The role of metacognitive skills in learning to solve problems

Conclusions 151
KM model and its control structures. It exists both at the object- and
the task-level of the theoretical model. In study II and III (chapters 5
and 6) the results reveal that students who play KM Quest significantly
acquire both declarative and procedural knowledge.
Meaningful learning is a necessary condition for transfer. Initially
weak evidence is found that transfer of knowledge occurs. Students are
able to apply their knowledge and skills learned in KM Quest to another
similar case (study I in chapter 4). In the last empirical study (chapter
6) the results give a much clearer indication that transfer of knowledge
occurs as a result of playing KM Quest. Furthermore, in this study the
ability to transfer is positively related to knowledge acquisition.
The conclusion with regard to the first research question is that all studies
reported in this thesis support the view that simulation-games, such
as KM Quest, enable meaningful learning and transfer. This finding
is somewhat contrary to the literature referred to earlier in this thesis
about the effects of simulations and games on learning. One possible
explanation for the fact that we do find learning effects of a simulationgame
is related to the notion of ‘exploratory’ learning.
Most of the literature about the effects of simulations on learning
concerns inductive (scientific) discovery simulations. Learning in such
environments is mainly exploratory. Students are free in deciding which
hypotheses to test and which experiments to conduct. Learning is a relatively
‘unguided’ process. The rather sparse literature about the effects
of games on learning shows that learning is only effective if sufficient instructional
support is added to the environment (Leemkuil et al., 2003).
The review study of de Jong and van Joolingen (1998) also states that
support for learning in such environments is a prerogative. This makes
learning a much more guided process.
Learning in KM Quest is in fact a guided process. Support elements
that are thought to positively influence learning are the KM model, the
additional information in the handbooks, the feedback mechanisms and
the monitoring facilities. The results of study III in chapter 6 however
show that the effect of the KM model is limited with respect to learning
effects. Students who have the model available acquire more modelspecific
knowledge than students who did not have the model available.
But, students who play KM Quest without the KM model also acquire
a significant amount of KM model-specific knowledge. No differences
existed for the other types of knowledge nor transfer. Additionally, the
other support elements are correlated negatively with learning success.
Thus, the learning success in KM Quest cannot be attributed to the
support elements embedded in the game.