Dual Mapping for Support of Problem Solving and Knowledge Construction

Learning through problem solving has received increased attention in constructivist learning, especially in ill-structured domains such as medicine. Previous studies indicate knowledge construction and problem solving can reciprocate each other. However, this is not easily achieved, especially for complex problem solving. Temporal problem solving activities can be easily forgotten, and knowledge situated in problem solving experience may not be possibly retrieved and reused to solve new problems. This paper addresses the problem by proposing a dual mapping visualization approach to support the connection between problem solving and knowledge construction. Diagnostic problem solving in medical education is selected as the application domain, and abdominal pain is used as the case of the study to demonstrate the proposed approach in an online learning environment.