Problem formulation affordances for computer supported collaborative problem solving

Collaborative problem solving systems facilitate human problem solving through various means. A critical issue with these systems is problems must be formulated before they can be solved. Particularly for students, problem formulation can be a difficult task. I propose three types of affordances to facilitate the problem formulation process: metaproblem space visualization, structured variables, and tools for evaluating problem formulations. Metaproblem space visualization is a method of plotting the representation of a problem formulation in high dimensional space. Structured variables offer the higher-level functionality of classes without requiring the user to code them by hand. Tools for evaluating problem formulations are algorithms that attempt to automatically provide some measures of a problem formulation´s properties and quality. Finally, I propose a two phase study to determine the extent to which these tools are effective for users.