Discourse Factors Underlying Problematic Learning for Individuals in Collaborative Contexts

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Supporting Learning Through Fundamental Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Collaboration is often positioned as beneficial for individuals’ learning; however, collaboration can also have negative consequences when individuals encode inaccurate information provided by their partners. Most projects examining this issue have focused on verbal learning experiences, leaving open the question as to whether similar effects emerge in tasks involving visuospatial considerations. In this study, we used a task involving both spatial and verbal considerations (i.e., naming and locating places on a map), and examined whether inaccurate productions provided during collaboration would be encoded and used on subsequent individual tasks. Analyses of the partners’ discourse revealed that the manner in which individuals responded to a partner’s contributions predicted whether inaccuracies would be used on a subsequent individual test.

Authors

• Jessica Andrews Todd, Educational Testing Service

• David Rapp, Northwestern University