A Web-based System to Support Inquiry Learning - Towards Determining How Much Assistance Students Need

How much assistance should be provided to students as they learn with educational technology? Providing help allows students to proceed when struggling, yet can depress their motivation to learn independently. Assistance withholding encourages students to learn for themselves, yet can also lead to frustration. The web-based inquiry-learning program, Voyage to Galapagos (VTG), helps students follow the steps of Darwin through a simulation of the Galapagos Island. Students explore the islands, take pictures of animals, evaluate their characteristics and behavior, and use scientific methodology to discover evolution. A preliminary study with 48 middle school students examined three levels of assistance: (1) no support, (2) error flagging, text feedback on errors, and hints, and (3) pre-emptive hints with error flagging, error feedback, and hints. The results indicate that higher performing students gainfully use the program's support more frequently than lower performing students, those who arguably have a greater need for it. We conjecture that this could be a product of the current program only providing an early phase of the learning process and also that higher performers generally are better at asking for help. Lower performers may benefit at later phases of work, which we will test in a future study.