Learners have difficulty generating and adapting hypotheses, with low process validity and strong persistence of initial hypotheses¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 1998 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2003: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? Assessed discovery processes of mechanical engineering students showed an average of only 42% syntactical correctness, lower for hypothesis generation. → Ton de Jong 1998 q2 i? In 56% of observed cases students failed to draw the right conclusions from disconfirming experiments, retaining hypotheses incorrectly. → Ton de Jong 1998 (2)

Evidence¶

Ton de Jong 1998¶

Ton de Jong, Wouter R. van Joolingen. (1998). Scientific Discovery Learning with Computer Simulations of Conceptual Domains. Review of Educational Research. https://telearn.hal.science/hal-00190680v1

q2 · i? · review · r3

The review reports Njoo and De Jong's assessment of 91 mechanical engineering students working on a control theory simulation, using fill-in forms to score syntactical correctness, finding "42% correctness of processes" overall.

"Njoo and De Jong found an average score of 42% correctness of processes, and even lower scores for the process of generating hypotheses."

Ton de Jong 1998 (2)¶

Ton de Jong, Wouter R. van Joolingen. (1998). Scientific Discovery Learning with Computer Simulations of Conceptual Domains. Review of Educational Research. https://telearn.hal.science/hal-00190680v1

q2 · i? · review · r3

The review attributes to Klahr and Dunbar's SDDS studies the finding that "56% of observed cases" involved incorrect retention of hypotheses after disconfirming results; the review reports this second-hand.

"Klahr and Dunbar (1988) found that in 56% of observed cases students failed to draw the right conclusions from disconfirming experiments: i.e., hypotheses were retained incorrectly on the basis of a negative experimental result."

Discussion¶

Multiple-hypothesis strategies improve performance only when simulation complexity is low — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`hypothesis-generation-difficulties`
`title`	`Learners have difficulty generating and adapting hypotheses, with low process validity and strong persistence of initial hypotheses`
`description`	`Learners have difficulty generating and adapting hypotheses, with low process validity and strong persistence of initial hypotheses`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`weak`
`newest_evidence`	`1998`
`recheck_by`	`2003`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-16`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	2 — `ton-de-jong-1998`, `ton-de-jong-1998-2`

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