Inquiry Learning With An Interactive Physics Simulation: What Exploratory Strategies Lead To Success?

摘要

Instructional support is fundamental to successful implementation of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) in various educational settings. Although research indicates that instructional support can enhance acquisition of scientific knowledge and inquiry strategies, there is insufficient understanding of how major differences in inquiry task performance and learning outcomes can emerge among students with similar prior domain knowledge receiving equivalent guidance. To investigate this issue, we conducted a descriptive observational study of undergraduate students (N = 10) learning from a physics simulation. Our results indicated that strategies such as setting goals, testing prior knowledge, making logical predictions, testing, collecting evidence, and providing explanation contributed to greater gains in domain knowledge. Although instructional support benefitted high-gaining and low-gaining learners, low gainers tended to benefit more from explicit explanations and direct modeling. The results imply that certain cognitive and metacognitive strategies are prerequisite inquiry competencies for successful use of simulation tools and tutor guidance in simulation-based inquiry learning. These strategies should be developed either through prior instruction or appropriate scaffolding throughout the phases of inquiry learning.