I had the chance to work with students this past week as part of Education Connection’s Pathways to Innovation program. Sue Q asked if I could work with students to flush out ideas for their potential research projects: mess finding at its best. I was very pleased with how well the session went – some really challenging ideas. Some students are so stuck on the basic idea of IV w/ 2 levels. This is so hard to break. The ideas develop too simply.

My interpretation? Instead of hanging out in the mess for a longer period of time, students are trying to get to the problem finding stage too quickly. Results? An ill-conceived problem.

So is this it then? A qualitative study comparing ill-conceived problems to well conceived problems – how students get there and what it all means. Mixed method study looking at some factors of the students? Science Research Temperament? Nature of Science?