and allowed them to review the assessments of their fellow students. In one study, sixth
graders in a suburban school who were taught physics using technology performed better
at solving conceptual physics problems than did eleventh and twelfth grade physics
students in the same school system taught by conventional methods. A second study that
compared urban students in grades 7 to 9 with suburban students in grades 11 and 12
again showed that the younger students taught by the inquiry-based approach had a
superior grasp of the fundamental principles of physics (White and Frederickson, 1998).
This instructional approach has been explored for many years indicating that when
educational technology tools are used appropriately and effectively in science
classrooms, students actively engage in their knowledge construction and improve their
thinking and problem solving skills (Trowbridge, Bybee and Powell, 2008).