Poster #77 - Peer Collaboration, Children's Attribution of Performance, and Motivation to Learn

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Research has shown that achievement motivation is related to children’s self-perception as a learner, with some children focusing on learning goals and others on performance goals (Dweck, 2006). On difficult tasks, children with learning goals seek challenge, persist, and interpret failure as lack of effort; whereas children with performance goals avoid challenge, give up easily, and interpret failure as lack of ability. Collaborating with peers on difficult tasks may promote learning goals and motivation to learn because children can obtain information about their performance and the task as they observe their own and their partner’s efforts. This presentation will report two studies that examined 8- to 11-year-old children’s (Mean age = 10.1 yrs) attributions when they worked alone or with a peer on a difficult task based on Euler’s classic mathematics problem, the Königsberg Bridges (Fig. 1). Children used a figurine to traverse a model town crossing each of 7 bridges once (unsolvable). Afterward, an 8th bridge was added and children worked on the now solvable problem. Data include strategy use (statements about how to solve the problem systematically; behaviors monitoring progress) and performance attributions, assessed differently in the two studies. Reliabilities based on 40% of the videotaped sessions exceeded 95% agreement on all variables. In Study 1, 60 children worked alone (n=20) or with a peer (20 dyads). Any spontaneous comments about difficulty solving the problem were coded as to whether children attributed difficulty to themselves or the problem. In Study 2, 51 children worked alone (n=17) or with a peer (17 dyads). In individual interviews before and after the task, children were asked how good they are at solving problems (1 = very bad, 5 = very good). After task completion, they were also asked why they did not finish the first (7 bridge) task. Results for Study 1 showed that children in dyads, relative to children alone, made more strategy statements (Alone: M = .50, SD = 1.0; Dyad: M = 1.75, SD = 2.2; F(1,36) = 7.42, p < .05), monitored progress more (Alone: M = .90, SD = 1.95; Dyad: M = 4.85, SD = 3.8; F(1,36) = 14.49, p < .001), and were more likely to attribute failure to the task, F(1,36) = 6.78, p < .01. Study 2 replicated these results and revealed that children who worked alone rated themselves as slightly less good at solving problems after the task, t(16) = 1.95, p < .07, and were equally likely to attribute failure to themselves or the task, Chi-Sq(1) = .06, ns. Children in dyads did not change their self-evaluations, t(16) = 1.38, ns, and were more likely to attribute failure to the task, Chi-Sq(1) = 4.76, p < .05 (Fig. 2). Results suggest that peer collaboration can provide children with insight into their own problem-solving skills. Peer collaboration in the classroom on difficult tasks, including spatial geometry problems as used here, may help children generate causal explanations (Skinner, 1995) that foster the development of learning goals and enhance motivation to learn.

Author

• Mary Gauvain, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author