The Struggle Is Real: Productive Struggle

Learning By Doing

Let's get this party started with a fun little puzzle. You may have seen this on your favorite social media platform [1]. 

See if you can solve it.

Struggling Productively

That was a difficult problem, right? Would you say you "struggled" while attempting to solve it? I know I did! This experience raises a couple of questions:

1. What, exactly, causes us to struggle?

2. When does struggling assist learning, and when does it harm learning? 

3. Under what conditions does struggling lead to long-term learning and transfer? 

Before we attempt to answer these questions, let's acknowledge the emotional components of struggling. I can only speak for myself, but phenomenologically, it doesn't always feel great. I get hot. I feel dumb. Intrusive thoughts distract me from the task-at-hand. Of course, if your working memory is loaded with these intrusive thoughts, then you have fewer resources to dedicate to the current task...which will ultimately cause you to fail!

Sources of Struggle

What causes us to struggle? 

Prior Knowledge: First, we may not have all of the prerequisite knowledge to solve the problem. Once we recognize this fact (hopefully earlier rather than later!), then we can treat it as a quest to find the missing information. 

Incorrect Assumptions: Another reason why we might struggle is because we've made an incorrect assumption. If you assume that a fox and wolf weigh the same, then you will eventually run into a road-block when solving the above problem. 

Unnecessary Problem Constraints: We might struggle because we imposed an unnecessary constraint on the problem. This often happens while solving an insight problem. For example, in the classic nine-dot problem, problem solvers unnecessarily add the constraint that they are not allowed to go beyond the edge of the box. 

Flawed Representation: Finally, we may have chosen a flawed or limited representation. We've seen time and again how important representations are for solving problems. For example, students fail to calculate the area of a parallelogram when presented outside of the canonical orientation (i.e., laying flat along the long side).

What makes struggling "productive?"

According to James Hiebert and Douglas Grouws's book chapter [2], productive struggle happens when a student is working on a problem just outside of their current ability level. This is related to Lev Vygotsky's idea of the "zone of proximal development" (see Fig. 1). 

There are things that you can do autonomously. These are well-practiced skills or declarative knowledge that you've mastered previously. There is also a bunch of things you can't do (at least not yet!). But in between those two spheres are things that you can do with some assistance.

Struggle is most productive when done under the watchful eye of a more knowledgeable partner. They are there to step in and nudge the novice in the right direction. 

Figure 1. Vygotsky's three zones, with the middle as the "zone of proximal development."

Struggle, then, is maximally helpful for several reasons. 

It allows students to appreciate the context of the lesson. If you just give a lecture on solving systems of equations, then the student may not have any appreciation for why systems of equations is a powerful problem-solving technique. However, if you first let them try to figure out how to calculate the weight of the chicken, fox, and wolf, then they might see the utility of systems of equations.

If a student is lacking a key piece of information, then struggling to solve a problem may expose a gap in their knowledge. An impasse in problem solving might force a student to confront the possibility that there is something wrong with their understanding [3]. 

There may be some small amount of discovery involved. For example, there are are (at least) three key insights when solving this animal weight problem: using variables (x, y, & z) instead of animals, isolating a variable for each of the three known weights, and finally substituting the isolated variables into the other equations. Having a key insight or making a discovery is highly motivating.

That brings us to the final reason. Struggle is useful because it necessarily engages a student's conceptual understanding. For any of the three key insights, there is a rich conversation that can connect back to knowledge that a student already possesses (e.g., the concept of a "variable," isolating a variable, variable substitution, and mathematical equivalence). 

The Classroom Connection

Struggling doesn't have to be fraught with negative emotions. In some contexts, struggling is actually kind of fun. Think about the last video game you played. Games are specifically designed to cause you to struggle. In fact, there is some research to suggest that players actually enjoy dying (the ultimate failure!) in first-person shooter games more than shooting other players [4]. Another example is a well-written mystery. You may struggle to figure out "who dun it," but it is an entirely enjoyable experience. It would be beneficial to everyone if academic tasks that cause us to struggle to be structured in a way that is more like a game, puzzle, or mystery. 

Perhaps our struggle as educators and instructional designers, is to figure out how to make struggling an enjoyable educational experience! 🧩


Share and Enjoy!

Dr. Bob

Going Beyond the Information Given

[1] I adapted this problem from Sara Van Der Werf's blog, and you can follow her on twitter @saravdwerf. This might also be a good time to link back to our prior conversation about problem isomorphs.

[2] Hiebert, J., & Grouws, D. A. (2007). The effects of classroom mathematics teaching on students’ learning. Second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning, 371-404.

[3] VanLehn, K. (1988). Toward a theory of impasse-driven learning. In Learning issues for intelligent tutoring systems (pp. 19-41). Springer, New York, NY.

[4] Ravaja, N., Turpeinen, M., Saari, T., Puttonen, S., & Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (2008). The psychophysiology of James Bond: Phasic emotional responses to violent video game events. Emotion, 8(1), 114-120. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.8.1.114