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ABSTRACT:This study documents an instructional methodology to teach a fundamental reasoning skill during scientific inquiry: the evaluation of empirical evidence against multiple hypotheses. Using the "design experiment" approach, with iterative cycles we developed an instructional framework that lends itself to authentic scientific inquiry by providing a nontraditional approach to three aspects of learning: the activities students are engaged in during scientific inquiry, the tools students use while constructing knowledge, and the assessment of learning outcomes. The present article focuses on the contribution of two components of this instructional framework: the effect of technology-based knowledge-representation tools and the effect of reflective assessment on learning to act and think scientifically. The technological tools of the framework allowed students to represent their developing knowledge of natural phenomena with either graphical mapping or with word-processed prose. The reflective assessment we used was a form of inquiry rubrics that provided clear expectations for optimal progress throughout the entire process of inquiry by indicating specific assessment criteria for the various components of scientific inquiry. The results indicated that in real-life-like classroom investigations designed to teach students how to evaluate data in relation to theories, the use of evidence mapping is superior to prose writing. Furthermore, this superior effect of evidence mapping was greatly enhanced by the use of reflective assessment throughout the inquiry process. Modes of representational guidance explain both the superior effect of evidence mapping as well as the discrepancy between the effects of explicit reflection on evidence mapping compared to prose writing. These results have fundamental implications for the development of cognitively-based classroom learning environments and for the design of further research on learning.

1 "Sherlock Is a computer-based sp aortd a environment for a complex troubleshooting job in the Air Force. This chapter describes the training problem for which Sherlock was developed, the pinciples behind its development, and its ImplemaIo. The training problem is severe and representative of a common problem In our high-technology society. People who will fiN a position for a brief period (four years or lees for many in Oi Air Force Job) carry out a set of routine tasks which are well supported by technology. However, periodically, a breakdown occurs: a novel situation requiring sophisticated problem solving for which Itle support Is available. In many cases, such problems must be referred to an expert, but such expertise Is difficult to acquire. Semlautomated, routinized jobs do not afford sufficient .opportunities for complex problem-solving skills to develop, so their Incumbents lack the skill required to handle novel problems. Sherlock is an environrthent in which this missing skill can be acquired for a specific troubleshooting job.-Thu ig b. Sherlock was developed to raise the level of F-IS Manual Avionics Test Station Technicians' troUhehooting knowledge. These technicians repair electronic modules that have been removed from F-15 aircraft because of suspected malfunction. In their daily work, they follow detailed written bowlestool, procedures (part of their Technical Orders) and use a testatatio. The test station Is a age (40 iP) system of electronic equipment to which the module being diagnosed can be attachedw..,' By setting various switches on the front panels of the test station, the airman can quickly perform tests on the module. When a test In the prescribed test routine Isolates the malfunction, the Technical Orders suggest an appropriate repair for the module. A serious problem arises when the test station Itself has a malfunction. Now, Instead of following fixed procedures from a check sheet and making use of the substantial technological support of the test station, the airman i much more on hIs2 own and must engage In complex heuristic problem solving. Because they may be wordng in the field far from help, these technicians have to be self-sufficient: they have to be "4e to repair their equipment. However, because the test station breaks down only about once a month (and even then may be diagnosed and repaired by an expert to minimize downtime), a firstterm airman (someone in his first four years of duty) gets few opportunities to learn this most difficult skill on the job. The technical training airmen receive before reporting for work is oriented toward the conceplual knowledge and skill needed for the routine part of the work-which Is all there is for perhaps 95% of the lime. Yet this leaves the Air Force with a dilemma: its training supposes that test station repair will be learned on the job, but the job doesn't provide the relevant practice opportunities. Sherlock

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Wo report, several experiments examining the effects of overt illustration on first graders' learning from oral prose. In all experiments, children hoard prose selections after (or during) which they illustrated selection content with plasticized figure cutouts and background scenes. Control subjects copied or colored geometric forms during the illustration period. After hearing three or five passages, subjects orally recalled passage content and answered simple factual questions about each passage. Illustration facilitated prose learning only when the child was given the correct pieces for his illustration or had the illustration done for him. When children selected the pieces for each illustration out of a common pool of 20-30 cutouts, illustration activity had either negative or no effect.