Acquiring General Academic Vocabulary Through Collaborative Discussion

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: Academic Language, Vocabulary Growth, and Early Word Learning

Abstract

This study investigated the role of collaborative discussion in children’s acquisition and productive use of general academic vocabulary (GAV). Multilevel logistic regression analyses, with crossed random factors involving 229 fifth graders and 325 GAV words, showed that the likelihood of GAV use in an essay depended on the frequency of GAV use by the child and his/her peers during discussion, after controlling for prior knowledge of GAV, the print frequency of GAV in the instructional materials, and children’s reading comprehension. Mediation and moderation analyses documented that self-use frequency mediated the effects of the other factors on GAV use in the essay, while peer-use frequency enhanced the influence of print frequency and attenuated the strength of prior knowledge of the words.

Authors

• Pei-Yu (Marian) Pan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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

• Shufeng Ma, East China Normal University