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Small-group collaboration and individual knowledge acquisition: The processes of growth during adolescence and early adulthood
ARTICLE

, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom ; , University of Roehampton, United Kingdom

Learning and Instruction Volume 60, Number 1, ISSN 0959-4752 Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

Abstract

Research into small-group collaboration during middle to late childhood shows that while individual understanding can be promoted through exchanging differing opinions, the joint analyses that groups construct while collaborating play a tangential role. Individuals may or may not accept these constructions depending upon processes of reflection and reconciliation that are triggered through difference and sometimes occur post-group. Recognizing a dearth of research with older participants (together with inconclusive suggestions that collaborative constructions may become more significant with age), the reported study examines the impact of small-group collaboration during adolescence and early adulthood. Forty-six pairs of students aged between 10 and 22 years worked on a computer-presented task that required them to discuss and predict the trajectories objects follow when they fall from stationary or moving carriers. Associations between group dialogue and post-test performance confirmed a key role for differing opinions while collaborative constructions turned out to have little relevance.

Citation

Howe, C. & Zachariou, A. (2019). Small-group collaboration and individual knowledge acquisition: The processes of growth during adolescence and early adulthood. Learning and Instruction, 60(1), 263-274. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved February 25, 2021 from .

This record was imported from Learning and Instruction on March 15, 2019. Learning and Instruction is a publication of Elsevier.

Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2017.10.007

Keywords

References

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