Developing an effective support system for inquiry learning in a Web-based environment M. Pedaste & T. Sarapuu Science Didactics Department, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Abstract Sixty-five teams of basic and secondary school students solved problem-solving tasks during a virtual hike in a Web-based inquiry-learning simulation ‘Hiking Across Estonia’. This environment provided learners with all necessary background information for problem- solving and tools for carrying out experiments. There were 25 tasks in certain order about ecological and environmental issues. The teams were clustered according to the data about participants, the results of the pre- and post-test, and their achievement in problem-solving tasks of the virtual hike. Only two out of five clusters were regarded as effective in solving problems and analysing tables, graphs, figures, and photos. The others had difficulties in forming contextual or task and process awareness. A support system for increasing the ef- fectiveness of inquiry learning and enhancing their development of analytical skills was developed on the basis of the strategies that the members of five clusters had used in solving the problems, their achievement in solving the tasks during the virtual hike and in the pre- and post-test, and the personal data about the teams. The support system contained different notes before solving the problems and changed sequence of the tasks on the virtual hike for some clusters. The usage of this system was evaluated in a second study with 60 teams. The comparison of two studies demonstrated significant effectiveness of the support system to both general problem-solving ability and analytical skills. The characteristics of each cluster and the influence of the support system are discussed in this paper. Keywords inquiry learning, inquiry skills, problem solving, support system, situation awareness, Web- based simulation. Introduction Inquiry learning can be defined as the process of dis- covering rules governing relations between dependent and independent variables based on experiments in which independent variables will be manipulated (Wilhelm 2001). Similarly to Kuhn et al. (2000), in our research we define it as an educational activity in which students investigate a set of phenomena and draw conclusions. Before carrying out experiments, it is necessary to plan them for finding correct methods of collecting and analysing data. During the last 10 years many researchers have been studying the skills of planning, implementing or analysing, rather than the whole complexity of inquiry learning process (e.g. de Jong & van Joolingen 1998). However, the process of acquiring inquiry skills has shifted its focus from teacher-centred learning to creating student-centred learning environments for that. At the same time, it has to be remembered that the more open the learning environment is, the more self-regulative students have to be, and the more they have to be instructional de- signers for themselves (Elen & Lowyck 2000). Correspondence: Margus Pedaste, Science Didactics Department, University of Tartu, 46 Vanemuise Str., Tartu 51014, Estonia. E-mail: margus.pedaste@ut.ee Accepted: 19 December 2005 & 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation & 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 22, pp47–62 47 Original article