The role of self-questioning : problem solving in a security organization

Self-questioning plays an important role in problem solving. In this study, we examined the effects of self-questioning techniques on problem solving and metacognition for ill-structured workplace problems including counter-terrorism, which is unconventional. The independent variable was the strategy training in self-questioning techniques, structuring around the IDEAL model as a cognitive heuristics adaptation to resolve novel situations. The dependent variable metacognition was made up of two constructs i.e. knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition. These were measured by using the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) while overall problem solving performance was determined by assessing the participants' reasoning and the resulting consequences of their decision (outcome performance) in the pre- and post-tests. Our results revealed that the intervention had significant positive effects on the novices' reasoning performance, outcome performance and overall problem solving performance. In addition, the level of correlation between reasoning performance and outcome performance was significantly positive.