The human beings are in their lives every day confronted with the situations that are for them contradictory, containing obstructions that have to be overcome in order to achieve the aim, or the human beings experience various difficulties. To cope with these situations, it is desirable to apply the thought processes enabling generating of knowledge necessary for a successful solving or removing of the above-mentioned obstructions. Those situations, raising the inevitably thought processes, are, according to A. M. Matyushkin (1973, p. 20), in psychology called as the problem situations and the relevant tasks as the problem tasks.
The definition of the term problem is presented differently, therefore it is desirable to analyse it in detail and define it. Theoretically, a problem is understood as a difficulty of theoretical or practical nature that causes an inquiring attitude of a subject and leads him/her to the enrichment of his/her knowledge (Cz. Kupisiewicz, p. 16). This term is in the fields of education similarly understood by a Polish scientist, W. Okoń (p. 79), who defines a didactic problem as a practical or theoretical difficulty that a pupil has to solve independently by his own active research.
Usually, the base of this difficulty is a systematic and deliberately organized situation, in which the pupil aspires to overcome the difficulties in accordance to the specific needs and by this he/she gains new knowledge and experience. The analysis of this particular situation leads to the formulation of a problem – to the verbal definition of the occurred difficulty. As it was already discussed above, the thinking of an individual begins with the awareness of the problematic situation.
In this case, the problematic situation has a potential to grow into a problem that deserves a solution. Every problem is bound to the problematic situation, however, not every problematic situation turns into the problem because this reality depends on the individual. A person, who finds him/herself in a problematic situation and is aware of its existence, does not have to “see” the problem until the ability of the problem awareness is developed. The individual, who is aware of the problem, is able to specify the difficulty or the source of the conflict which causes the problematic situation, is capable to deal with the problem. Contrary to that, the individual who is not able to be aware of the problem, is albeit experiencing the feeling superimposed by curiosity, however, does not realise what causes the difficulty, which obstacle that causes the conflict has to be removed, and, therefore, he is not able to remove it.
A lot of factors affect the problem awareness and those can appear inside the problematic situation, e.g.: the inappropriate verbal utterances that should induce the situation or the lack of knowledge. They can also appear outside the problematic situation, i.a. noise, improper lighting or a visual impairment. Taking this into account, we can mention also so-called perceptibility of the problem. The threshold of the perceptibility is different amongst the individuals which is mainly conspicuous when more people find themselves in a problematic situations of the same parameters.
The exterior conditions of the individual are the same, the conditions directly connected to the individual are different. If the individual is perceives the problem, the willingness to deal with the problem is very essential. This is a state when the individual approaches the evaluation of the circumstances of the problem and character of the problematic situation. He/she evaluates the particular circumstances and he/she attaches a particular importance to them. One of the opinions is that he/she is not willing to deal with the problem in the current situation or to proceed to its solution. This is very important in the educational field because the problems that are given to the pupils should be the ones that the pupils accept willingly and if not, the pupils should be motivated. The reluctance to deal with the problem is going to be obvious mainly in the situations that allow an escape because the feeling of difficulties is not pleasant for every individual.
The resolution of the problem can be described as a state characterized as the removal, disappearance or fading of the difficulties, conflict, unrest, feeling of uncertainty, or a concern. The two possible ways of reaching the resolution were already discussed as these are internal and external ways. The solving does not have to be based on the individual who experiences the problem and feels it - another individual or a group of cooperating individuals can contribute to those before-mentioned ways.
In extreme cases does not the individual experiencing the difficulty or a conflict have to perform any action and the problem can be solved as a result of the spontaneous change of the acting circumstances or the change caused by another person
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