Applying the socio-cognitive conflict theory to collaborative learning: A comparison between incentivized and non-incentivized dyads

PERALTA, N.; CASTELLARO, M.

Amsterdam

Encuentro; 48th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society in Amsterdam; 2018

Jean Piaget Society

Socio-Cognitive Conflict (SCC) has traditionally been studied in young children as a promoter of development. Experimental research designs were applied to this perspective. SCC implies the externalization of divergent points of view about a specifi task. It is a cognitive conflict because the explanation is based on argumentative terms, and it is social because it manifests itself during the interaction. The resolution of this conflict involves cognitive progress for the participants (Doise & Mugny, 1991, Mugny, De Paolis, & Carugati, 1991, Perret-Clermont, 1984, Zittoun, 1997). The concept of SCC comes from the Geneva School of Educational Social Psychology and has been studied, in the original line of research, as an important factor of development in children. Those studies were made with an experimental methodology, usually with children of 6 or 7 years old. The basic learning tasks used by researchers were piagetian tasks of conservation, for example, with liquids, length, quantity, etc. Nowadays, there is a new line of research, which continues this orientation, studying the SCC concept in a formal learning context, giving place to more varied designs (Peralta, Roselli y Borgobello, 2012, Peralta y Roselli, 2016). However, not many designs take SCC as their main point of reference. The present study, with a pretest / post test experimental design, focuses on developing the SCC in pairs of university students. The collaborative learning environment is particularly critical for SCC to take place. The reason why this scenario is appropriate for the development of SCC is because when pairs are working together with a joint goal, the interaction increases. In this study, during the intervention, the researchers focused on symmetry, peer evaluation and the cognitive differences between students, all of them signs of SCC. Researchers regulate a ?symmetrical? participation encouraging both students to participate in a similar amount of times and tasks. ?Peer evaluation? takes place when both students express their agreement or disagreement with the other one?s speech. Researchers also asked students to develop their disagreements even if they were shown as non-verbal expressions to increase the ?cognitive differences? between them. In other words, the intervention was not focused on teaching concepts (as professors usually do in their classes); the goal was to guarantee the interaction between the students themselves. With the aim of evaluating the effect of the intervention on learning and on the interaction processes, three groups of students were constituted. The experimental group was constituted by 12 dyads who received the intervention of a researcher (experimental group - EG). There were two control groups: one of them was integrated by 12 dyads of students who worked independently (CGI), and the other one, by 12 participants who worked alone (CGII). The sample had 120 participants, 60 students of an exact science career and 60 of a social science career. All students were in the first year at a university level. Two different materials were used. In the case of Psychology, a modularized text about "the psychological tests"; participants had to study and then writing (individually or collaboratively, according to the condition) a synthesis of it. In Physics, the material was about "relative movement" with a set of activities related to the thematic. Results related to Psychology´s students showed dyads that received incentive from the SCC (EG) obtained better scores in postest than those belonging to the CGI and to the individuals who worked alone (CGII). This finding was coherent with initial expectations. In the case of Physic´s students, the results showed that subjects who participated in the SCC incentive condition (EG) obtained better results postest than those who worked on SCC non-incentive dyads (CGI) and even more than those who worked individually (CGII). On the other hand, written productions were evaluated according to the following criteria: clarity and epistemic correction (accurate and conceptually correct writing), originality of the exposition (they should not be a textual copy) and completeness of content (allusion to the greater number of main ideas contained in the text). In Psychology, the results showed statistically significant differences between EG and CGI (dyads without incentive) and EG and CGII (individual work), being these differences greater in the second case. In the written productions of Physic´s students, differences were also found among the three groups. Finally, an effect found initially unforeseen was that of greater intra-group homogeneity, in terms of individual learning of the participants who worked collaboratively with incentive (EG), compared to those who did it without incentive (CGI). In summary, post test evaluations show that encouraging SCC is effective in academic learning. The symmetry in the participation and the homogeneity in the learning process were better displayed in the pairs of students who worked with the researcher trying to increase the level of SCC. Also, those pairs? written productions, a proper example of the interaction process, were more complete, coherent, and logically structured than the control groups? productions. These kind of results are important because they could be a key that may apply to the actual classroom organization. It is also important as an example to consider ways to generate (especially with the university students), skills like dialogue, mutual understanding, team work, cognitive explanation, peer evaluation, self-evaluation, and respect for peers? points of view. All these skills can be developed with teachers who are interested in increasing SCC in collaborative learning environments.