The Impact of Emergent Leadership on Collaborative and Individual Reasoning

• In Event: Collaborative Reasoning and Social Processes in Education and Psychology

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of children’s emergent leadership during collaborative discussions, including its immediate effect on the quality of group-level reasoning, and its delayed influence on children’s individual ability to reproduce arguments on a complex policy issue post discussion. 255 fifth grade students from 12 classrooms completed a six-week unit on wolf reintroduction and management in collaborative group work. Analyses of a third of the groups’ final discussion transcripts (n = 12) showed that emergent leadership helped groups come up with more sophisticated reasons. Analysis of students’ argumentative writings (n = 76) revealed that students tended to produce counterargument and rebuttal in their persuasive writing if their group discussion contained many argument development and topic control leadership moves.

Authors

• Jingjing Sun, University of Montana

• Emmanuella S Datu, University of Montana - Missoula