-Isiah Pringle
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Irrelevant Information
In the discussion of problem solving, it was evident that there were many barriers that effect the way people solve problems. To me the one that effect decision-making the most was irrelevant information. Irrelevant information is information that is placed in a problem set that leads people astray from the correct answer. The most common occurrence of irrelevant information is in the workforce or in school. most of the time during testing, there are various unnecessary hints to the problem that is used to test a persons knowledge. For example, a teacher asks her class, if two sports cars are traveling to Los Angeles from Las Vegas at 70mph and 50 mph and one leaves 10 minutes earlier than the other, which car will get there first when they meet together? In this scenario the irrelevant information is the mph, where there traveling, and the time they leave because if they meet they will get there at the same time. That information tends to make people mathematically think about how to solve the problem, when in reality the answer is in plain sight. This is just one of the many scenarios that explain irrelevant information.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We are not only misguided with irrelevant information in word problems, this also occurs in our daily lives. We get bogged down by the things that are not pertinent to the goals which we are trying to accomplish. We become preoccupied with the football games statistics or the latest celebrity gossip as well as the stress in our lives that doesn't necessarily need to be there. These could also been seen as irrelevant information in our lives which misguide us from the path which we are leading on.
ReplyDeleteIrrelevant information like a few people have said surrounds us in almost every aspect of our lives. We see irrelevant information on test questions, in our personal lives, sports, etc. I never really thought about how irrelevant information affects the way I prepare for a sporting event. Prior to a game we will be given handouts with statistics from our opponents previous games. Shots on goal, goals against or for, penalty's and many other things are printed out and given to us. Sometimes this information tends to make me underestimate an opponent. When the game finally comes you realize that the information from the teams previous performance really doesn't matter. Any team can perform better or worse than their previous statistics indicate.
ReplyDeleteI remember my teachers giving me problems similar to the ones that Dr. Frankel had on the power point. I used to have such a hard time with those problems because of the irrelevant information that they contained, but it did not effect some of the other students at all. I wonder if some people are more able to see past the irrelevant information and solve the simplicity of the problem more easier than others?
ReplyDeleteI feel like math teachers love irrelevant information. Every test or quiz they would ask themselves what can I put in here to mess up the students to make it a harder problem than what it really is. I dont think more people are able to see past the irrelevant information, they just read the problem slow and think about it before they start answering. They just understand how to pick out the information that is important and that just takes alot of practice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of these comments. I also had a teacher in high school that loved to trick students into thinking an answer was correct only to change a small word so that it would change the meaning. This makes a student second guess themself and began to become nervous about the test that they are taking. I feel that teachers use this approach to show that they are in controll and that they are power hungry. This only lowers the self confidence of the students that are in the class.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow is my presentation about barriers in problem solving. I got very useful information through this page. I Want to say that we must have our decision making component for solution of problem
ReplyDelete