Open-ended projects require problem-solving standards and methodologies.

Three types of problems:

Given problems, where the solver is given both the goal and the strategies;

Goal problems, where the solver is given the goal and nothing else – the solver has to decide and develop his/her own strategies; and

Own problems, where solvers decide both the goal and the strategies.

Project-based problem solving and the assessment of such learning are complex.

A set of skills or processes as well as the concepts involved in such an approach may serve as criteria for assessment. The knowledge and skills involved in the problem solving depend on the problem, the context in which the problem is embedded, and the possible means to a solution.

A broad group of skills includes the following:

Problem-solving and creative skills:

the ability to diagnose the features of a problem, frame hypotheses, and design experiments to test those hypotheses and evaluate the results; the ability to draw on relevant ideas and use materials inventively

Observation and visual skills:

the ability to observe accurately; the ability to record distributions, patterns, and relationships, using scale, perspective, shape, and color; the ability to interpret observations

Numerical skills:

the ability to estimate and measure, and to understand the use of numerical relationships, shapes, and patterns

Imaginative skills:

the ability to put oneself into other situations, whether of time, place, or person, to visualize other experiences;  the ability to discipline the imagination by evidence and experience, to reorder and reshape experiences and images Organizational and study skills:

the ability to extract information, to arrange in sequence, to classify, to weigh and interpret evidence and to draw conclusions, to see relationships; the ability to make the best use of time

Physical and practical skills:

the ability to develop manual dexterity and a variety of coordinated body movements, to select appropriate tools and pieces of equipment and to use them effectively

Social skills:

the ability to cooperate, to negotiate, to express ideas in a variety of contexts, to consider other points of view, to recognize nonverbal communication

Communication skills:

the ability to use reading and writing, oral, nonverbal, and graphical skills to receive, and convey communication without the risk of misunderstandings.Attitudes: