Learning to Pull the Thread: Application of Guided Discovery Principles to the Inquiry Process

Investigation of direct causes is a fundamental component of inquiry and analysis tasks that require skilled observations, logical thinking, and a persistent search for a complete understanding of the events. The need to cultivate such skills and persistence is a major challenge for diverse disciplines from accident investigation to forensics to intelligence analysis. In this context, persistence means to keep pulling the threads of evidence until a sufficient understanding of cause-effect relationships has emerged. The training challenge is rooted in fundamental questions about performance measurement and instruction: Can we effectively instill the required skills and persistence by merely informing learners through traditional classroom instruction? Or would such cognitive skills and persistence be better developed and refined through carefully crafted experience-based training? In instructional systems design terminology, this question may be phrased as a choice between receptive/directive instructional architectures that focus on ASK and TELL approaches versus approaches that emphasize SHOW and DO. The latter, more interactive instructional approaches emphasize active learning and performance assessment. We suggest that active, performance-based paradigms such as scenario-based and guided-discovery learning approaches may provide more effective solutions. By immersing the learner in appropriate interactive scenarios, we can ascertain through actual performance the extent to whichmore » the learner demonstrates the objective knowledge or skills. We have previously reported on an application of guided-discovery principles to develop Web-based awareness training for security inquiry officials. The purpose of this paper is to report on subsequent research that employs guided-discovery scenarios to enhance the learner's evidential reasoning process through practice in following threads to identify direct causes. Implications for inquiry/analysis and cognitive skills training are discussed.« less