Comparison of Well-Structured & Ill-Structured Task Environments and Problem Spaces
Vinod Goel · 2003
Many of our results in the problem-solving literature are from puzzle-game domains. Intuitively, most of us feel that there are differences between puzzle problems and open-ended, real-world problems. There has been some attempt to capture these differences in the vocabulary of ill-structured and problems. However, there seem to be no empirical studies directed at this distinction. This paper examines and compares the task environments and problem spaces of a prototypical well-structured problem (cryptarithmetic) with the task environments and problem spaces of a class of prototypical illstructured problems (design problems). Results indicate substantive differences, both in the task environments and the problem spaces.