Instructional Scaffolding To Support Ill-Structured Problem Solving: A Review

Provision of an alternative instructional platform has encouraged students’ involvement in online social collaborative learning that could potentially enhance problem-solving (PS) skill. There are many types of scaffoldings proposed by researchers to inculcate this skill; however, concern arises as a result of an ill-defined problem. Besides being complex than a well-defined problem, its uniqueness originates from the integration of domains in a problem and multiple solutions that can be generated out of it. This study aims to identify the dominant type of scaffold used to guide ill-defined PS, to determine the common platform used and the education level where ill-defined PS is mostly studied. The search and review of relevant articles were done through online databases, journals and Google Scholar search engine using keywords of scaffolding problem solving, ill-structured problem, scaffolding ill-defined problem and support in PS. The findings revealed that metacognitive scaffolding (MS) is dominant in supporting ill-structured PS. MS assists in realigning the thinking of an individual to ensure proactive measures taken in the process of PS. Nevertheless, majority of the previous studies of MS were carried out in higher institutions instead of schools and within formal platform e.g., Learning Management System (LMS). Thus it is hoped that this review will give insights for educators to inculcate MS and improve PS skill in schools and through the use of new platform of social media.