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Pedagogical Problem-Solving Difficulty Level Assessment3

Pedagogical Problem-Solving Difficulty Level Assessment Test

In three minutes, the Pedagogical Problem-Solving Difficulty Level Assessment Test guides you through 12 classroom and educational situations. Your result highlights how difficult you may find solving pedagogical problems in upbringing and learning contexts, offering a practical starting point for self-reflection on teaching decisions and responses.

Questions: 123 minutes

Pedagogical Problem-Solving Difficulty Level: test ticket with numbers

October 2, 2025October 2, 2025Material has been updatedOctober 2, 2025Material has been published

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1,715 completions

1,484 likes

Daniel Hall Psychologist · Test reviewer

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Scale Explorer

How the Scales are Structured

Difficulty in Educational Upbringing SituationsDiEUS

Measures how difficult the respondent perceives disciplinary pedagogical situations to be and how readily they can resolve them.

example score10/12

10/12High difficultyexample score

0 – 6Low difficulty

7 – 9Moderate difficulty

10 – 12High difficulty

A score of 10 falls in the High difficulty range, suggesting disciplinary situations are perceived as challenging and may be handled more at a situational level than a supra-situational one.

Problematicness in Academic Learning SituationsPiALS

Assesses how difficult and problem-saturated a person perceives academic educational situations and tasks to be.

example score10/12

10/12High perceived difficultyexample score

0 – 4Low perceived difficulty

5 – 9Moderate perceived difficulty

10 – 12High perceived difficulty

A score of 10 indicates a high perceived difficulty level, suggesting a more situational approach and a greater likelihood of experiencing challenges when resolving academic educational tasks.

just completed the test

DATA-BASED USER COHORTS

Who Usually Takes This Test?

Classroom Teachers Facing Challenges

41%OF USERS

Teachers take it to quickly judge how difficult everyday and unusual classroom situations feel and which problem-solving style they rely on.

New Educators in Training

34%OF USERS

Student teachers and early-career educators use it to understand how they perceive pedagogical problems and what skills to develop first.

School Leaders and Mentors

25%OF USERS

Department heads, mentors, and methodologists use it to spot patterns in staff responses and plan targeted coaching or professional development.

BASED ON AGGREGATED, ANONYMIZED DATA FROM TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FREUDLY USERS.

Benchmarking

See How You Compare

Once you complete the test, your results are compared with real-world data from people in your country.
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.

Shaded area — where most people score

Dot — the average

You — your score lands on each curve after the test— your score, after the test

Problematic nature in disciplinary situationsPnids

You?

Average4.6

Typical rangeTypical2.9 – 6.3

Possible0 – 12

Problematic Aspects in Educational SituationsPAiES

You?

Average5.7

Typical rangeTypical3.6 – 7.7

Possible0 – 12

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Example Questions From the Test

You will be presented with several different problem situations and possible ways of responding to them. Select the response option that seems most acceptable and effective. If you have difficulty choosing, you may select both options. In the original version of the measure, you may also provide your own response; this is not possible in the online version.

- You postpone the new topic and review the previous lesson.
- You present the new material without having a lesson plan.
- Both options
- a) Given the situation, you assign your own helpers.
- b) You highlight the appealing aspects of the task and continue to hope that volunteers will help.
- Both options
- You go into this aspect in more detail, using the audience's increased attention.
- You do not approve of the class's behavior, ask them to stop laughing, and continue the lesson.
- Both options

These are 3 of the 12 real questions — the rest appear in the test. No sign-up needed to start.

WHAT THE TEST MEASURES

Pedagogical Problem-Solving Difficulty Level Assessment Test - Description and methodology of the test

pedagogy

Teachers, trainee educators, and people preparing for educational work can use this questionnaire to examine how they approach demanding upbringing and learning situations. The Pedagogical Problem-Solving Difficulty Level Assessment Test presents brief classroom dilemmas with alternative responses, so the result can show where pedagogical problems may feel more difficult and which choices deserve closer reflection. Its result also highlights educational problem-solving through decisions about preparation, resistance, explanation, discipline, and fairness.

What This Assessment Explores

This pedagogical difficulty assessment examines pedagogical task-solving difficulty in upbringing and learning situations rather than subject knowledge. Its scenarios cover lesson planning, resistance, misunderstanding, conflict, fairness, discipline, and moral learning. The content suits educators and aspiring teachers reflecting on situational and supra-situational problem solving.

The result separates two related dimensions:

Difficulty in Educational Upbringing Situations (0-12) concerns upbringing tasks: Low difficulty (0-6) suggests supra-situational coping; Moderate difficulty (7-9) is the middle band; High difficulty (10-12) may indicate a situational approach and greater difficulty.
Problematicness in Academic Learning Situations (0-12) concerns learning tasks: Low perceived difficulty (0-4) suggests supra-situational coping; Moderate perceived difficulty (5-9) is the middle band; High perceived difficulty (10-12) may indicate a situational approach and greater difficulty.

Together, the profile highlights which context may feel more or less difficult; it should not be read as a direct measure of response style or teaching competence.

Methodology and Evidence Base

Each item presents a paired pedagogical dilemma with two action options and a third Both options choice. The respondent selects among these alternatives, making the format a teaching decision-making questionnaire focused on judgment under classroom pressure rather than agreement ratings.

The questionnaire reports two scale scores and their displayed bands, while the answer-to-point mapping and normative basis are not specified. Interpretation should include the reasoning behind each choice rather than treating a band as proof that one response is always correct.

This online questionnaire is conceptually consistent with the Kashapov-Dyachenko measure (2000), which supplies a situational/supra-situational framework for pedagogical task solving. The 2017 study by Kashapov, Serafimovich, and Poshekhonova examines related supra-situational pedagogical thinking, without establishing that this online questionnaire is an adaptation of that work.

This questionnaire is an online self-report measure. Its results may vary with current context, social desirability, interpretation of the dilemmas, and self-awareness.

Author: John R. Anderson, Robert J. Sternberg

Literature:

Kashapov, M. M. (2000). Psychology of pedagogical thinking. St. Petersburg: Aleteiya, 463 pp. Appendix 1: Determiner of the Dominant Level of Problematicness in Solving Pedagogical Tasks by M. M. Kashapov and E. V. Dyachenko. ISBN 5-89329-287-1.
Kashapov, M. M., Serafimovich, I. V., & Poshekhonova, Y. V. (2017). Components of metacognition and metacognitive properties of forecasting as determinants of supra-situational pedagogical thinking. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 10(1), 80-94. DOI 10.11621/pir.2017.0106.

Updated: 2025-10-02