British Journal zyxwvuts of Educational Psychology zyxwvuts (1998), 68, zyxwvu 15-24 Printed in Great Britain 0 zyxwvuts 1998 The British Psychological Society zyxwvut Is self-explanation while solving problems helpful? The case of analogical problem-solving Yair Neuman* and Baruch Schwarz School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Background. Explanations people give themselves (or what are called self- explanations) while learning have been shown to be positively associated with various learning measures. However, the effect of self-explanation on analog- ical problem-solving has not been investigated. Aim. The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between self- explanation and analogical problem-solving. Sample. Twenty-four university students from the social science faculty. All the students were in their early twenties, 75 per cent of them being females. Method. The students were asked to solve three analytical reasoning problems (one learning problem and two test problems). The students were prompted either to self-explain or to think-aloud. During the problem-solving, verbal protocols were tape-recorded. Results. Students prompted to self-explain performed better in the test phase. The analysis of verbal protocols from good and poor solvers allowed us to identify four categories of self-explanation. Three categories were positively associated with analogical problem-solving. However, one category pertain- ing to the ‘surface structure’ of the problems studied had detrimental effects on further problem-solving. Conclusions. In contrast to previous findings, only certain kinds of self- explanations improve analogical problem-solving. We suggest, therefore, that the role of certain self-explanation is to support better the representation of solution schemes. The process of solving a novel problem is usually described as applying an abstract solution scheme previously learned (English, 1992; Nisbett, Fong, Lehman & Cheng, 1987). In this context, it is important from both theoretical and educational per- spectives to identify strategies that may foster the transfer of a solution scheme to analogical problems, that is, problems sharing the same solution scheme but differing in their cover story. Studying analogical problem-solving means observing how process- ing problems influences the solution of subsequent analogical problems (Gick & *Correspondence and request for reprints should be addressed to Dr Yair Neuman, School of Education, Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel.