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– Strategic knowledge, such as the ability to recognize the applicability of a concept, for example,
momentum is conserved when there are no external forces, or that energy is conserved when there
are no non-conservative forces.
– Meta-cognitive knowledge, for example, the awareness of underlying assumptions, or that an
answer should be checked by solving the problem a different way.
– Self-knowledge, such as knowing one's likely sources of mistakes, or knowing that one should be
more procedural when solving problems.

– Operational knowledge, such as how to take the cross product or dot product of two vectors, or
how to take the determinant of a matrix, or how to draw a free-body diagram.
– Procedural knowledge, such as when to use conservation of energy (i.e. when all forces are
conservative), or when to specify a coordinate system (e.g. when finding potential energy), or when
to draw a free-body diagram (e.g. when applying Newton's laws).
– Problem-state knowledge, which are the features of a problem used for deciding how to solve it.
Examples are: knowing that there are no external forces in a particular problem, or that there are
no non-conservative forces in the problem, or that an object is at rest initially, or that the object is
on the incline.

Problem solving and decision-making
Recently, most problems raised by the industry or academia are not easy to solve. Problem solving and
decision-making are important skills for business and life, and they are especially important to get consensus
among individuals or groups of people. To improve the quality of their decisions, decision-makers need to be
more decisive in acting upon the assessments.

In the problem solving and decision-making process, the creativity of individuals is essential. The
brainstorming technique among people is particularly useful. Good decision-making requires a mixture of
skills which includes creative development and identification of options, clarity of judgement, firmness of
decision, and effective implementation. For teams and organizations, a perspective of group profiles and
human resources can assist in making decisions. The decision-making may be different according to
categories of people, especially in a large group of human resources, since some people may have different
knowledge backgrounds and different understanding of things.
There are various techniques of problem solving from finding and defining the problems to selecting the best
option. To improve the problem solving process, all the members share the current situations and the
challenging issues, and seek an optimal solution. The leader encourages a group of members to develop
options and select a solution. The social networking technologies may be used to get a consensus among
people efficiently and effectively.

Cognitive process of knowledge creation and learning
Most knowledge is conceptual in nature. The relevant cognitive processes are required for acquisition of
conceptual knowledge and construction of the useful knowledge structure. As an example, the following
activities can be used by teachers to stimulate the cognitive processes needed to develop a conceptual
understanding of science and technology [23]:
– Use multiple representations: A representation may be linguistic, abstract, symbolic, pictorial, or
concrete. Using many different representations for the same knowledge helps people to interrelate
knowledge types and relate knowledge to physical experiences. It encourages the formation of links
between knowledge elements and promotes a rich clustering of knowledge.
– Make forward and backward references: Concepts require a long time to be formed. Thus, students
completely learn one topic before moving on to the next. By making forward references, new
materials are prepared. By making backward references, the new materials with established (or
partially established) material are also linked, thus making knowledge interconnected rather than
linear.

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