academic skills is needed. Such a model is essential to tailor effective methods for chess instruction.

The didactic methods in the teaching experiment should fulfill the requirements of common elements across domains for transfer to occur. Hence, they should incorporate those features that chess shares with mathematics such as the geometry of tactical patterns, the exchange value of pieces and problem-solving situations (Root, 2008 ; Sala et al., 2015 ; Trinchero and Sala, 2016 ). Examining various measures of chess skills (e.g., piece positioning, tactics, strategy) is required to link specific chess activities to the particular cognitive/academic skills. A systematic measuring scheme is required relating the quantum of chess instruction (e.g. 15, 30, 45 h, etc.) and the duration of the effect (0, 6, 12 months, etc.). Such a design would make a major contribution to our comprehension of the Chess Effect (if any).

Author contributions

GS wrote the first draft of the paper. All authors listed have made substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

1 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-key-stage-2 )

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