backup: adfs::0.$.chap6
27th October 1993
CHAPTER 6: LEARNING WITHIN PEER COLLABORATIONS
Early in this book, I noted a contemporary worry that computer-based
learning might evolve into a socially-isolating experience. I have
since argued that the very nature of the technology easily invites
activity that can become dislocated from teacher-led communication.
Moreover, orthodox perspectives on the psychology of learning may even
be encouraging this trend. Yet, when we examine actual classroom
practice we find that, in certain significant respects, the computer
has facilitated socially-organized learning rather than inhibited it.
This is an impression that is particularly apparent in settings of
early education. It is an impression based upon the prevalence of
computer-based *group* work: what is now commonly seen in classrooms
is computers used to support learning through peer collaboration.
The reasons for this development may well include an active attempt by
teachers to resist the isolating atmosphere of computer use. However,
it may also reflect a particular predicament they have faced in the
recent period of implementing new educational technology.
There has been official concern that computers should penetrate deeply
into educational activity, yet the scale of financial commitment
barely made this possible. Generally, the solution improvised by
schools was to spread the resource thinly through a premises and
thereby allow limited access for each pupil. In Britain this strategy
is particularly favoured by primary schools. Secondary schools have
been more inclined to cluster their machines in customised computer
rooms: but this may only have served to increase availability at the
expense of concentrating its use within specialist subject groupings -
technology classes, for instance. In either case, if pupil
opportunities for fair access are to be optimised under these
circumstances of scarce resourcing, then cultivating small group work
(rather than pursuing the model of individual "desktop teachers") may
be viewed as the natural solution.
In this chapter, I shall evaluate the state of practice and research
relating to the deployment of computers for peer-supported learning.
First, I shall review claims that have recently been made for the
quality and consequences of such collaborative work. It will be noted
that this approach to the management of computer-based activities has
attracted some justified enthusiasm. However, I shall argue that the
use of computers for peer-based learning deserves richer input from
psychological theory. Particularly where younger pupils are involved,
we still have only limited insight into what defines an "effective"
collaboration. Rectifying this requires us to develop a suitable
conceptual vocabulary for analysing the talk and action that
constitutes collaborative work. I shall identify the concepts that
are used by researchers to characterise group learning and peer
interaction: my argument will be that these concepts turn out to be
limited in their reach. In the last section of the chapter, I shall
present a perspective on collaborative learning that is consistent
with my preferred theoretical orientation: that of a cultural
psychology.
In a sense, the chapter converges on a perspective for characterising
collaborative learning and suggests that computer-based work is a good
vehicle for exploring it. The overall argument can then be elaborated
and illustrated through empirical work presented in the chapters that
follow. The recurring question beneath this discussion will be: how
can new technology serve effectively to resource collaborative
arrangements for learning?
STUDIES OF COMPUTER-BASED PEER COLLABORATION
It was implied above that the pace and pattern of introducing
computers into schools has served to cultivate a more
socially-organized style of using them. I mean that logistic problems
of optimising access have encouraged their use in group work.
However, the prevailing climate of educational practice may, in any
case, have been favourable towards such developments. The tradition
of small group work is well established in British schools - at least
in the primary sector (cf. Dunne and Bennett, 1990; Galton and
Williamson, 1992). McMahon (1990) has surveyed a number of
educational documents that reveal a strong official endorsement of
collaborative structures (although he observes wryly that, while this
is encouraged for classwork, pupil *assessment* remains fiercely
individual). McMahon goes on to review the potential of new
technology for helping to realize the pressure for more group work.
In surveying primary practice, Jackson, Fletcher and Messer (1986,
1988) report that most teachers have recognized this and are arranging
for small groups of pupils to work together; individual computer work
is rare. The situation seems comparable in other countries. For
example, Sheingold, Kane and Enderwelt (1983) report evaluative
reactions from a group of North American teachers adopting computers:
these teachers were most impressed with outcomes in the social domain
- changes in classroom interaction and in pupil self esteem.
Thus, before we consider research into peer interaction at computers,
we should note that practitioners have identified (independently of
such research) a potential for the support of group work. In
considering the popularity of computer-based group work, we,
therefore, should be careful not to interpret it *merely* in terms of
a pragmatic motive: to make a scarce resource more widely available.
Teachers may be intending to pursue more focussed educational purposes
through their encouragement of such practices.
Often, computer activities have a conspicuously engaging quality
relative to other classroom tasks. Where groups of pupils are
involved, this engagement is usually characterised by lively
conversation. Research reports by practising teachers stress their
particular satisfaction with the language sustained during computer
work (eg., Dickinson, 1986; Genishi, McCollum and Strand, 1988; Hill
and Brown, 1988; Shooter, Lovering and Bellamy, 1993). This simply
complements a long tradition in early education of concern for
developing language use. Language is commonly regarded as more than
just a means of communication - it is also seen as the point at which
meanings get created, and the resource whereby intelligent action
itself may be directed. These ideas are very familiar to teachers,
particularly through the work of educationalists such as Barnes (1976)
and Tough (1977). Insofar as computers release this verbal energy
from pupils, then they seem to be creating the kind of problem solving
environment that many teachers naturally seek. Nevertheless, further
research around this topic is still necessary. We need to see whether
these scattered impressions hold up more generally; we need to be more
specific about defining effective language use in this context and,
finally, we need to determine whether there are additional good
reasons for using computers collaboratively.
The release of language in these situations may be one basis for
promoting this way of working: for, participation in such talk
supports cognitive development. Later, I shall return to this
argument and examine the more detailed reasons for endorsing it.
However, making the case for any kind of collaborative work can, in
addition, include a more ideological motive. It may be based upon our
intuitions about the ideal intellectual atmosphere for learners to
enjoy - simply as participants. So, we may indeed encourage
collaborative work because it supports individual cognitive
development, or because the world beyond school can reward such
skills. But we also might encourage it because we simply believe that
joint intellectual activity is a rewarding dimension of human
experience. However, in some tension with this, both our
psychological theorising and our cultures of educational practice are
still strongly oriented to fostering achievements that are clearly
those of individuals (hence the solitary circumstances of
examinations). So, perhaps for many observers, the most persuasive
basis for having children work collaboratively will always tend to be
this: it leads to gains in what they can do when we revert later to
examining and testing them as *individuals*.
In assessing computers as contexts for joint work we should consider
the two issues I have raised. Firstly, do computers support lively
group work of the kind we want learners to enjoy? Secondly, do these
encounters allow individual participants to gain at least as much
understanding as they would if the same work was individually
organized? I will make some remarks on each of these questions in
turn.
Quality of peer collaborations at computers
I have noted above that many teachers describe computers as useful
catalysts for generating pupil talk. However, the quality of these
experiences deserves more systematic documentation. One reason for
caution is evident in reports from those teachers who have themselves
been especially diligent in documenting the content of talk around
computers. Take, for example, a report by Farish (1989). This
teacher admitted to being gratified - at first - with what seemed to
be happening in her own primary class. The computer seemed to engage
her pupils. She then listened more closely to the computer-supported
talk: it turned out to be mainly about uninteresting details
concerning screen control and keyboard control. In fact, it was less
stimulating than talk she recorded in other (non-computer)
collaborative settings. So, there is obviously a danger of being
misled by a gloss of sheer pupil activity.
Farish's technique for observing was unobtrusive. However, the issue
of research methodology defines a further danger associated with many
such classroom studies. That is the danger of drawing optimistic
conclusions from observations where teachers themselves are very
closely involved with the children's activities. For their presence
may, therefore, serve to stimulate more on-task, productive talk than
would otherwise be expected. (Of course, professional researchers are
also vulnerable to creating this kind of distorting influence.)
However, bearing in mind these cautions, there are many favourable
reports from all sectors of education concerning the quality of group
work when it is organized around computers.
An influential early study is described in Hawkins, Sheingold,
Gearhart and Berger (1982). They provide a comprehensive account of a
class of 10-11 year olds making extensive use of Logo: a strong sense
of joint purpose was created and a culture of expertise and support
evolved. This report may have been influential in defining a model of
computer classroom effectiveness towards which many practitioners were
subsequently to aspire. However, the study is also a reminder of the
difficulty of generalizing too freely: the school was private and its
access to computers was generous. Moreover, the intervention was done
at a time when such technology in early education was still a novelty.
Finally, the project was supervised by international experts in the
field. Such circumstances are a long distance from many teacher's
experiences. On the other hand, pupil enthusiasm at least
approximating these levels has been replicated in other, less
glamorous settings.
Energetic computer-based group work has been most thoroughly
documented within the earliest years of education (Dickinson, 1986;
Genishi et al, 1988; Hill and Brown, 1988), and in the middle and
secondary years (Broderick and Trushell, 1985; Gonzalez-Edfelt, 1991;
Johnson, Johnson and Stanne, 1985; Hoyles and Sutherland, 1989; Light,
Foot, Colbourn and McClelland, 1987; Sheingold, Hawkins and Char,
1984; Trowbridge, 1987; Webb, 1984). There is very little relevant
research on this topic that considers further and higher education or
work in training communities. However, in all of the schoole cases,
the group work is described as leading to more effective (group)
products than the same work organized on an individual study basis.
In fact, in a review of cooperative learning and new technology,
Watson (1990) fails to find a single claim that the solitary use of
classroom computers by individual pupils is a preferable
implementation strategy.
This success is not an obvious outcome. Collaborative computer work
might have been vulnerable, in particular, to playful distractions or
to social dominance. Problems of this kind do seem less serious than
has been documented for other collaborative work (Bennett, 1991;
Galton, 1990). However, such problems have been reported. So, there
has been some research attention to the themes of dominance and gender
as troublesome issues in the management of collaborative work at
computers.
In relation to gender, Hoyles (1988) has suggested a strong link
between this variable and the circumstances of group versus solitary
working conditions. In particular, girls may feel more positively
towards computer tasks that are organized collaboratively. This
invites closer attention to conditions under which mixed and same sex
groups can be compared. Hughes and Greenhough (1989), Siann and
Mcleod (1986) and Underwood, McCaffrey and Underwood, (1990) all
report different outcomes of paired learning experiences for boys and
girls - depending on the configuration of the pairings they were party
to. Unfortunately, the pattern of these results is not consistent.
However, neither were the observed tasks easily comparable.
Computer-based tasks are very varied in their nature and, thus, they
may vary also in the social relations they can support among users.
Moreover, these differing findings arise from brief research-oriented
interventions carried out in uncertain relation to the mainstream of
classroom life. Pupils' attitudes to such activities (and their
behaviour within them) may well be unstable under the conditions of
such variation. At present, we can only conclude that gender
relations are an issue in forming computer work pairs, but suggest
that consequences for the quality of the work sustained are variable -
depending, at least, upon the nature of the task set.
Regarding dominance, Light and Glachan (1985) report this as a
potential problem within pairs in a situation where limited control of
the computer was possible. This factor may also interact with gender:
(primary school) boys being more likely to take control of an input
device when such access is limited (Blaye, Light, Joiner and Sheldon,
1991). Benyon (1993) makes similar observations in relation to boys
and girls using Logo and comments that teachers may be oblivious to
such details of social interaction - given their necessarily
intermittent contact with it. These observations provide a good
example of the sense in which computers might be conceptualized in
terms of the affordances they offer for collaboration. Here, the
thing itself (the existence of only one mouse control device) exerts a
significant organizing influence on the exchange between the pupils.
The outcome in this case being an occasion upon which effective
collaboration may be undermined. Elsewhere, Light, Foot and Colbourn
(1987) show how this affordance may be modified (a form of dual-key
control) and, moreover, that only under those circumstances does
collaboration on their task show an advantage for the participants
tested later as individuals.
Research of this kind - relating structural features of computer tasks
to the social organizations they support - is all too scarce.
Numerous studies praise the quality of collaboration associated with
computer-based work without identifying how the setting achieves its
effect. This is an important relation to clarify, because enthusiasm
for computer-based work is increasingly expressed in terms of its
collaborative potential. For example, Hoyles and Sutherland (1989)
discuss Logo in these terms: suggesting that its real advantage as a
classroom resource arises from its capacity to sustain social
interaction in a context of mathematical problem solving. This is a
particularly significant observation, as the popular image of Logo has
been dominated by the "tool-to-think-with" theme (Papert, 1980), - not
the theme of social catalyst. Hoyles, Healey and Sutherland (1991)
take these observations a little further by making a structured
comparison between computer and non-computer versions of the same
(maths) tasks. Their results reinforce the computer's status as an
effective setting for pupil discussion. Although, again, it is hard
to extract reasons why; they comment: '..evidently the computer
somehow draws the attention of the pupils and becomes a focus for
discussion' (p. 217). Such observations badly need elaboration.
I shall return to this puzzle of collaborative potency in the next
chapter. So far, in relation to pupils interacting together *at*
computers, we have reviewed evidence showing that this arrangement can
engage them well. This may be satisfying if we believe skills of
discussion and collaboration are valuable, and if we feel that the
experience is itself a stimulating one for those taking part. It
remains here to make a few remarks regarding the *outcome* of such
experiences as judged in terms of later achievements by the
participants tested alone.
Outcomes for individuals participating in collaborative computer work
Arranging for a task to be conducted jointly at a computer may well be
a good strategy for getting the task completed effectively. Indeed,
the overall outcome may be more creative or, by some other criteria,
more successful than alternative working arrangements that might have
been organized. This may be all we seek. Pupils have had a
worthwhile encounter with collaboration: it led to a useful result and
the experience will serve them well on other occasions of joint
working, both in and out of school. Indeed, it represents to them
something of the way a great deal of understanding naturally occurs:
it occurs within the contexts of socially-coordinated activity.
However, teachers may not always make these arrangements only in the
interests of creating this kind of authentic experience. In
particular, teachers will know that, whatever the social circumstances
for making discoveries in the rest of life, schools are places where
progress gets assessed in terms of what *individuals* achieve. In
short, achievement is often judged in tests (exams) that deny those
who take them access to peers as sources of support. We may,
therefore, wish to know whether computer-based group work results in
gains that show up under this criterion.
Simply because an encounter was effective as a collaboration does not
necessitate that participating individuals learned more than they
would have done if working alone. For example, the task may have been
split up among collaborators in ways that denied individuals
experience with all its component parts. At once, we sense that there
will be no simple generalisation arising from the question posed.
Whether collaborative experiences of learning are more effective for
individuals - when we test them as individuals - will doubtless depend
on the task involved and the management strategy of the participants.
Nevertheless, reviews of this area suggest that gains in individual
testing can generally be expected (Dalton, Hannafin and Hooper,
1989; Light and Blaye, 1989; Light and Colbourn, 1987; Rysavy and
Sales, 1991; Trowbridge, 1987). This advantage has been reported
across a wide range of research environments - although much of the
work concerns the 10-13 year age group. In tightly controlled
experimental tasks, Light, Foot, Colbourn and McClelland (1987) and
Blaye et al (1991) report individual gains associated with paired
work. Hughes and Greenhough (1989) report similar gains for Logo
within a small-scale classroom intervention. Johnson, Johnson and
Stanne (1986) describe a more extensive classroom comparison of
individually, competitively and cooperatively organized computer work
in the geography curriculum. Again, significant gains are apparent
for the cooperative condition.
One study that found no advantage for group work (and no disadvantage
either) makes an interesting peripheral observation. Light, Colbourn
and Smith (1987) found no difference in individual 11-year old's
PROLOG programming achievements when they compared pupils who
had been working either singly at a computer, as a pair, or in a group
of four. However, videotapes of the experimental sessions revealed
that the children working "alone" had engaged in a good deal of
discussion with their neighbours. This subversion of the experimental
procedure may have been disheartening to the researchers but it surely
bears useful witness to how easily discussion is supported among
children mutually engaged in computer work. Researchers with plans in
this area might beware that suppressing such inclinations in the
interest of experimental design may lead to the creation of
unrepresentative models of classroom possibilities. Pupils'
spontaneous appeal to peers as resources of support in computer-based
problem solving is a striking tendency: for it stands in contrast with
pupils' apparent unwillingness to make use of on-line help facilities
that instructional programs themselves often offer (Messer, Jackson,
and Mohamedali, 1987).
Issues arising from studies of computer-based collaboration
Integrating the above remarks with those made in the previous chapter,
there are now grounds for both pessimism and optimism regarding
technology's place in any educational culture that prioritises social
processes. On the one hand, it has been argued (see Chapter 5) that
work with computers is vulnerable to exclusion from the communal
discourse that gets organized in classrooms. So, computer activities
that easily drift towards the periphery of classroom life may have
their impact reduced by this exclusion. This may leave us
pessimistic, because such talk is the vehicle whereby teachers can
create continuity of experience for pupils. On the other hand, the
material reviewed in this Chapter indicates that computers may
re-enter the social life of classrooms via their support of
collaborative work between pupils themselves. This may give cause for
optimism among those educationalists who are concerned to locate this
teaching technology in some social context.
Of course, any trend towards involving computers in peer
collaborations may not, at a stroke, neutralize all our pessimism
arising from the easy marginalization of classroom technology. Work
that children do together around this technology may well be lively
and productive at the time: yet (just like solitary computer work) it
may remain work that is never properly consolidated through
incorporation into classroom discourse. In terms of the concerns
raised in the last chapter, it may become work that still does not get
knitted into the common knowledge of classroom activity.
Those arguments need not be rehearsed again here. Collaborative
computer work is as vulnerable as solitary computer work, in respect
of becoming dislocated from a mainstream of teacher-led talk. Whether
or not this is its fate, we may still ask what formats for a
collaborative task make the experience as rich as possible for the
participants at the time. I believe pursuit of this question brings
us back to further considering the concept of intersubjectivity.
Earlier, in discussing teachers' creation of shared understandings, I
appealed to this concept. I argued that the possibility of creating a
shared cognitive context depends upon the participants' mutual
appropriation of motives, intentions and understandings. So, teachers
must become skilled at saying and doing things that precipitate and
exploit such possibilities: they thereby establish resources of common
knowledge and can build further upon them. This all reflects a human
capacity for intersubjectivity. Here (and in the next chapter), I
will develop an argument claiming that the same capacity should be
recognized as central to what takes place within peer interaction - at
least, when it is going well.
So, at a very general level, I am concerned to reinforce a useful
theoretical link: identifying socio-cognitive processes that are
common to both the interactions between teachers and pupils (see
Chapter 5) and the interactions between pupils and their peers.
Discussion of both arenas of activity can usefully call upon the same
theoretical constructs; in particular, the constructs of common
knowledge, socially-shared cognition and intersubjectivity. All of
this may serve, indirectly, to endorse peer interaction as a
potentially powerful educational resource.
I am also concerned to explore how computers may be mobilized to
become part of such a resource. Yet, given the favourable review of
computer-based collaborative work above, what more is there to be
done to encourage this? To recap: computers have been discovered by
practitioners to create lively forums of joint activity. Close
observation suggests that usually - not inevitably - these
interactions are productive and lead to (group) products that are
superior to whatever may be created by the participants alone.
Finally, the individual participants in collaborative learning tend
later to perform better on relevant tests of achievement - as compared
with peers who learned on their computers in isolation. Surely, the
task ahead is merely to investigate the parameters of this advantage -
investigating the relative potency of different software, and so
forth.
Superficially this may describe the proper research agenda. However,
if "merely" investigating the outcomes of collaborative computer work
means doing so in a piecemeal, atheoretical manner, then an
opportunity is being lost. Effective investigation of software should
converge on accounts that can systematise those specific features of
computer-based tasks that afford productive social interaction.
However, what do we understand by "productive" as applied to peer
collaborations? We might answer that question solely in relation to
the "products" of individual testing: a productive collaboration is
one that leads the individual participants to learn more - as assessed
in solitary posttests. But such pragmatic accounts avoid any
concentration on the dynamic of the collaborative act itself. We are
left with shopping lists of experimental variables that co-relate task
characteristics with collaborative productivity. With this strategy,
understanding the processes that mediate the success gets neglected.
Instead our research should aim to develop a richer *theory* of
collaboratively-organized problem solving. They should allow us to
see more clearly why some particular task "works" as joint activity.
In pursuit of this aim, I shall do a number of things below. First, I
shall consider the status of peer interaction within educational
practice very generally - with no special emphasis on technology or
psychological interpretations. Secondly, I shall review the most
influential accounts of collaborative learning that refer to mediating
psychological processes. Thirdly, I shall outline a socio-cultural
critique of this contemporary framework. This leads me to formulate
an account of learning through peer interaction that stresses the
creation of socially-shared knowledge. In the next Chapter, empirical
observations of my own will be deployed to illustrate how
computer-based collaborative learning reveals the dynamic of such
intersubjectivity.
PEER INTERACTION IN GENERAL EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
In Britain, there is little need to make new arguments prioritising
group work in classrooms. This style of working is already well
established. As far as primary practice in concerned, the principle
of such work is often associated with prescriptions contained within
the influential Plowden report on early education (Plowden Report,
1967). This official view is endorsed elsewhere: McMahon (1990) has
reviewed policy documents within British education that serve to
legitimize and encourage early group work.
The historical basis for an emphasis on group work in classrooms has
been discussed by Galton and Williamson (1992). In their view, the
origin of this commitment among British teachers had a lot to do with
a prior belief in mixed ability classrooms. Such beliefs were, in
turn, stimulated by the breakdown of a two-tier secondary education
with its associated selection testing at 11. The principle that
children would learn effectively in mixed ability settings was widely
adopted at this time. Galton and Williamson's point is that active
cultivation of group work may not, at first, have been grounded in
particular cognitive theory about its benefits.
It seems unlikely that structural changes in the education
system were the sole stimulus for fostering group work practices.
After all, the idea is surely in some tension with common sense
conceptions of learning. Such conceptions might suppose that learning
is properly managed by the official, teacher-dominated talk of lessons
(Speier, 1976). Moreover, this common sense belief in the central
role of teachers arises not just because they know more facts about
the world. Their greater procedural knowledge must also be of
advantage to learners. This is supported by research: for, even in a
content-free activity (such as planning a route), there is still an
advantage afforded children by collaborating with an adult versus
collaborating with a peer (Radzisewska and Rogoff, 1991). In the face
of this common sense, it is likely that a contemporary recognition of
learning through peer interaction must have arisen partly through
influences from educational or psychological theory.
The work of Piaget (perhaps promoted by Plowden) was a likely source
of inspiration. Here was an account of cognitive development that lay
great stress on the the child's capacity for spontaneous, *untutored*
discovery. This naturally leads to recognizing that circumstance
often refered to by the influential educationalist Frank Smith (eg.,
Smith, 1981): children are "learning" all the time, even when not
engaged with teachers or other experienced adults. Insofar as they
are immersed in the peer community of the classroom, that setting will
furnish experience of interaction that supports learning also. In
fact, given the natural social energy released within children's peer
cultures, it seems sensible to mobilise this in the service of
educational aims - to regard peers as a positive source of support
(Sieber, 1979). This should only require practitioners to evolve some
expertise regarding the management of such encounters: what sorts of
tasks are well suited to joint cognitive activity and what
configurations of individuals make the best of the opportunities.
Yet, the situation is not so straightforward. There may be a natural
social energy to children's' early exchanges, but channelling it into
the agendas of school learning may prove a more than trivial task.
So despite children's sociability, despite the good sense of
incorporating group work, and despite the pressure to do so, the
reality of how it typically proceeds is somewhat sobering. There have
been several substantial observational studies of group work in
primary schools. They have been reviewed by Galton (1990; Galton and
Williamson, 1992) and by Bennett (1991). The summary picture these
reviews present is a disappointing one. There is much investment in
creating the material conditions for group work, but there is less
evidence that these conditions support productive, on-task joint
activity. In other words, the seating has been socialized into
collaboration but the pupils have not. Bennett (1991) comments: 'What
seems to have happened in practice is that teachers have taken on
board the Plowden Report's views on having children work in groups,
but have preferred to retain individualization rather than cooperation
in that context' (p. 585).
This conclusion should not imply that teachers have subverted the
educational plan by underpinning the surface organization with an
alternative agenda of their own - as if grouping arrangements were
then merely cosmetic gestures. It may be that teachers pursue the
goal of group work but they enjoy very little guidance on how it is
most effectively energised. This point is made in more detail by
Perret-Clermont and Schubaeur-Leoni (1981). Or the problem may be
different again: where younger children are concerned, the aim of
fostering collaborative practices may simply be too ambitious. This
might be so if Kutnick (1983) is right when describing the infant
school peer group in his observations as 'largely an ineffectual
gathering of pupils greatly dependent on the parents and the teacher'
(p. 49).
We already have reason to doubt the generality of this dispiriting
observation about young children as collaborators: earlier I
cited many reports of such children in lively joint activity with
computer tasks. The other suggestion above, that teachers are poorly
prepared to manage joint work, may be credible; although one would
expect the necessary practical insights soon to emerge through
immersion in classroom life - if there are any practical insights to be
had. I believe that the gap between expectation and reality for group
work has more to do with our failing to characterise the optimal
setting for joint problem solving. We need more sensitivity to the
kinds of tasks that are particularly potent in supporting good
collaborative interaction. At the moment, the ethnographic literature
on classroom group work warns us that such tasks may be scarce and not
in widespread use - or that the teacher's job of coordinating them is
more demanding than is realized. Although the problem may
superficially be one of achieving this fit between tasks and social
processes, our limited success in getting it right probably reflects
the lack of a persuasive theoretical account of the nature of
collaboration itself. Thus the strengthening of such theory will be
one useful achievement. It may help us notice the things that are
making a difference, or help us actively tease them out.
Naturally, I am going to suggest that a way forward does lie in
considering computers in relation to this problem. Computers may
furnish good settings for meeting the goals of effective small group
work. This possibility has already been highlighted above. However,
the simple input-outcome nature of that research may be too modest a
basis for trying to influence practice. Therefore, my aim now is to
make better sense of why computers should be effective in this way. I
believe this aim requires us to reflect, first, on the psychological
processes active in collaborations that are effective. We may then
clarify how computer-based activities manifest properties that are
suited to prompting and sustaining those processes. With these goals
in view, I turn next to consider developmental research on processes
underlying any peer-based problem solving exercise.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES UNDERLYING CHILDREN'S COLLABORATIVE WORK
There are already some detailed surveys of this topic in the
literature (eg., Azmitia and Perlmutter, 1989; Cazden, 1986; Damon and
Phelps, 1989; Forman and Kraker, 1985). Therefore, I will not attempt
a comprehensive review of all empirical research that relates to the
various themes arising. However, I will abstract the important
distinctions that characterise understanding in this field, and I will
offer pointers to research that supports the main conclusions.
So far, I have been slipping between reference to "group work" and
to "collaborations" fairly freely. However, researchers in this area
have adopted informal distinctions that identify more precisely the
different kinds of group working that might be arranged. In
particular, the distinction is commonly made between interactions that
are "tutorial", "cooperative" or "collaborative". We shall be mainly
interested in the last of these, but brief mention of what the other
two involve will be useful.
Group work as peer tutoring or as cooperative learning
We might say casually that what characterises interactions in small
group work is learning rather than teaching. It is usually a
different kind of class experience than any that are managed by a
teacher. Yet, peer interactions can be organized to have a tutorial
quality. A peer can be assigned to act the role of tutor. This might
be arranged simply to free up the "official" teacher. Peer tutors may
indeed be effective because they achieve with their classmates
something of what grown-up teachers achieve. But, in addition, the
tutoring experience may be educationally valuable because of effects
that are advantageous for the tutors themselves. To take the role of
teacher may be a useful learning experience. This is a point that
arises in a number of research reviews relating to such classroom
initiatives (eg., Topping, 1992).
What is involved in the activity of teaching may include a style of
talking that is both specialised and demanding of interpersonal
sensitivity. These skills may be cultivated over a long period and
not within the easy grasp of younger children. Yet, it might be to
the advantage of young children to gain some reflective access to what
is involved. In this spirit, Palinscar and Brown (1984) have reported
a productive exercise based upon allowing learners to take control of
teaching styles of dialogue. However, this format for group work is
important but of less interest here: it is not the circumstance under
which most small group work is usually managed in classrooms.
Cooperative learning is a more typical arrangement than peer
tutoring. It refers to strategies for managing tasks that often
implicate a large group working together or even a whole class. It is
common for tasks in this tradition to be partitioned such that
different members of a group take responsibility for different
components of the task. Johnson and Johnson have reported a number of
initiatives that pay close attention to strategies for achieving
optimal organizations (eg. Johnson and Johnson, 1985). Another
concern of research in this area is motivational: how to define a
structure of rewards that sustains joint activity. Slavin and
colleagues have been particularly interested in this problem (eg.,
Slavin, 1986).
Nastasi and Clements (1991) have reviewed research in the cooperative
learning tradition and highlighted implications for classroom
practice. At first sight, such work seems relevant to our interest in
assessing computers as vehicles for peer-centred work. It does
address the issue of motivation: something that might prove important
to our understanding of effective computer use. However, the analysis
is typically at too molar a level. It is particularly concerned with
how reward structures can be defined and negotiated in relation to the
outcomes of work. Computers can be fitted into classrooms that pursue
cooperative work regimes and there may be good reasons to do so -
given the success that has been reported for this method (eg. Slavin,
1987). However, studies of these regimes do not focus down on the
interactions that are supported at the point of actually using the
technology. The grain with which cooperative classrooms are studied
in too coarse to reveal distinctive effects of computers on social
interaction. I am more concerned to capture these "local" conditions
of social exchange during peer-based work. The tradition of research
that has attended to such matters is normally termed "collaborative
learning" research.
Group work as collaborative learning
The line is thin between cooperative and collaborative learning but
one characteristic of research in the "collaborative" tradition is a
greater interest in cognitive processes - as against motivational
ones. At least, Slavin (1987) draws the distinction in these terms,
arguing that the two research traditions often talk past each other
although they are really complementary. Cooperative learning studies
help define a motivational and organizational structure for an
overarching programme of group work; while collaborative learning
studies focus on the cognitive advantages that arise within the more
intimate exchanges of working together.
Here I really want to relate to the concerns of both research
orientations. On the one hand, computer-based work does have a
focused, intense quality and it invites a research technique that
examines pupil interactions closely and in relation to aspects of the
task. This is the strategy of the cognitively-oriented collaborative
learning tradition. On the other hand, I believe there *is* a
motivational issue to be addressed in relation to work at computers,
but it is not one that is easily explored (or even revealed) within
the research strategy favoured in studies of cooperative learning.
The present discussion will converge on this dilemma.
Part of my present concern is to consolidate the case for making peer
collaborations a significant basis for organizing computer-based
interactions. I have argued that this requires us to look quite
closely at the detail of interactions that such activities afford. We
may thereby identify the distinctive strengths of computers deployed
in this manner. Research on the nature of peer interaction during
focussed problem solving has a cognitive emphasis. It identifies a
number of processes that might be powerful when released in this
social situation: I believe there are three that have been well
documented. For shorthand, I shall refer to them as processes
relating to (1) articulation, (2) conflict, and (3) co-construction.
(1) Articulation. One way in which learners might gain from working
closely on a problem with a peer is by being required to make their
thinking public and explicit. The learner's opinions, predictions,
interpretations and so on will need to be articulated for the benefit
of joint activity. These declarations may be a product of problem
solving that inherently supports the learning process. This simple
requirement defines a possible value in collaborative work that has
been identified by a number of researchers (Chi and Van Lehn, 1991;
Hoyles, 1985a; Schunk, 1986). Damon and Phelps (1989) summarize the
advantages as follows:
In order to work productively with their partners, children must
publically recapitulate their own emerging understanding of the task.
This, we believe, is a process that strongly facilitates intellectual
growth, because it forces the subjects to bring to consciousness the
ideas that they are just beginning to grasp intuitively. The
responsibility that children feel for communicating well with their
peer partners induces them to gain greater conceptual clarity for
themselves (p. 152).
This summary seems to locate the strength of peer work in
self-reflective processes arising from the responsibility of
justifying and declaring your own ideas to a collaborator. The idea
is captured elsewhere in comments made by Bruner on the
general role of language in supporting learning:
It must express stance and counter-stance and in the process leave
place for reflection, for metacognition. It is this that permits one
to reach higher ground, this process of objectifying in language or
image what one has thought and then turning around on it and
reconsidering it. (1986, P.129)
However, there may be a further advantage within situations where
ideas are publically articulated: one that reflects the more
interactive (rather than declarative) quality of joint activity. That
is, it arises from being witness to your own partner engaging in this
articulation of ideas. The advantage here involves something more
dynamic in a properly social sense. It may arise insofar as the talk
of one participant serves to create for the other exemplars of
strategic moves that comprises effective problem solving.
With this suggestion, a link is made to one interpretation of
effective practice in the zone of proximal development. In Chapter 4,
the view was presented that some instructional talk worked its effect
by virtue of creating a cognitive system. A more expert partner would
be particularly suitable for prompting, elaborating and filling in the
problem solving process, thereby allowing the novice to achieve a goal
unattainable in a solitary setting. Vygotsky's own account of ZPD
configurations referred to novices with 'adult guidance or in
collaboration with a more capable peer' (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).
However, there is no reason why symmetrical peer pairings should not
sometimes give rise to a socially-defined cognitive system of the same
sort: one that is comparable to that traditionally discussed for
novices working with more expert partners. As before, the cognitive
benefits arising from this would be associated with processes of
internalization. The opportunity to participate in the processes of
coordinating a problem solving strategy creates the conditions for
transfer from Vygotsky's inter-mental social plane to his private
intra-mental plane.
So, it is being argued that "simply" articulating ideas is a useful
experience for problem solvers and one naturally afforded by
socially-organized tasks. It is suspected that benefits would arise
because of the pressure for reflection that is felt by the individual
talking. It is also supposed that making ideas public may allow them
to slot into an externally-located cognitive system that implicates a
partner's contributions also. Participation in such systems may then
be internalised. Does empirical work suggest that experiences of this
kind carry forward?
There are various classroom observations of group work (particularly
involving computers) that draw attention to episodes of publically
declared reasoning (eg., Hoyles and Sutherland, 1989). However, the
impact of such experiences on the participant's problem solving in
subsequent situations (perhaps alone) is harder to demonstrate. A
significant obstacle is the difficulty of systematising and
quantifying such dialogue so that the relevant correlations might be
explored. There are some studies that attempt this on a modest scale.
For instance, there are studies of children's interactions that
characterise and enumerate discrete problem solving moves (questions,
challenges, requests etc.) and then relate their occurrence with the
participants' subsequent performance on other, related problems.
Positive correlations have been reported (eg., King, 1989; Webb, Ender
and Lewis, 1986). The inference is that participation within this
kind of problem solving discourse was indeed a valuable learning
experience - perhaps for the reasons implied above. Where there is
lots of reasoned discussion there will be benefit that carries
forward. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of correlational data
that we will be left uncertain as to the precise basis of such
performance gains. These studies must encourage us in fostering
problem solving encounters in which thinking gets publically
articulated, but exactly how the benefit of this experience is
mediated remains to be demonstrated.
(2) Conflict. There is nothing strongly interactional in the above
conceptualization. The presence of a peer doubtless encourages a
pupil to articulate her ideas, but the benefits are not claimed to
arise from dialogue - from coordinated *exchanges* with that partner.
The second process to be mentioned here, conflict, does arise within
such mutual involvement.
In this case, the benefit is supposed to occur in the context of
disagreements between peers and their efforts to resolve them. It
is a convention of conversation that disagreement should prompt
discursive moves of justification and negotiation. So, the cognitive
consequences of conflict might be quite productive. This is a claim
most closely associated with Piaget. It is a claim at odds with the
common belief that Piaget denied the potency of interpersonal
experience in cognitive development. What Piaget draws attention to
within peer exchanges is the power of argument, or 'the shock of our
thought coming into contact with that of others' (Piaget, 1928, p.
204). Piaget supposed that the natural egocentrism of early
childhood thinking typically prevented younger children from
reflecting on their own thought. However, demands for justification
and accountability that will arise within peer disagreements forces
them to enter into such reflection. Moreover, as Piaget claimed,
simply encountering these differences (during argument) seems adequate
to precipitate cognitive restructuring - further processes of
negotiating an agreed consensus need not be part of what must occur
(Howe, Tolmie and Rodgers, 1990).
Piaget's proposal has led to a significant body of research exploring
the conditions under which conflict might effectively induce cognitive
change (for reviews see: Bell, Grossen and Perret-Clermont, 1985;
Doise, 1985; Doise and Mugny, 1984). Much of this work has employed
tasks typical of those used within Piagetian tests of cognitive
development. Particularly popular with researchers have been the
conservation problems: tasks designed for evaluating transition into
the concrete operational stage of cognitive development. These have
been a natural choice where the aim has been to demonstrate how peer
conflict can induce cognitive change - in terms of Piaget's own
conception of cognitive structures. However, such brief and
circumscribed problem solving encounters offer a poor representation
of interaction as it might occur within sustained classwork. Indeed,
Doise (1985) comments on how little communication often takes place in
these experimental tasks. However, one study involving a somewhat
more elaborate, puzzle-like task (Light and Glachan, 1985) does
provide us with a more convincing model for classroom activities.
Here it was demonstrated that the degree of conflict arising within a
peer pairing was positively correlated with performance later on the
task by individuals acting alone.
Conflict has, therefore, been demonstrated to be a distinctive and
productive feature of peer-based problem solving. But the extensive
research attention accorded this feature of peer interaction largely
reflects the great interest in cognitive stage transition within
Piagetian theory. It is less a reflection of the relative importance
or frequency of conflict in classroom group work. There will surely
be other characteristics of effective peer-based learning interactions
which do not implicate conflict.
(3) Co-construction. A final basis for conceptualizing the cognitive
benefit of collaborative learning lies in what is termed
co-construction. This notion often arises in discussions of peer
interaction more influenced by Vygotsky's socio-cultural thinking.
There may be some feeling that the Piagetian emphasis on conflict
suggests the inevitability of social *tension* within joint problem
solving. We may feel uneasy about this and, indeed, there are
examples of research showing that conflict is far from a necessary
ingredient of effective group work. For example, Blaye et al (1991)
observed children tackling one particular set of problems: in this
case, they found no correlation between frequency of children's
conflict and the quality of their performance in subsequent individual
performance tests.
Thus, some authors have analysed peer-based problem solving in terms
of social processes that do not simply involve adopting declarative
attitudes ("articulation" above), neither do they involve more
adversarial styles of interaction ("conflict" above). Forman and her
colleagues have reported empirical observations that illustrate a
co-constructional alternative (eg. Forman, 1989; Forman and Cazden,
1985; Forman and Kraker, 1985). They dwell in particular on how
children may take individual responsibility for complementary
cognitive functions while solving a problem. This may be
organized within the context of some overall converging discussion
about the task. Where Forman and others seem to see joint problem
solving as proceeding well is where the work gets creatively
*dispersed*: strategies of sharing responsibility serve to accelerate
the participants' joint construction of some worthwhile convergence:
a common object of some sort.
Reference to common cognitive objects echoes theoretical concepts
introduced in the previous chapter to help discuss classroom discourse
managed by teachers. In that context, I dwelt upon activities that
assisted the creation of socially-shared cognition. The two sets of
ideas are certainly in the same spirit of theorising. However, when
students of peer interaction identify an object as "co-constructed",
typically that object will be rather narrowly propositional in
character. Such objects often turn out to be procedures or
hypothesis, or other formalized elements in the structural description
of problem solving. They are discrete ingredients in the sequence of
problem solving moves. Social constructions of this sort are surely
valid and useful outcomes of joint activity. However, while I do wish
to endorse reference to jointly-constructed cognitive objects, I feel
that such constructs need to be more richly articulated than those
illustrated by the present line of theorising. In particular, they
will be more fundamental to the support of problem solving talk than
are the particular conclusions, solutions, or predictions that are
co-constructed during the course of that talk. Moreover, they may be
more hidden from us as observers. I shall return to this point in a
section below dedicated to establishing a cultural psychological
approach to peer collaboration research.
Summary comments on processes in collaborative work
We set out concerned to justify the further cultivation of peer
interaction *at* classroom computers. Research in the "collaborative
learning" tradition proved most relevant to our interests because it
studies intimate and focussed interactions of the sort necessitated by
computer-based work. In reviewing this research, we have encountered
a number of ways in which joint work can be cognitively stimulating.
One implication running through this research literature is important
to stress. Peer-based work is identified as being more than a mere
approximation to some other, more ideal, arrangement for learning -
namely, the same interactions involving a more expert (adult) partner.
I have already commented that there are persuasive grounds for
arranging peer interaction as an experience that is worthwhile in its
own right. Children can usefully be offered opportunities to
coordinate their problem solving skills with peers. It is a rewarding
and a valued achievement to be able to do so effectively. However, it
is also argued that such collaborative problem solving is uniquely
suited to the cultivation of certain forms of thinking. That is,
there may be varieties of intellectual stimulation arising in work
with peers that are less readily furnished within interactions
involving more expert adults.
Piaget (1928) makes this point quite strongly in comparing
the two kids of interaction. He argues that the implicit authority
characterising children's asymmetrical relations with adults can be
counter-productive in some problem solving situations. It is the
symmetry (in authority) of peer-based discussion that most effectively
forces useful reflection. It encourages active evaluation of the
status of one's own ideas - as legitimate alternatives to that of a
partner. The tension arising from two *like* minds coming into
conflict prompts resolving argumentation and reflection - rather then
deference to authority.
Moreover, a distinctive role in cognitive development for peer
interaction need not depend only on argument and conflict (the
features of interaction stressed in Piaget's version of this insight).
Research suggests further grounds for recognizing a selective
advantage to problem solving with peers. Advantages, in other words
that are not necessarily mediated only by the resolution of
disagreements. It is true that the asymmetry of relations with an
adult may generally be advantageous in situations of guided
participation (such as those discussed in relation to the zone of
proximal development). However, this advantage is not inevitable.
Kruger and Tomasello (1986) made a formal comparison between children
engaged in (moral) reasoning both with peers and with a familiar
adult. They showed that the two settings released different
contributions from the children. In particular, the asymmetry of the
adult encounter seemed to inhibit certain forms of reasoning: certain
spontaneous logical operations directed towards a partner's
contributions were more likely with peers than adults. Thus, as a
forum for "articulating" (as discussed above) particular kinds of
reasoned discourse, peer interactions may offer precious
opportunities.
A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON PEER INTERACTION STUDIES
It might be expected that students of peer interaction would be
among the most assertive in promoting socio-cultural interpretations
of learning. The cultural perspective - as outlined here in chapter 2
- dwells upon the essentially social nature of instruction and
learning. Should not research activity into peer interaction promise
some sort of commitment to a truly social characterisation of
learning?
It appears that serious commitments of this kind are scarce. Studies
of classroom collaboration are a disappointment, if we are looking for
genuinely radical theoretical perspectives on cognition. Perhaps it
testifies to the deeply set nature of our individualistic theorising,
but there has been little sign of researchers in this area developing
a more socially-grounded interpretation of cognitive activity. I will
argue in this section that a truly useful interpretation of research
on collaboration requires us to develop a conceptual vocabulary for
talking about cognition as a distributed, or shared, achievement.
Let us approach this by considering the way in which claims about the
impact of collaboration are derived from research. The predominant
orientation towards the issue of peer interaction is to frame
questions of the form: "What is the effect of collaborative learning
upon fostering ability X?" Often such questions will be motivated by
concern to make recommendations for optimal classroom practice.
Sometimes the question will be directed towards evaluating theoretical
claims regarding the origins of certain cognitive changes (eg. that
they may originate within social conflicts). In any case, the natural
design for a research exercise around this topic can be summarized in
the following notation that describes a typical three-stage
experiment:
(1) T1 >> IND >> T2
(2) T1 >> PIa >> T2
(3) T1 >> PIb >> T2
In the simplist of research designs, comparisons might be made of
events arising in condition (1) vs. condition (2). In each case,
subjects are pre-tested (T1) on some problem. The groups differ
according to how they are occupied next, during an intervention stage.
In condition (1) they work independently at an activity relevant to the
problem solving skill. In condition (2), they engage in some version
of peer interaction (PIa) around the same activity. Of special
interest will be performance of subjects (working alone again) on a
post-test (T2). In the comparison of (1) and (2), there might be
post-test advantages associated with participation in condition (2).
In this case, it would be claimed that the post-test achievements were
facilitated by peer interaction (PIa). Such interaction led to more
progress than that associated with solitary learning (IND).
Alternatively, in the comparison of (2) and (3), there might emerge
distinguishable advantages associated with one of the two arrangements
for organizing the interaction (PIa or PIb). In which case, the
research would have made progress towards identifying the particular
conditions of interaction that were most favourable for learning in
this forum.
Such an interest in pinning down the particular basis of an advantage
for collaborations might be pursued in a third kind of design.
Without any necessity for pre-testing, very detailed recording of
events during peer interactions themselves might be made in order to
correlate such measures with individual performance on post-tests.
For example, if certain talk within an interacting group was
positively correlated with later test performance of the individuals
participating in that group - then we might suppose that this kind of
talk was a potent factor mediating the advantage of collaboration. We
might then take steps to cultivate it.
This all appears suitably elegant and plausible. Moreover, I do not
wish to imply that real insights can not be derived from research
designs of this sort. They may well help specify for teachers,
some possible consequences of some kinds of classroom arrangements
for pupil working. Yet, in terms of developing an underpinning
theory, the individualistic orientation of this research strategy
needs to be recognized. This orientation may cause us to miss
opportunities for re-framing some of these issues and, perhaps,
investigating them from new perspectives. My strategy here will be to
think further on the way in which we currently conceptualise events
associated with "PI" conditions and "T2" conditions - as notated in
the scheme above.
Interpreting the post-intervention performance
Post-testing (T2) is perhaps the most plausible feature of all in this
system and it might seem the most difficult to challenge. Probably we
are persuaded of the crucial need for this testing because we are
committed to the idea that what matters is how individual pupils
function when left on their own - hopefully doing better as a result
of our interventions. It would be claimed that, in the end, we must
equip pupils for deploying their individual cognitive resources (to
"think independently") in all the situations that this will be
required of them. And, of course, life will furnish many such
situations; not the least of which will be the formal examinations
through which pupils are typically assessed. In fact, our research
post-tests may feel very similar to some of those examinations and,
so, our discovery of interventions that optimise performance on such
occasions can surely only be of benefit to pupils.
There is one kind of challenge to this reasoning that I do not
wish to dwell upon. It notes that intelligence is actually more often
exercised in collaborative settings than within solitary reflection.
Therefore, it is claimed, what should be of interest to researchers is
post-tests of how children perform *collaboratively*. If a post-test
demanding unsupported solitary thinking fails to show an advantage of
learning through peer interaction, we need not be concerned: why
should the one kind of achievement be evident in what is a different
arena? I find this challenge relevant but not very comprehensive.
It is surely true that educational practice must recognize that much
problem solving does now require the ability to gather and coordinate
with others. This may imply that cultivating (and assessing) such
capabilities might deserve more attention from research and practice,
but it does not imply we should make this an exclusive preoccupation.
Yet I do believe the emphasis on typical post-intervention testing is
still problematic and that the problems are made visible to us when a
proper cultural orientation is adopted. The cultural analysis of
cognition assumes its inherently social nature. But this does not
amount to making only a narrow link between cognition and social
interaction - a "social" nature in the face-to-face interpersonal
sense. So, situations demanding cognitive competence will be socially
situated in that, indeed, they may require interpersonal negotiations;
but they will doubtless also call upon the manipulation of particular
artefacts, or the exercise of particular rituals, or the deployment of
particular symbol systems - all in the service of particular goals
defined within particular social or institutional relationships...and
so forth. In short, such occasions of cognitive testing will always
require testees to coordinate and deploy a given set of mediational
means.
Consider this applied to a concrete case (Howe, Tolmie and Rodgers,
1990). Here certain forms of collaborative discussion around a
physics problem of sinking and floating was shown to be a helpful
experience for pupils. That is, it facilitated performance in a
post-test requiring individuals to make decisions about what will sink
and what will float. This is useful: for one thing, it points at
possible classroom interventions that might be expected to improve
pupil performance on certain sorts of tasks. But exactly what has
been shown to have been facilitated in this sense; what has been
learned? A lot hinges on our intuitions about the relation between
the particular context of the post-test, and contexts typical of other
situations in which problems relating to the physics of floatation
might arise. The research-based test is just one occasion for such
thinking to take place. In this case, it does happen to have an
interpersonal dimension that will be relevant: the questioning is
managed by a particular individual in a particular relation to the
pupils - the experimenter. But the test also involves the
manipulation of particular artefacts in a particular problem space
(various objects around a water tank); testing that is continuous with
a classroom agenda; and all of this, in turn, is embedded in
"schooled" life and values.
Thus, the circumstances of research post-testing (or, indeed, school
examinations) seem rather circumscribed from the perspective of a
cultural psychology. A number of studies have now demonstrated how
the particular circumstances of controlled testing can exert a great
influence on how children think in such settings (eg. Donaldson, 1978;
Siegel, 1991a, 1991b). Tests conceived for research purposes
typically just characterise one kind of context in which cognitive
activity must be organized. They are too easily conceptualised as a
convenient instrument for assessing some "general" cognitive advance
that is supposed to have taken place. So, the temptation is to see
them as unproblematic evaluations of (private) cognitive resources
that are relatively context-independent: the test being just an
arbitrary sampling exercise on these resources.
How else can the outcome of experimental interventions be evaluated?
By taking seriously the issue of context: evaluating the range of
conditions under which the experiences of an intervention surface to
guide action elsewhere. There seems little interest among
psychological researchers for developing their work in this direction.
I believe this reflects a theoretical prejudice towards isolating
relatively context-independent cognitive achievements. This
encourages self-contained interventions and self-contained evaluation
instruments. When reproduced within classroom practice, it might
leave us with pupils who have "knowledge in pieces" (DiSessa, 1988) -
rather than truly versatile ways of thinking. So, the authentic
circumstances for promoting cognitive development may reside in the
knitting together of contextualised experiences - particularly as this
may be achieved through the discourse making up a classroom's communal
life. This possibility is exemplified in a paper by Edwards (in
press), in which he outlines an agenda for analysing conceptual
development in terms of children's participation in such discursive
practices. This offers an alternative to our preference for always
addressing these issues by sampling an inner world of discrete
conceptual acquisitions.
The more conventional practice of psychological research is not a
*fatal* methodological attitude. In the case of the sinking and
floating example, the study remains interesting and the results are
compelling. For, often what gets done by way of testing carries some
real face value; it seems to promise achievements in other situations
that are not formally evaluated. Yet, a narrowness of reach remains
the significant point. It is rarely thought necessary to pursue the
question of what has been learned - as if it could be something that
was actually bound up with contexts of acquisition or practice, and
that such embedding might usefully be documented. It seems very
seductive to suppose that a successful post-test confirms that the
testee now has some new logical "bit" in place; or some new cognitive
skill has now become available. Such characterisations may reflect
the influence upon us of traditional theorising in cognitive
psychology. That tradition tends to view the achievements of
organized learning as private, contained and relatively context free:
something to be sampled in controlled tests.
Interpreting the joint activity within peer interaction
The same biases of interpretation arise in analyses of events
within the peer interactions themselves - as typically organized for
experiments. In the notation used above, the intervention stages of
PIa and PIb are often characterised in terms that foreground
activities of the *individual* participants in the collaboration. The
collaboration may be expressed as a sum total of certain sorts of
discourse events that were observed. This gives us only limited
insight into what is typically happening in these collaborations - and
how it may be cognitively significant. I shall follow up this claim
in more detail here, giving no further attention to the problems
arising from the post-testing of interventions. Generally, I am more
concerned with weaknesses in interpreting the collaboration stage of
the standard empirical procedure - rather than with weaknesses in
interpreting the post-test stage. This is because any prescription
for involving computers within collaborative work will need, most of
all, to be based upon an adequate account of the interactional
processes active during such work.
My plan here is, first, to indicate what it means to claim that
typical analyses of collaborations are individualistic; then, to
speculate as to what a mutualist or more socially-grounded alternative
analysis would be like.
I believe the orientation to individualistic accounts arises from the
tacit influence of two influential concepts from the mainstream of
psychological thinking: "stimulus" and "skill". To be more specific,
I shall suggest that the potency of a collaboration is typically
characterised as some pattern of discrete here-and-now social events
(stimuli). These events act upon (and, perhaps, change) the
collaborators. This is too limiting a conception. To enrich it,
certain recent accounts have made reference to intersubjective
achievements that can be mobilised during the joint activity.
However, this idea can also be limited in its reach; if such
achievements are only framed in terms of social attributes (skills)
brought to the situation by the individual collaborators.
Let us consider the influence of "stimulus" conceptions first.
Research that attempts to understand peer-based problem solving has
typically concentrated on the content and organization of the talk
that occurs within it. The common strategy is to classify and
enumerate individual utterances made by the participants (eg. King,
1989; Webb et al, 1986). This allows any such occasion to be
summarised as a profile of categorized talk. It may then be found
that certain prevalent categories in such a profile are positively
correlated with later, post-test performance. I suggest that a very
common attitude towards this correlation is one assuming that the talk
was effective because it acted as a *stimulus*: it served to prompt
some kind of cognitive effect for the collaborating individual. A
significant property of an event conceptualised in this manner is that
it tends to be taken as having no history or context: it is an event
only of the here-and-now.
For example, the Piagetian emphasis on processes of social conflict
tends to get elaborated in these terms. Piaget's account is taken to
mean that, during collaboration, things that are said by one
participant (challenges, denials, assertions etc.) can serve to
precipitate useful cognitive restructuring in that individual's partner.
Such talk is, thereby, a "stimulus" for cognitive change.
As discussed earlier in this chapter, another analysis of
collaborative talk stresses the value of simply articulating one's
thoughts. In this model, an individual will benefit from entering
into a problem solving situation that prompts participants to make
their ideas explicit. Again, the social structure of the encounter
facilitates cognitive change in the individual. In this case, we
might say that the individual's own talk is the stimulus for change:
utterances are elicited by the situation and thereby (may) prompt
cognitive restructuring.
My problem with accepting this kind of analysis is its implication
that all that collaborators are ever doing is generating a corpus of
discrete conversational events. Researchers have then to determine
what circumstances of joint activity are potent in influencing the
composition of this corpus. They must determine what circumstances
facilitate the production of utterances with those properties that
post-tests reveal are predictive of a desired performance. Yet, what
collaborators are actually doing may often go beyond this. What is
said by them at any given moment may gain its potency not just from
its immediate pragmatic content (assertion, challenge, hypothesis, or
whatever). A given utterance may be important for its contribution to
the construction of a more sustained socially-shared framework of
interpretation - some form of understanding that is common and that is
recognized by the participants as being held in common.
This is a conception that I wish to take up and illustrate in the next
chapter. It invites us to view the process of collaborating as
involving a discursive achievement: the extended construction of some
degree of mutual knowledge. Then, analysis of collaborations in these
terms requires us to go beyond the categorisation of individual
utterances. Instead, the talk would be approached as discourse:
organized and evolving in time. How we understand particular
contributions should pay some respect to the context of common
understanding that that they are helping create in this way.
Of course, such shared understanding is a species of mental context
comparable with that discussed in the last chapter: there it was
identified with what teachers typically have to do through their
classroom talk. I am anxious to encourage an approach to what happens
in peer interactions that learns from this analysis of more
instructional forms of conversational interaction. In both cases, the
achievement of new understandings rests upon the possibility for
adopting an intersubjective attitude (Davidson, 1992).
I believe this has been recognized by some commentators on this topic.
However, I am concerned that the insight should not be assimilated to
a more traditional form of psychological analysis. This is the reason
for my suggesting above that we might be wary of the concept of
"skill" as directing the way in which we thought about intersubjective
achievements. I shall conclude this chapter by identifying what this
line of tempting thinking involves and how my own reference to
intersubjectivity differs from it.
An appeal to intersubjective processes might enter at the point where
we consider why effective talk occurs within some collaborating groups
and not within others; or why it appears at some stage of childhood
development but not earlier. A natural move to make when
contemplating such issues is to refer to psychological attributes of
the participating individuals themselves. Some notion of differential
interactive *skill*, for example, might be cited to account for
individual variation in collaborative success or variation associated
with the age of participants. Thus, Brownell and Carriger (1991) have
analysed events within collaborative encounters from such a
developmental point of view. They stress changes within individuals
that mediate the impacts of these occasions:
As they get older, children become better able to comprehend the
behavior and intentions of another, as well as better able to affect
the other's behavior and to communicate about their own behavior and
desires. We are additionally led to conclude, then, that age-related
social and cognitive skills contributing to peer collaborations
influence what and how children learn from these collaborations (p.
381)
A similar orientation is apparent in a review by Tomasello, Kruger and
Ratner (in press): achievements within collaborative learning are
associated with developmental advances in children's "social-cognitive
abilities". In these interpretations, the success of peer interaction
as a setting for learning is linked to skills and competencies
brought to the collaborative arena by particular individuals, or by
children at particular stages of development.
My own view is that it is very helpful to make links of the kind that
these commentators are exploring. Thus, students of collaborative
learning gain from having their attention drawn to research concerning
children's growing interest in the mental life of other people (i.e.,
children's theories of mind as reviewed in, for example, Astington et
al, 1988, or Dunn, 1988). It is helpful to recognize that what
children are inclined to do in the situations studied by
theory-of-mind research is very relevant to what they do when solving
problems with peers. Moreover, it is quite proper to explore age
differences and socio-emotional variation as it might bear on the
success of collaborative problem solving. So, we do wish to develop
an interesting association between children's varying understanding of
mental states in others and their potential for collaborative
learning. I am less happy that the way forward is to conceptualise
as if it were socio-cognitive skill in this domain. Something is
changing among and within individuals, but reifying it in this way may
distract us from really understanding the nature of that change.
Perhaps this is the very move that is naturally encouraged by
theoretical traditions that still keep cognition and social context
distinct.
For example, it may be suggested (cf. Tomasello et al, in press) that
achievements in certain collaborative contexts become possible for 6-7
year olds because this is the age at which children acquire a certain
understanding of mental life in others ("second order mental states",
to be precise (Perner, 1991)). A useful correlation is thereby noted.
However, such state-like characteristics of individuals tend to carry
too much causal responsibility in our explanations; perhaps leaving us
too complacent that our account has solved a problem. In the present
example, we might ask: What should be explored further, now this link
between collaboration and theories of mind has been noticed?
The answer in this case, I suggest, is that we should investigate the
social processes whereby children's growing awareness of mental states
is mobilised into the particular service of organized problem solving.
The idea here would be that such intersubjectivity emerges at an
early age, reflecting something basic to human nature (Trevarthan,
1988). Through participation in cultural activities it is deployed
for new purposes of interaction. So, the earliest understandings of
other minds may be fostered in very contained, domestic social
settings (Dunn, 1988). However, children will then usually come into
contact with culturally-organized pressures of a powerful kind. For
example, pressures that force these new understandings to embrace
coordinated activity around schooled kinds of problems: to embrace
collaborative learning in fact. So, if intersubjectivity does become
a resource to support collaboration, it is because the conventions,
rituals, institutions and goals of organized social life arrange that
it should do so. This is the phenomenon we need to understand.
Teachers and others need to understand how best to mobilize an
intersubjective attitude towards the particular purposes of joint
problem solving.
A point that I wish to make here is that our natural focus on
individuals (and their social or cognitive attributes) tends to
distract us from pursuing research agendas of the kind sketched above.
Individualistic accounts furnish one way of talking about our
observations. That way tends to deal in a currency of
self-contained, central psychological characteristics of individual
actors. It is not suggested here that this language is simply wrong -
and that some definitive experiment might show this. The question is
whether these concepts furnish the most productive way of
systematising what we have observed.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In this chapter, I have reviewed a background of research that
concerns collaborative learning. This literature reveals a number
of important findings. Firstly, that group work is commonplace within
the organization of early education and generally prized throughout
formal schooling. Secondly, ethnographies of actual classroom life
indicate that it is hard for young pupils to sustain joint
investigative talk within these structures. Thirdly, controlled
studies of collaborative problem solving indicate that pupils often
learn more from these socially-organized tasks than they do from tasks
tackled in solitary working arrangements. Finally, studies
correlating collaborative strategies with posttest achievements
suggest the importance of a number of interactional variables -
particularly, experiences of publically articulating ones reasoning,
experiences of conflict and experiences with the co-construction of
problem solving resources.
I have also reviewed here material suggesting that computers may be
one potent setting for the support of collaborative work. This is of
special interest, given the findings that such work is not inherently
easy to cultivate in classrooms. However, there are also hints that
while this technology may sustain interactions that are lively, this
does not necessarily mean that they are rich in a cognitive sense.
Sheer energy is not all that we may wish to release when organizing
work in this way. The invitation is to research more closely the
dynamic between social exchange and the structure of computer-based
tasks. Yet, I have argued that the terms in which collaborative
interactions typically have been analysed seem too narrow to provide
real insights. It is hard to see that the coding and counting of
collaborative utterances is going to shed genuinely new light on our
concern for the exact place of computers in all this.
I believe that what is needed is a richer conceptual framework for
characterising the psychological processes that are involved.
Most research at present is concerned to characterise collaborative
interactions in strongly individualistic vocabulary. Collaborations
become arenas in which certain classes of event are likely to occur:
in particular, certain classes of utterances. Their effects on
individual participants are then to to be assessed in subsequent
tests. A more socially-grounded account is possible and, in
particular, there are examples of analyses that have explored the
theme of intersubjectivity in relation to collaborative discourse. I
am still not satisfied that these are doing the job that is needed.
Typically, such accounts set out in the right way. It is supposed
that collaborating partners each have capacities to project mental
states in the other and that this facilitates their "co-construction"
of problem solutions. However, what is analysed as co-constructed
here turns out to be "social" in only a rather narrow sense. It is
the particular solution (hypothesis, prediction or whatever) that the
shared problem demanded. The social character of that achievement
is judged to reside in the partitioning of task responsibility and the
subsequent coordination of individual insights. That is what the
co-constructing attitude is said to support. I would like, in what
follows, to pursue a further sense to this intersubjectivity.
What else could we mean by socially-shared cognition? What other kind
of object or outcome could be co-constructed within peer interaction?
As hinted above, the position I wish to develop is another view of
what must invariably be constructed within collaborative encounters:
it is a view influenced by the idea of "common knowledge" as described
in the previous chapter. That was a concept developed to help clarify
the nature of collaborations between teachers and pupils. However, it
may also refer to socially-shared cognition that exists between
collaborating peers. I suggest that the success of such encounters
will often reside in how effectively the participants co-construct a
shared mental context for their problem solving efforts. So, the
cognitive object that gets created will be this common ground. It
becomes a point of shared reference and a resource for prompting
individual contributions to the problem solving discourse.
The particular question of concern to us here is how educational
technologies mediate in the creation of such socially-shared
cognition. More particularly, what are the characteristics of
computer-based activities that might afford such successful
achievements within peer interaction? I shall illustrate some
possibilities in the next chapter.