Communication in collaborative discovery learning

Area of Science:

• Educational Technology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Constructivist learning environments foster knowledge construction and negotiation.
• Discovery learning and collaborative learning are key constructivist approaches.
• A novel computer-based environment integrates discovery and collaborative learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify frequent communicative activities within discovery learning.
• To examine the co-occurrence of communicative and discovery activities.
• To understand the interplay between communication and knowledge construction.

Main Methods:

• 21 pairs of 10th-grade students (15-17 years) participated.
• Students collaborated in dyads within a shared online discovery learning environment.
• Correlational and principal component analyses investigated relationships between communication and discovery.

Main Results:

• Significant relationships were found between communicative and discovery activities.
• Five factors emerged, integrating communicative and discovery learning processes.
• Communicative activities were most frequent during hypothesis generation, experimental design, and conclusion construction.

Conclusions:

• Communicative activities largely co-occur with discovery learning, as hypothesized.
• Argumentation was less prevalent than anticipated, particularly in hypothesis generation.
• Future research should focus on enhancing communication to improve learning outcomes.