novice thinking

Novice thinking refers to the way individuals who are new to a particular field approach problems and acquire knowledge. Unlike experts, novices typically have less organized knowledge and smaller, less interconnected mental frameworks, known as schemata. This means they may struggle to retrieve and connect information efficiently.1

Novices tend to spend more time on the execution of solutions rather than the initial problem representation, often employing a "working backward" strategy. They may also be more susceptible to obstacles in thinking, such as mental set (fixating on a familiar but ineffective strategy) and functional fixedness (inability to see new uses for known objects). In essence, novices are learners who are just starting out in an activity.1234