ABSTRACT
This chapter will confine itself to providing an overview of the key findings of research into problem-solving and reasoning. Creativity and imagery, which are also aspects of our thinking and constitute alternative research areas, are not considered here. It should be noted that whilst many have used problem-solving as an operational definition of thinking, such a narrow definition does restrict discussion to findings of research on goal-directed thought processes. However, constructing a theory of problem-solving alone is comparable with trying to provide a theory of art broad enough to cover everything from ceramics to opera (Cohen, 1983).
