A Technique for the Study of Problem Solving

Clinical Competence: General Ability or Case-specific?

“…A recent study of Wimmers and Kanter (2006) using computerbased clinical cases confirmed similar findings: high consistencies in datagathering behavior among analogous stages of the diagnostic process across cases. See for comparable findings the pioneering studies of Rimoldi in the late 50s and early 60s where a card-drawing technique was applied during diagnosing a case in order to capture problem-solving skills (Rimoldi, 1955(Rimoldi, , 1961. The solely knowledge-based perspective on problem solving as represented by the term ''content-specificity'' seems therefore too much a swing in the opposite direction from a general problem-solving skill perspective (McAuliffe, 1978;Peverly, 1991).…”

“…Newell and Simon, for instance, attempted to design computer programs that could solve a wide variety of problems using general domain-independent problem-solving rules Simon, 1956, 1972). Pioneers of research into medical problem solving, following the lead of the influential Newell and Simon work, looked for general medical problem-solving skills by identifying the number and sequence of questions while solving a medical problem (Rimoldi, 1955(Rimoldi, , 1961, similarities in data-gathering behavior (Donnelly et al, 1974;Juul et al, 1979), or the structure of the pathways throughout the diagnostic reasoning process (McGuire, 1976;McGuire and Babbott, 1967). Elstein et al (1978) initially discovered that the medical problem-solving process was characterized by generating multiple hypotheses early in the patient encounter.…”

Sources of Utility in Rorschach Interpretation

“…Even when the symptoms were described correctly, there could be a faulty putting-together of the des- In an unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tabor (1959) conducted process analyses of 30 clinical psychologists as they attempted to determine the diagnosis of psychiatric P&tients through blind Rorschach interpretation. Tabor's Btudy implemented a problem-solving technique developed by Rimoldi (1955), t•rho originally employed it to investigate the diagnostic processes of physicians (1956,1958).…”

Creativity and the Solving of Social Problems

“…Two approaches, based upon the processing of information, show promise for the study of problem-solving behavior. Rimoldi (9) developed a technique for studying the problemsolving process by focusing on the choice of information made by the subject as he attempted to solve a medical problem. The subject was requested to solve the situational examination by selecting the questions which needed to be answered for arriving at a solution.…”