Teaching the How of Cognitive Science.

Cognitive scientists are pretty adept at coordinating multiple methods and perspectives; it is what we do. Teaching other people to do it is harder, especially when the other people are whole classes of undergraduates in one of the new cognitive science majors or specializations. The challenge is to provide students with (a) a sufficient understanding of some of the methods used in the contributing fields, (b) the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and (c) how they can be coordinated in interdisciplinary research to achieve new understanding.

Inquiry is a web-based curriculum for introducing students to the range of research methods employed in cognitive science. To promote active understanding of the research methods that are introduced, the course materials are interactive. For example, instead of just providing a definition of cognitive science, students are guided to construct their own characterization after identifying and classifying a variety of phenomena as cognitive or not. They are then challenged to test the adequacy of their characterization in light of other phenomena and characterizations advanced by other students.

The materials are organized into semi-independent modules that can be selected and recombined to meet the objectives of particular courses. To provide integration to the different methods, research on memory provides a common theme, but examples from a variety of their domains are offered as well.

The core modules for the course are divided into empirical strategies and modeling strategies. The range of empirical strategies addressed includes observational and correlational techniques, causal reasoning, including the use of directed graphs, and various experimental designs. The modeling strategies include mechanistic modeling, mathematical modeling, symbolic modeling, and neural network modeling. The final set of modules (not yet available) focus on the integration of research techniques; cases examined include neuroimaging and memory research on the hippocampus.

The Inquiry system has recently been extended to support courses such as 'Basic scientific reasoning'. The new modules cover basic argument forms and how these forms are used in scientific reasoning.

In addition to the materials for student use, a variety of tools have been designed to enable instructors to utilize these modules and to supplement them with material of their own or found elsewhere ont he web. The instructors' site also offers reports of web usage organized by student or by modules, and a "lab manual" that provides ideas and guidance for in-class projects designed to make the material more concrete.