Describes a study of university students that examined the ability of people to learn a computer system by exploration and discusses the role of thinking aloud and reflection to obtain information about the goals of the user. Considers display-based, exploratory learning in relation to planning and problem solving. (Author/LRW)

Discussion of computer simulations used for exploratory learning focuses on the design of a hypothesis scratchpad that students can use for hypothesis generation and testing. An experiment with college chemistry students that compared three versions of the scratchpad is described, and the effect of the scratchpads on learning environments is…