Operationalizing mental models: strategies for assessing mental models to support meaningful learning and design-supportive learning environments

Mental models are the conceptual and operational representations that humans develop while interacting with complex systems. Being able to reliably and validly operationalize users' mental models will help us to assess advanced knowledge and problem solving skills acquired while interacting with constructivist learning environments. Additionally, understanding effective and ineffective models will provide us advice for designing the kinds of scaffolding, modeling, and coaching that should be included in learning environments to support effective mental model deveelpment. This paper describes an initial study assessing the mental models of novice and experienced refrigeration technicians.