Just like deciding which pair of shoes to wear, people carefully evaluate different strategies when solving problems. Previous research has looked at external and personal factors that influence whether individuals adopt new strategies. However, this study takes a fresh approach by examining how individuals evaluate strategies themselves. Undergraduate participants were presented with two strategies for solving math problems and asked to rate them based on various dimensions. These ratings reflected the strategies’ quality and difficulty. Interestingly, participants’ initial evaluations of strategy quality were linked to their adoption of those strategies later on. This relationship held true even when considering other individual and environmental factors. However, evaluations of strategy difficulty did not consistently predict whether participants would adopt those strategies. Furthermore, individual traits such as cognitive need and spatial visualization ability, as well as the way the problems were framed, played a role in strategy evaluations and adoption. The findings emphasize that strategy adoption is a complex process influenced by multiple factors. To truly understand why people change strategies, it is vital to explore how they evaluate different options.

Abstract
Why do people shift their strategies for solving problems? Past work has focused on the roles of contextual and individual factors in explaining whether people adopt new strategies when they are exposed to them. In this study, we examined a factor not considered in prior work: people’s evaluations of the strategies themselves. We presented undergraduate participants from a moderately selective university (N = 252; 64.8% women, 65.6% White, 67.6% who had taken calculus) with two strategies for solving algebraic word problems and asked them to rate these strategies and their own strategy on a variety of dimensions. Participants’ ratings loaded onto two factors, which we label quality and difficulty. Participants’ initial evaluations of the quality of the strategies were associated with whether they used the strategies at posttest, and this effect held even when controlling for individual and contextual factors. However, people’s evaluations of the difficulty of the strategies were not consistently associated with their later adoption of those strategies. We also examined individual and contextual predictors of strategy ratings and strategy adoption. Participants’ need for cognition and their spatial visualization ability were associated with their strategy evaluations, and the framing of the story problems was associated with their strategy adoption. The findings highlight that strategy adoption depends on multiple interacting factors, and that to understand strategy change, it is critical to examine how people evaluate strategies.

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