Cognitive Flexibility

5Successful Solution Discovery and Cognitive Flexibility

Evelyne CLÉMENT

Paragraphe, CY Cergy Paris University, Gennevilliers, France

5.1. Introduction

In daily life, at school or at work, cognitive flexibility is required in order to adapt and adjust our behavior to a changing environment. In addition, developing new skills and knowledge, or transferring and adapting prior knowledge in response to the constraints of the situation, also demonstrates flexibility. Finally, and specifically in problem solving, discovering the solution most often requires changing our perspective, that is to say changing our representation of the situation and thus demonstrating representational or conceptual flexibility.

In this chapter, after presenting what constitutes a problem situation – by referring to the role of knowledge about the world and the transfer processes involved in finding solutions – we describe how the concept of flexibility is understood in the fields of educational science and cognitive science, respectively. We then present the results of recent research on the links between flexibility, creativity and academic performance. We discuss the relevance, both from a fundamental point of view and in terms of educational implications, of developing programs to stimulate flexibility and creative thinking at school.

5.2. Cognitive flexibility in problem solving

5.2.1. What is defined as a problem?

First of all, it is important to know what is considered a problem situation. ...