Abstract

With the advancement of informational and portable technologies, virtual manipulatives based on tablets are applied to support students’ learning in science education. However, research on the impact of tablet-student ratios on individual knowledge acquisition and cognitive load in collaborative inquiry learning has not been addressed in detail yet. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of tablet-student ratios (1:1 or 1:m) and external script availability (with or without) on students’ knowledge acquisition and cognitive load in collaborative inquiry learning when using virtual manipulatives. A three-round quasi-experiment was conducted across 3 months with 130 fifth graders from four classes learning three scientific inquiry themes. The four classes, class A (1:1 group with external script condition) with 31 students, class B (1:m group with external script condition) with 34 students, class C (1:1 group without external script condition) with 33 students, and class D (1:m group without external script condition) with 32 students, constitute four technology affordance conditions. The research conducted a pretest, posttest, and repeated-measures ANOVA to explore the effects of technology affordances on students’ knowledge acquisition and cognitive load of collaborative learning. Results show that technology affordances have impacts on students’ knowledge acquisition and cognitive load during collaborative inquiry activities. Moreover, the impacts changed over time. This study has practical implications for the instructional design of mobile device-supported collaborative inquiry activities.