Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: In a study with 112 third- and fourth-grade children, we measured the relative effectiveness of discovery learning and direct instruction at two points in the learning process: (a) during the initial acquisition of the basic cognitive objective (a procedure for designing and interpreting simple, unconfounded experiments) and (b) during the subsequent transfer and application of this basic skill to more diffuse and authentic reasoning associated with the evaluation of science-fair posters. We found not only that many more children learned from direct instruction than from discovery learning, but also that when asked to make broader, richer scientific judgments, the many children who learned about experimental design from direct instruction performed as well as those few children who discovered the method on their own. These results challenge predictions derived from the presumed superiority of discovery approaches in teaching young children basic procedures for early scientific investigations.
Source: Psychological Science
Authors: David Klahr, Milena Nigam
Institutions: Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2139559367