How does experimental inquiry work in John Dewey’s philosophy?

In John Dewey’s philosophy, which he termed instrumentalism, experimental inquiry is a process of active participation in change to resolve problematic situations.12

The Mechanism of Inquiry

Inquiry begins when an individual encounters a doubtful or problematic condition. Rather than seeking static truths, Dewey viewed knowledge as the result of discerning correlations between events. The process functions as follows:21

• Active Participation: The inquirer introduces specific variations into a process to measure how related events change in response.1
• Ideas as Instruments: Ideas are not infallible reflections of reality but are instead tools—plans of action and predictors of future consequences.1
• Testing and Revision: Because ideas are hypotheses, they must be tested experimentally. If an idea fails to produce the predicted result, it is revised through further, more rigorous inquiry.1
• Warranted Assertion: The goal of this method is to reach a "warranted assertion," which serves as Dewey’s definition of truth—the outcome of competent, self-corrective inquiry.2

This method applies to scientific, social, and moral domains, where the ultimate "end" is not a fixed state but the continuous process of growth, refinement, and human improvement.2