Chapter 18: An Approach to Problem Solving
pg: 191-197
Essential skills for science and technology by If I told you that you need to produce an injection for a patient, which of the following would be appropriate volumes to use:
3mL, 300mL, 3000mL, 0.3mL ???
Students often say to me (about pharmaceutical calculations): it's so easy when you do it on the board, but I just get stuck on where to start.
This is the most common problem… Where do we start?
There are FOUR key steps in solving a problem:
1. Clarify the problem (what is being asked?)
2. Devise a plan of attack (how can I go about solving this?)
3. Implement the plan (actually use the plan you developed in stage TWO)
4. Check the answer is reasonable and sensible
Often we get the answer and STOP (i.e., at step 3), BUT it is just as important to carry out step 4: ascertain whether the result is reasonable, and close to what we expected.
Sometimes students have difficulty judging whether an answer they have calculated is appropriate or not – common responses from students include “how?” and “if I didn’t know the answer immediately, how can you expect me to know if my answer is correct?” BUT step FOUR isn’t asking you to say whether your answer is correct or not. It’s asking you to consider whether your answer is feasibly correct. Is it "in the ballpark”? And also, is your answer reasonable?
It’s easy to accidently miscalculate, and be off by a magnitude of ten, a hundred, or a thousand…
This is why step four is so important, so use your common sense, and estimation.
You may already do some form of estimation in your head. If you don't, it's a good idea to start, so that "alarm bells" sound if your calculated answer isn't what you expect.
Estimation can also be used in multiple choice question exams to approximate the answer (which may actually eliminate all options except for the correct one, so you won't have to do the exact calculation!).
More simple estimation examples are available here: http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/drugcalcs/?q=estimate_prac
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