Tracking Students' Inquiry Paths through Student Transition Analysis

In the Science Assistment project (http://users.wpi.edu/~sci_assistments/) we provide students with rich and dynamic opportunities to engage in inquiry while researchers and teachers use performance data as assessment indices of scientific inquiry skills and domain knowledge. Activities in the Science Assistment Project follow a pedagogical model known as the inquiry cycle, namely, explore, hypothesize, experiment, and analyze. Figure 1 shows this cycle as a graph and the transitions that can be made between states. State “Comp” represents completion of the activity.