Background: In scientific inquiry learning, students often have difficulties conducting hypothetical reasoning with multiple intertwined variables. Concept maps have a potential to facilitate complex thinking and reasoning. However, there is little investigation into the content of student-constructed concept maps and its association with inquiry…

Higher-order thinking is crucial to inquiry learning. It is important to investigate how students think in inquiry contexts. Given the tacit nature of higher-order thinking, cognitive maps (e.g., concept maps, reasoning maps) have been used to externalize thinking and have shown promising effects in terms of improving inquiry task performance.…