The development of cognitive skills to support inquiry learning

Establishing the value of inquiry learning as an educational method, it is argued, rests on thorough, detailed knowledge of the cognitive skills it is intended to promote. Mental models, as representations of the reality bein g investigated in inquiry learning, stand to influence strategies applied t o the task. In the research described here, the hypothesis is investigated that students at the middle school level, and sometimes well beyond, may ha ve an incorrect mental model of multivariable causality tone in which effec ts of individual features on an outcome are neither consistent nor additive ) that impedes the causal analysis involved in mast forms of inquiry learni ng. An extended intervention with 6th to 8th graders was targeted to promot e (a) at the metalevel, a correct mental model based on additive effects of individual features (indicated by identification of effects of individual features as the task objective); (b) also at the metalevel, metastrategic u nderstanding of the need to control the influences of other features; and ( c) at the performance level, consistent use of the controlled comparison st rategy. Both metalevel advancements were observed, in addition to transfer to a new task at the performance level, among many(though not all) students . Findings support the claim that a developmental hierarchy of skills and u nderstanding underlies, and should be identified as an objective of, inquir y learning.