Learning science by creating models

Inquiry learning environments increasingly incorporate modeling facilities. Such environments offer a platform where students learn about a phenomena through systematic experimentation with a simulation and express their newly acquired understanding in a runnable computer model. As the orchestration of inquiry and modeling activities is both new and demanding to students, support is needed. The series of studies described in this dissertation examine how students’ investigative efforts and model-building activities can best be supported. In the first study, domain novices’ need for support in such environments was assessed. In three subsequent studies the effect of support in the form of model progression (i.e., gradually increasing a tasks’ complexity) and worked out examples on students’ performance and learning were examined in real classroom settings in secondary education.