Effects of providing partial hypotheses as a support for simulation‐based inquiry learning.

Hypothesis generation is an important but difficult process for students. This study investigated the effects of providing students with support for hypothesis generation, with regard to the testability and complexity of the generated hypotheses, the quality of the subsequent inquiry learning processes and knowledge acquisition. Fifty‐two secondary school students completed three prior knowledge tests and worked on an inquiry task in the domain of force and motion, concerning the topic of Newton's first law of motion. They received either a set of terms (variables, conditions and relations) to help them generate hypotheses (T condition, n = 23) or the same set of terms plus a partial hypothesis to start from (T + PHy condition, n = 29). Results showed that students in the T + PHy condition generated more complex hypotheses, performed better at data collection and acquired more domain knowledge than students in the T condition. No effects of prior knowledge were found. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter?A limited body of studies has focused on supporting students' hypothesis generation process in inquiry learning.Providing students with a list of pre‐defined hypotheses to be chosen or with specific pre‐defined hypotheses to be tested have been found as effective ways in facilitating students' learning outcome, but these methods limit students' freedom to express their own ideas.Less studies has taken learners' prior knowledge into consideration when discussing the effects of supports in facilitating hypotheses generation.What is the paper adding to this?Offer an overview about current ways on supporting students' hypothesis generation process.Move one step further from the previous researches on finding out an effective support for students' hypothesis generation when taking both the effectiveness of the support and the freedom of the students into consideration.Apply the completion strategy promoted by prior researchers in a new situation, which also contributes to testing the generalizability of this support strategy.What is the implications of study findings for practitioners?Offer an effective and concrete suggestion on how to support students' hypothesis generationOffer practical experience for relevant studies on experiment design.Offer practical experience for relevant studies on taking students' prior knowledge into account when testing the effectiveness of a promoted support for inquiry learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]