ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the theoretical background of the research program, the overall setup of the studies, the design of the learning environment, the tests that were developed to measure the determinants, and the overall findings of the program. The major purpose of this chapter is to outline research and design issues that we encountered in a research program on discovery learning in science. By taking discovery learning as a topic, the research program focused on knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, and knowledge restructuring taking place at the "edge" of an individual's personal knowledge base. The major purpose of this chapter is to outline research and design issues that we encountered in a research program on discovery learning in science. this chapter also show that in the area of discovery learning in simulation environments, there is an intricate relation between characteristics of the learner, the domain, and the instructional support offered.
