Inquiry or scientific discovery learning environments are environments in which a domain is not directly offered to learners but in which learners have to induce the domain from experiences or examples. Because this is a difficult task the discovery process needs to be combined with guidance for the learner. The most effective way to provide this guidance is to integrate it in the learning environment. Guidance may be directed at one or more of the discovery learning processes, for example, hypothesis generation or monitoring, or at structuring the overall process. With adequate guidance discovery learning can be an effective learning approach in which mainly "intuitive" or "deep" conceptual knowledge can be acquired. Inquiry learning now finds new directions in collaborative inquiry and modeling environments.
