In June, the Monitor On Psychology contained the summary of a research study contrasting discovery learning with direct instruction. The summary (the original is not freely available online) describes a study by Klahr, Chen and Fey that either directly instructed 3rd and 4th graders how to form meaningful hypotheses regarding the question of how the steepness and length of a ramp influence how far a ball rolls from the end of a ramp or allowed the children to explore the ramp on their own. The children learned and were more likely to transfer understanding when directly instructed.
My concern is that educators will confuse pure “discovery learning” and student-centered learning. Way back when, Ausubel differentiated direct instruction from discovery learning and noted that both could result in meaningful or rote learning. I would guess Ausubel would label a technique in which “teachers did not intervene beyond suggesting a learning objective” as rote discovery.
Note in the analysis of this study, one critic noted that “I would like to see a replication with guided discovery.” So would I.
