25 March 2014

Polya's Four-Step Process

I first learned of George Polya's 4-step process in a graduate course in math education and have been a proponent of it for genealogical research ever since. 

Polya had four steps to solving any problem:

  1. Understand the problem--know all terms and state simple problem
  2. Determine a solution--decide what to do
  3. Execute solution procedure-do it
  4. Evaluate-did you solve it?
It seems to me that genealogists can operate within this framework and still honor the essence of the BCG Genealogy Standards.

I've found this approach very helpful for over twenty years--I don't expect that to change.