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Address correspondence to: Georgette Yetter, School Psychology, Oklahoma StateUniversity, 442 Willard Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078. E-mail: [email protected] Journal of Experimental Education, 2006, 74(2), 137–159Copyright © 2006 Heldref Publications137Unstructured Collaboration VersusIndividual Practice for Complex Problem Solving: A Cautionary TaleGEORGETTE YETTEROklahoma State UniversityTERRY B. GUTKINSan Francisco State UniversityANITA SAUNDERSANN M. GALLOWAYPassword Community Mentoring, IndianapolisROBIN R. SOBANSKYUniversity of Nebraska–KearneySAMUEL Y. SONG University of North Carolina–Chapel HillABSTRACT. The authors used an experimental design to compare the effectivenessof unstructured collaborative practice with individual practice on achievement on acomplex well-structured problem-solving task. Participants included postsecondarystudents (N = 257) from a liberal arts college serving primarily nontraditional stu-dents and from 2 state universities. Three videotaped instructional procedures wereused: lessons on (a) introductory set theory, (b) a problem-solving heuristic, and (c)problem-solving modeling. Participants also engaged in active practice. A posttestassessed participant skills. A 2 (individual vs. collaborative treatment condition) × 2(nontraditional vs. traditional educational setting) analysis of variance revealed sig-nificant main effects for treatment condition. Students who practiced individuallyoutperformed those who practiced collaboratively. Limitations and implications forfuture research are discussed.Key words: collaborative practice, college students, complex problem solving, indi-vidual practice138 The Journal of Experimental EducationOVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, increasing numbers of students with special edu-cational needs have enrolled in postsecondary institutions (Brinckerhoff, 1996).Despite adequate intelligence and motivation, these students are at greater riskfor academic failure than their peers because of a combination of their learningdifficulties and the demand characteristics of the postsecondary environment. Asa result, it is more important than ever to find effective teaching techniques thatcan be implemented easily in the college classroom. One family of teaching strategies involves peer collaboration in the classroom.Approaches to peer collaboration vary in terms of group size and the proceduresselected for structuring peer interactions. Similarly, these approaches have beendescribed under different labels, including peer tutoring, cooperative learning,and collaborative learning. The commonality among these approaches is that theprocess of peer collaboration requires students to be actively engaged with learn-ing materials. The utility of peer-supported learning is explained by several learning theories.According to the cognitive elaboration view, explaining material to a peer is es-pecially important for helping students remember new information and for relat-ing it to their existing knowledge. Cognitive elaboration is facilitated through ac-tivities such as thinking aloud; correcting partners’ errors and omissions;providing detailed, elaborate explanations; and representing information in alter-native forms, such as diagrams or drawings (Dansereau, 1988; Slavin, 1992;Webb, 1985, 1992). On the other hand, constructivist theory holds that peer in-teraction among individuals of similar developmental levels is critical for facili-tating concept acquisition and complex reasoning (Vygotsky, 1978). Conse-quently, activities such as soliciting peers’ opinions, identifying differences inopinion, and interrelating divergent viewpoints are fundamental to the learningprocess. A third theory explains the advantage of peer collaboration on academicachievement as a function of the quality of social interactions among partners.According to the social interaction perspective, effective collaboration requiresthat partners work together under conditions of positive interdependence. Twoprominent forms of positive interdependence are goal interdependence, in whicheach partner’s contributions are necessary for the group to reach its goal, and re-ward interdependence, in which specific group contingencies are established toreward groups for achieving (Johnson & Johnson, 1990; Slavin, 1996). Althoughthere is evidence that both goal interdependence and reward interdependencepromote higher achievement compared with individual practice, collaborativelearning tasks that incorporate both goal and reward interdependence appearmore promising (Lew, Mesch, Johnson, & Johnson, 1986; Yueh & Alessi, 1988). Collaborative learning generally has been demonstrated to be an effective in-structional approach across subject areas, ability levels, ethnic backgrounds, andgrade level with students enrolled in primary and secondary education (Barron,Yetter, Gutkin, Saunders, Galloway, Sobansky, & Song 1392003; Calhoon & Fuchs, 2003; Fuchs, Fuchs, & Burish, 2000; Fuchs, Fuchs, &Karns, 2001; Gardner et al., 2001; Mastropieri, Scruggs, Spencer, & Fontana,2003; McDonnell, Mathot-Buckner, Thorson, & Fister, 2001). It also has beenendorsed as a best-practice approach to educating students with special educa-tional needs in primary and secondary education settings (Bender, 2002). Thesefindings suggest that collaborative instructional methods have the potential to bebeneficial for students with special learning needs in postsecondary settings. Be-cause they require minimal instructor intervention, they also can be implement-ed easily in the college classroom. Whereas studies investigating collaborative learning with postsecondary stu-dents have demonstrated its effectiveness for increasing academic skills, peersupport has not consistently been shown to be more effective than individualstudy. Collaboration facilitated achievement better than individual study forlearning clinical psychology (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio,Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989), mathematics (e.g., Reglin, 1990), statistics (e.g.,Borresen, 1990; Keeler & Steinhorst, 1994), probability (e.g., Shaughnessy,1977), chemistry (e.g., Smith, Hinckley, & Volk, 1991), physics (e.g., Heller,Keith, & Anderson, 1992), and in nursing education (e.g., Frierson, 1987). On theother hand, Golbeck and Sinagra (2000) failed to demonstrate the superiority ofpeer collaboration over individual study for college students learning a geomet-ric problem-solving task. Similarly, Norwood (1995) reported


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UNCW EDN 523 - A Cautionary Tale

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