3 Matching Annotations
- Oct 2022
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physicstoday.scitation.org physicstoday.scitation.org
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An adviser should have their students explicitly practice decisions 25 and 26, test their solutions, and try to come up with the ways their decisions could fail, including alternative conclusions that are not the findings that they were hoping for. Thinking of such failure modes is something that even many experienced physicists are not very good at, but our research has shown that it can be readily learned with practice.
To help fight cognitive bias, one should actively think about potential failure modes of one's decisions and think about alternative conclusions which aren't part of the findings one might have hoped for. Watching out for these can dramatically help increase solution spaces and be on the watch out for innovative alternate or even better solutions.
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The third and probably most serious difficulty in making good reflective decisions is confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias can be detrimental when making solid reflective decisions.
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To be a successful physicist requires mastering how to make all 29 decisions, but the reflection decisions (decisions 23–26) are arguably the most difficult to learn.
Of the 29 problem solving decisions identified as important the three "reflection decisions" (23-26 in the list) may be the most difficult to learn as they require metacognition and self-evaluation.
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