<p>This paper integrates and applies established findings from previous research into peer collaboration</p><p>to a realistic classroom situation in Swedish upper elementary school. The aim is to</p><p>survey the research literature and to replicate some of the potentially beneficial effects of peer</p><p>collaboration in an ‘ecologically valid’ setting, thus providing teachers with justifiable and</p><p>readily adoptable techniques. The study investigated the effect of collaborative problem solving</p><p>on students’ learning, where the conditions for collaboration were ‘optimised’ according</p><p>to previous findings with regard to ability, gender, task characteristics, and collaboration</p><p>strategy. Participants were 80 year 9 students (aged 15 years), who individually completed a</p><p>pre- and post-test comprising moderately complex diagram interpretation tasks. During the</p><p>experimental phase, students completed a similar task, either individually or collaboratively.</p><p>Students who collaborated were assigned to mixed-gender pairs using a ‘weak-strong’ heuristic,</p><p>based on pre-test results. Results indicated that lower-ability students collaborating with</p><p>higher-ability peers improved from pre-test to post-test, while higher-ability students regressed</p><p>significantly. Students working collaboratively did not perform significantly better</p><p>than did students working alone. Discussion extends beyond these findings to implications of</p><p>research on peer collaboration for teachers and students’ learning.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:hh-673 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Björn, Bengtsson |
| Publisher | Halmstad University, School of Teacher Education (LUT), Högskolan i Halmstad/Sektionen för lärarutbildning (LUT) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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