The overall aim of education is the development of creative, critical thinking and problem-solving future citizens who will be able to positively contribute (individually and collectively) to society. Yet, research has highlighted the misalignment between theory (curriculum) and practice (teaching practices, learning experiences) in the attainment of this aim. The objective of technology education is to produce technologically capable and literate people. Problem-solving and value judgements have been highlighted as critical areas in the development of technological capability ([1]) and technological literacy ([2]).This paper investigates students' (12 to 15-year-olds) individual heuristics when problem solving during a prescribed ICT based computer task. The program attempts to elicit critical thinking and reasoning skills (deductive/abductive/inductive). The development and application of these skills became apparent as students progressed through the task. Web-capture software was used to track each student's progress and monitor their decision making.A multidimensional problem-solving framework was employed when observing participants attempts. The problem-solving framework looked at four key stages: Identifying, Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating. This was supported by the sub-cycle of conjecture, test, and evaluate (accept/reject) method presented by Carlson and Bloom ([3]) used to analyse mathematical problem-solving. Simultaneously audio responses were also captured, which gave researchers a valuable and rich data set to interpret individual heuristics, conceptual knowledge and decision making.The findings presented in this paper illustrate a clear connection between Attitudes, Skills and Knowledge (ASK) and the development of strategic knowledge and successful problem solving. The use of both conscious and subconscious recognition of signage, symbolism and pattern recognition in the problem-solving process provided the researcher with insight into the type of individual heuristics employed and the performance efficacy of student attempts.