Creating contexts for productive peer collaboration

1. Creating contexts for productive peer collaboration Amanda Harris IDEAs Lab University of Sussex

2. Outline • Children as collaborators • Achievement goal theory • Empirical studies • Achievement goals • Observational studies • Goal-oriented learner profiles • Goal-oriented scaffolding

3. Collaborative activity in the classroom Peer interaction can have positive effects on children’s learning Quality of collaborative discussion tends to be poor

4. Computer-mediated collaboration Task Gender Group Size Ability The computer is a commonly shared resource

5. Collaboration as a subjective experience • Research has focused on structural context • Gender, ability, group size, type of task • Children’s cognitive and affective responses to collaborative learning have been largely ignored

6. Achievement goal theory Understanding new material Developing competencies and mastering skills Demonstrating ability Gaining favourable judgements from others Remains positive in the face of failure Reacts negatively to failure Mistakes = low ability Seeks easy tasks Gives up easily Surface-level learning strategies Seeks challenging tasks Persistence and effort Deep-level learning strategies Goal orientation: A set of beliefs and goals which characterise an individual’s approach to learning Mastery orientation Performance orientation Cognition Affect Behaviour

7. Study 1 – Joke City • 22 children (7 – 9 years; M = 8;7) • 11 same-gender (3 male; 8 female), mixed-ability pairs • 3 collaborative sessions (± 25 minutes) • Videotaped and transcribed • Individual participation coded for: collaborative, non-collaborative and metacognitive contribution

9. Study 1 – Joke City • 22 children (7 – 9 years; M = 8;7) • 11 same-gender (3 male; 8 female), mixed-ability pairs • 3 collaborative sessions (± 25 minutes) • Videotaped and transcribed • Individual participation coded for: collaborative, non-collaborative and metacognitive contribution • Achievement goal orientation • Teacher-rated questionnaire adapted from PALS (Midgley, 2000) ‘This child will persevere when trying to work out challenging tasks’ (mastery) ‘Doing visibly better than other members of the class is important to this child’ (performance) • Mastery and performance score for each child

10. Results • Mastery and performance scores were correlated with the frequency of utterances of each language type Mastery Goals Performance Goals Positively related to metacognitive comments relating to the self (r = .51, p = 0.02) Positively related to frequency of disagreements (r = .58, p = 0.007) Negatively related to metacognitive comments relating to the other child (r = -.49, p = 0.02) Negatively related to frequency of submissions (r = -.38, p = 0.04)

11. Results contd. • Mastery and performance scores were similar • Mastery mean = 3.14 (SD.72) • Performance mean = 2.9 (SD .46) • Slight tendencies do not account for differences in the behaviour • Are goals situated in the individual or the context?

12. Study 2 – Achievement goal stability • Measured the consistency of achievement goal adoption across different learning contexts • Presented children with context specific scenarios • 6 learning contexts (group composition and perceived-ability) • Choice of mastery or performance response • 106 children (61 girls, 45 boys) (7-10yrs)

14. Results 69% = neutral or weak goal orientation 21% = moderate 10% = consistent achievement goal orientation

15. Study 3 – ZoombinisA game of logical reasoning Neutral (34) Goal-oriented (14) 8 mastery-instructed pairs 9 performance-instructed pairs 4 mastery pairs 3 performance pairs All pairs played zoombinis once for about 25 minutes Mastery instructions: object of the game is to work out effective strategies Performance instructions: to get as many zoombinis as possible to safety Neutral instructions: shown how to navigate the game and told to work together to solve the puzzles

16. Coding the zoombinis sessions Problem solving – simple / complex Help-seeking –task-focused Metacognitive awareness – positive / negative Metacognitive control – turn-taking/evaluation of task difficulty Togetherness – I / we Persistence – positive / negative 89% inter rate reliability Kappa coefficient = .88

17. ResultsProblem-solving (discussion) In addition the mastery group engaged in complex problem-solving discussion f(1, 32) = 6.58, p = 0.02 Simple: ‘try that one’, Complex: ‘Try that one because we’ve already done the others’ Both group used simple problem-solving language

18. Help-seekingTask-focused or External No difference between groups in task-focused help The performance group requested external help significantly more than the mastery group (x²(1) = 7.56, p = 0.006)

19. Conclusions • Achievement goals influence collaborative behaviour in distinct ways • Very few children are disposed towards a particular goal-orientation • The rest appear very responsive to goal-oriented cues

20. Goal-oriented learner profiles A Mastery profile Joint engagement Willingness to disagree Complex discussion A Performance profile Focus on self External support Simple discussion

21. Scaffolding achievement goals • Scaffolding might be a way of encouraging a more mastery-oriented approach • Performance reassurance increased confidence emphasis on understanding task mastery independence

22. Thank you