Transfer of Multi-link Causal Reasoning in Collaborative Group Work?

• In Event: 75.018 - Motivation and Learning in Groups

Abstract

Students received a 6-week unit on wolf management and reintroduction via two types of instruction, collaborative group work (CG) or direct instruction (DI). At the end of the unit, students were individually interviewed about whether whaling should be allowed. In a previous study, children’s multi-link reasoning ability was identified in a written task about whether wolves should be hunted. Similar multi-link reasoning patterns were found in children’s oral interviews. CG students’ interviews contained more high-order relational concepts and causal relations than the interviews of DI and uninstructed control students. Among students who generated reasoning chains, CG students are more likely to generate links built on transferred knowledge and tend to generate same type of reasoning chain within their social network.

Authors

• Shufeng Ma, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Richard C. Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign