Expert error in trouble-shooting: an exploratory study in electronics

It is known that novices show poor problem-solving performances and that they engage in a relatively inefficient inferential reasoning mode. Experts show high performances in routine situations in which they only activate knowledge. The main purpose of this work was to test the hypothesis that, under some conditions, novices may develop a more efficient diagnostic reasoning than experts, i.e. they may discover the cause of a faulty system conducting fewer tests while avoiding fixation errors. This hypothesis mainly relies on the possibility that experts may be victims of their own knowledge format (French and Sternberg, manuscript). It is tested in a faulty electronic circuit troubleshooting task. Data suggest that novices perform better than experts. Results are discussed with reference to the concepts of schema and expert error. (C) 1999 Academic Press.