Jos van der Linden

Collaborative learning tasks and the elaboration of conceptual knowledge

Abstract In this article we present the results of an experimental study of the influence of task characteristics on the characteristics of elaboration of conceptual knowledge in social interaction. With a pre-test and post-test we measured individual learning outcomes. We constructed a coding scheme that focuses on the communicative functions and propositional content of utterances and on elaborative episodes. The subjects were 40 students who worked in dyads on a collaborative task about electricity in one of four conditions. We compared a concept mapping task with a poster task and investigated the effect of a phase of individual preparation. The post-test scores were significantly higher than the pre-test scores. Individual preparation created better learning results and the asking of more questions. The concept mapping conditions showed more discussion of electricity concepts, collaboratively elaborated conflicts and reasoning, but no higher individual learning outcomes. In the concept mapping conditions, elaboration was related to individual learning outcomes.

Collaborative Concept Mapping: Provoking and Supporting Meaningful Discourse

A N IMPORTANT AIM OF INSTRUCTION in schools is that students learn the concepts that are used within specific domains, and that they improve their ability to use these concepts in their mutually agreed-upon “scientific” meanings. Several authors suggest that students learn domainspecific concepts by using them in spoken communication—through talking about and “with” concepts (Duit & Treagust 1998; Lemke, 1990; Palincsar, Anderson, & David, 1993). From this point of view, then, collaborative learning tasks have a strong potential to contribute to the learning of concepts, because they can provide students with the opportunity to talk about and use them to describe and explain phenomena. In addition to the composition of the group, the group size, the reward structure, and the preparation for group work, the task itself has an important role in shaping the quality of the student interaction (Derry, 1999; Van der Linden, Erkens, Schmidt, & Renshaw, 2000; Webb & Palincsar, 1996). In this article we discuss the potential of collaborative concept-mapping tasks. In our research, we used a concept-mapping task in three experimental studies. Participants in the studies were 15to 16-year-old students from secondary-level physics classes. The students collaborated in pairs on a concept-mapping task that functioned as the introduction to a new course about electricity. In each study, we manipulated the task design and compared the student interaction that emerged in the different task conditions. In all studies, we videotaped and transcribed the student interactions and analyzed the transcripts. Several studies (Horton, McConny, Gallo, Woods, & Hamelin, 1993) have shown that concept mapping results in meaningful learning. Making a concept map helps learners become aware of and reflect on their own (mis)understandings; it helps students take charge of their own meaning-making. Further, it contributes to the development of an integrated conceptual framework. Most of the concept-mapping studies focus on the construction of a concept map by individual students or a teacher. In line with the findings of Roth and Roychoudhury (1993, 1994) and Sizmur and Osborne (1997), we concluded that concept mapping, as a collaborative learning activity, is successful in provoking and supporting a student discourse that contributes to the appropriation of physics concepts. Students in the three studies in which we used concept mapping as a group task showed significant learning gains (van Boxtel, 2000). It appeared that the learning outcomes were related to the quality of the student interaction. The more talk about physics concepts and the more elaborative that talk, the higher the learning outcomes. Carla van Boxtel Jos van der Linden Erik Roelofs Gijsbert Erkens

The Use of Textbooks as a Tool During Collaborative Physics Learning

Abstract The study examined how features of student interaction, and the way an individual student contributes to that interaction (his or her participation), relates to the improvement of conceptual understanding within the domain of physics. The study also investigated how textbooks are used during collaborative work and how that use affects the quality of student interaction and outcomes. The participants were 56 students aged 15 or 16. The students worked in dyads on a concept-mapping task that functioned as an introduction for a new course about electricity. A condition in which the students were provided with 2 textbooks was compared with a condition without the availability of textbooks. The use of textbooks had a negative influence on the amount of elaboration and coconstruction in the student interaction. Individual learning outcomes were positively related to the amount of collaborative elaboration in the student interaction.

Nominations, Ratings, and the Dimensions of Sociometric Status

In 1944, U. Bronfenbrenner remarked on the need for a two-dimensional model of sociometric status. The low value of the correlation between the variables liking and disliking-assumed basic dimensions of sociometric status-is often cited as evidence for the correctness of Bronfenbrenner’ssuggestion. Sociometric status is derived from a coalescence of judgements at the individual level. In this article we argue that score attribution at this level (where one group member assesses another) is one-dimensional along the liking-disliking continuum. Two-dimensionality of sociometric status arises at the group level. However, we also show that at this level liking and disliking are not two distinct dimensions, but the poles of just one, the other being visibility (or impact). If the one-dimensional model of liking score attribution on the individual level is accepted, the obvious thing to do is to instruct respondents accordingly. Rating scales are suitable for this. The rating-scale methods we suggested in previous publications (e.g. Maassen, Akkermans, & van der Linden, 1996) are in keeping with this argument. Moreover, these methods may be recommended for their reliability, validity and for the variety of research designs to which they can be applied.

Dialogic learning: Shifting perspectives on teaching learning and instruction

Contemporary researchers have analysed dialogue primarily in terms of instruction, conversation or inquiry. There is an irreducible tension when the terms ‘dialogue’ and ‘instruction’ are brought together, because the former implies an emergent process of give-and-take, whereas the latter implies a sequence of predetermined moves. It is argued that effective teachers have learned how to perform in this contradictory space to both follow and lead, to be both responsive and directive, to require both independence and receptiveness from learners. Instructional dialogue, therefore, is an artful performance rather than a prescribed technique. Dialogues also may be structured as conversations which function to build consensus, conformity to everyday ritualistic practices, and a sense of community. The dark side of the dialogic ‘we’ and the community formed around ‘our’ and ‘us’ is the inevitable boundary that excludes ‘them’ and ‘theirs’. When dialogues are structured to build consensus and community, critical reflection on the bases of that consensus is required and vigilance to ensure that difference and diversity are not being excluded or assimilated (see Renshaw, 2002). Again it is argued that there is an irreducible tension here because understanding and appreciating diversity can be achieved only through engagement and living together in communities. Teachers who work to create such communities in their classrooms need to balance the need for common practices with the space to be different, resistant or challenging – again an artful performance that is difficult to articulate in terms of specific teaching techniques.

Collaborative learning tasks and the elaboration of conceptual knowledge [Learning and Instruction 10 (2000) 311–330]

In this article we present the results of an experimental study of the influence of task characteristics on the characteristics of elaboration of conceptual knowledge in social interaction. With a pre-test and post-test we measured individual learning outcomes. We constructed a coding scheme that focuses on the communicative functions and propositional content of utterances and on elaborative episodes. The subjects were 40 students who worked in dyads on a collaborative task about electricity in one of four conditions. We compared a concept mapping task with a poster task and investigated the effect of a phase of individual preparation. The post-test scores were significantly higher than the pre-test scores. Individual preparation created better learning results and the asking of more questions. The concept mapping conditions showed more discussion of electricity concepts, collaboratively elaborated conflicts and reasoning, but no higher individual learning outcomes. In the concept mapping conditions, elaboration was related to individual learning outcomes.  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.