Long-term development of learning activity: Motivational,cognitive, and social interaction

Recent research on school learning has dealt only with cognitive aspects of the student activity. However, in typical learning and performance situations, the student is expected to cope with complex social and emotional challenges. We developed a theoretical model that describes typical patterns of coping strategies that students use in school situations. The dominating tendency of some students in school situations is task orientation. Such students are oriented to interpret and fulfill the demands of learning tasks. In contrast, other students are sensitive to the threat of failure and show ego-oriented coping strategies. A third group of students relies on social-dependence coping. Orientation tendencies originate in classroom situations, but are then continuously reproduced and reinforced in similar teaching interactions. A multimethod approach was used to test this theoretical model. Longitudinal case studies have demonstrated the cumulation and reinforcement processes of coping tendencies in teaching interactions. Classroom interaction studies have provided evidence of the strong interaction between cognitive processes and socioemotional orientation. Finally, intervention studies have shown that, to improve the use of cognitive strategies, coping strategies also have to be changed.     

Effects of within-class ability grouping on social interaction,achievement, and motivation

This study examined how grouping arrangements affect students achievement, social interaction, and motivation. Students of high, average and low ability were randomly assigned to homogeneous or heterogeneous ability groups. All groups attended the same plant biology course. The main results indicate that low-ability students achieve more and are more motivated to learn in heterogeneous groups. Average-ability students perform better in homogeneous groups whereas high-ability students show equally strong learning outcomes in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Results on social interaction indicate that heterogeneous groups produce higher proportions of individual elaborations, whereas homogeneous groups use relatively more collaborative elaborations. In the discussion, these differences in social interaction are used to explain the differential effects of grouping arrangements on achievement scores. Practical implications are discussed and topics for further research are advanced.     

Toys and social interaction between infant peers

Claims that young infants fail to react in a social manner to one another and that toys preempt attention to peers were assessed by comparing the interactions observed between infant peers when they met in the presence of toys versus in their absence. 44 pairs of unacquainted infants (either 10--12 or 22--24 months of age) came with their mothers to an unfamiliar room. Without toys available in the room, infants of both ages more often contacted one another, smiled at and gestured to one another, and duplicated each other's actions. With toys, they showed and exchanged toys and spent more time synchronously manipulating similar play material. The results document that infants as young as 10 months of age are responsive to the person and behavior of an unfamiliar peer and that they are no less responsive than older infants to the social versus nonsocial aspects of a novel setting.     

Hyperbolic discounting of delayed social interaction

The temporal discounting literature has demonstrated that the loss in value for delayed outcomes is most accurately modeled using a hyperbolic discounting equation. The hyperbolic-shaped function not only describes the shape of discounting for monetary outcomes, but also for other tangibles, such as alcohol, candy, CDs, erotica, cigarettes, cocaine, books, and DVDs. Furthermore, this hyperbolic shape has important theoretical implications. Despite the broad list of outcomes that are hyperbolically discounted, one class of outcomes has only recently received attention: social interactions. For the present study, we used standard binary-choice discounting procedures to explore the function that most accurately describes the change in value of delayed social interactions. The results from the present study suggest that, for 93 participants, the same equations (exponential, hyperbolic, and hyperboloid) used to describe the discounting of nonsocial commodities also describe the relation between delay and the value of social interaction. Similar to previous findings for nonsocial outcomes, the hyperbolic-shaped models provide a fit to the data superior to that of the exponential model.     

Third-party social interaction and word learning from video

In previous studies, very young children have learned words while "overhearing" a conversation, yet they have had trouble learning words from a person on video. In Study 1, 64 toddlers (mean age=29.8 months) viewed an object-labeling demonstration in 1 of 4 conditions. In 2, the speaker (present or on video) directly addressed the child, and in 2, the speaker addressed another adult who was present or was with her on video. Study 2 involved 2 follow-up conditions with 32 toddlers (mean age=30.4 months). Across the 2 studies, the results indicated that toddlers learned words best when participating in or observing a reciprocal social interaction with a speaker who was present or on video.     

Masculinities and mergers: losing ground through territoriality

This paper examines the extent to which masculinity played a role in the incorporation of an education college into a university in South Africa. I adopt the theoretical stance that masculinity is not a biological phenomenon that is peculiar to males but the socially constructed behaviour of masculine subjects that is contextually driven, and that the masculinity of institutions, and not only the masculinity of individuals, plays a role in shaping the outcomes of a change process. I go on to show: first that the discourse of power and control underpinned much of the behaviour of senior managers; second, the discourse of territoriality shows that the battle for asserting rights over space is linked to the masculine assertion of power. Finally I argue that masculinities survive and gain predominance, at the expense of other potentially beneficial social practices.     

Web 2.0, pedagogical support for reflexive and emotional social interaction among Swedish students

Collaborative social interaction when using Web 2.0 in terms of VoiceThread is investigated in a case study of a Swedish university course in social psychology. The case study method was chosen because of the desire not to manipulate the students' behaviour, and data was collected in parallel with course implementation. Two particular circumstances made the case study method appropriate: the impossibility to control student activities, and the study of contemporary and ongoing events. The results show that use of Web 2.0: a) supports students' reflections concerning their own and others' thoughts and emotions, b) supports individual students and integrates them into a work group, and c) develops students' identification and awareness in relation to self, a task and others. The findings implicate that Web 2.0 technology can be used as a valuable supplement in a campus course where other teaching takes place in time and space.     

Emotional engagement,social interactions,and the development of an afterschool game design curriculum

This formative design study examines how a program curriculum and implementation was emergently (re)designed in dynamic relation to the expressed emotions of teachers and students. The context was a yearlong afterschool game design program for STEM learning at an urban and public all-girls middle school. Using Randall Collins’ (Interaction ritual chains, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004) sociology of emotions framework, our analysis of field notes and video data reveal how the original intended curriculum hindered the generation of positive emotions, mutual foci of attention, and feelings of group solidarity—factors important in the generation of successful group interactions. In response to teacher and student expressed emotions, we took these factors as a guide for redesigning the program curriculum and implementation in order to foster a more positive emotional climate and redirect students’ positive emotions toward engagement in learning goals. This study’s implications point to the possibilities for designing curricula and program implementations to engender more emotionally responsive environments for STEM learning.     

Participation,interaction and social presence: An exploratory study of collaboration in online peer review groups

A key reason for using asynchronous computer conferencing in instruction is its potential for supporting collaborative learning. However, few studies have examined collaboration in computer conferencing. This study examined collaboration in six peer review groups within an asynchronous computer conferencing. Eighteen tertiary students participated in the study. Content analyses of discussion protocols were performed in terms of participation, interaction, and social presence. The results indicate that collaboration does not occur automatically in asynchronous computer conference. Collaboration requires participation because no collaboration occurred in the two groups with low student participation; however, participation does not lead to collaboration, evidenced by student postings receiving no peer responses. Collaboration requires interaction but does not end with interaction, substantiated by different levels of collaboration across different interactional patterns. Social presence helps to realise collaboration through establishing a warm and collegial learning community to encourage participate and interaction, exemplified by the contrast of the group with the highest level of social presence and the group with the lowest level of social presence. A model of understanding and assessing collaboration in online learning is recommended, consisting of participation, interaction and social presence.     

Fictitious social position of competence, and performance in a foreign-language interaction situation: An experimental approach

A substantial body of research has shown that in experiments where subjects are required to accomplish an intellectual task, their cognitive performance is influenced by the social aspects of the situation. The goal of this study was to determine how a fictitious social position of inferiority or superiority affects cognitive activity. Two studies in which subjects interacted with a partner are reported. In the first, the subject’s position in comparison to his/her partner stemmed from a fictitious level of competence assigned on a single comparative dimension (foreign-language proficiency). In the second, another comparative dimension whose social status was either high (geometry) or low (art) was added. The results showed that in a communicative interaction, what subjects are told about themselves and about their partner along one or two comparative dimensions is a determinant of the quantity and quality of what they produce. Theoretical explanations are proposed. One of them is based on classical studies on the working self-concept. A general point that emerges from these studies is that cognitive performance should be investigated not only in a cognitive and didactic perspective, but also from a sociocognitive standpoint.     

The effects of sex,structure and social interaction on preschoolers' play behaviors in a naturalistic setting

Play behavior of preschool children was observed in their natural environment. The study focused on the general demographic of free-play behavior, sex differences in the uses of various play areas, the effect of different play areas on the incidence of make-believe versus exploratory play, and the differential influence of play area on social interaction. Results indicated that both boys and girls used areas that have been thought of traditionally as sextyped. For example, both sexes appeared with equal frequencies in the household area and the block and truck area. Within these areas the sexes apportioned their time equally in terms of play activities. Overall, the household area elicited more make-believe play and social interaction than did the other play areas.     

Collaborative design decision-making as social process

ABSTRACT

Collaborative design is recognised as being shaped by complex social, cognitive, material, and technical processes. In the case of design decision-making, however, the social dimension has yet to be fully understood as the product of the whole team dynamic rather than as simply the sum of the individual (cognitive) contributions. This paper examines the interactional work teams of first-time design students do that produces decisions in undergraduate engineering design projects. Close analysis of decision-making episodes, recorded in design meetings in a yearlong ethnographic study, reveals the joint social and situated work teams do to produce decisions. Students were found to do decision-making via three overlapping phases that were invariant across the database: (i) Design options emerge, (ii) teams orient to design options, and (iii) design decisions come off. This paper exemplifies these phases of decision-making as inherently – and not just incidentally – social, and illustrates how decisions are produced in novice design teams via these phases in multifarious ways. We argue for an explicit retrospective focus on the processes and consequences of team decisions following projects as an avenue for fostering the development of design judgment that engineering graduates will take into their professional practice.     

The Rules Grid: helping children with social communication and interaction needs manage social complexity

This article introduces a new practical visual approach, the Rules Grid, to support children who have social communication and interaction needs. The Rules Grid involves a system whereby behaviours of concern can be broken down into smaller behavioural manifestations which in turn lead not only to problem identification and specification, but provide a visible structure to support behaviour change at a reasonably micro level. The paper provides an overview of the theory and research that support visual approaches before outlining some important examples of visual strategies. This is followed by a presentation of a single case study which illustrates how the Rules Grid could be used.     

Links between parenting styles,parent–child academic interaction,parent–school interaction,and early academic skills and social behaviors in young children of English-speaking Caribbean immigrants

This study examined the influence of parenting styles, parent–child academic involvement at home, and parent–school contact on academic skills and social behaviors among kindergarten-age children of Caribbean immigrants. Seventy immigrant mothers and fathers participated in the study. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that fathers’ authoritarian parenting style was negatively associated with and father–school contact was positively associated with receptive skills, vocabulary, and composite scores over and above that of mothers’ contributions in these areas. Fathers’ authoritative parenting style and father–child academic interaction at home were positively related to children's social behaviors. Mothers’ authoritarian parenting style was negatively and mother–school contact was positively associated with children's social behaviors. Analyses indicated that fathers’ parenting carried the weight of influence over mothers’ parenting for facilitating both child academic skills and social behaviors. The roles of parenting styles, parent–academic activities, and parent–school contacts in early schooling are discussed.     

Effects of social insertion mode on performance and interaction in asymmetric dyads

So as to study the effect of socio-cognitive mediation in 96 children aged 5 to 6 we introduced and manipulated 2 factors:

1. —One was an ego-boosting representation of the subject’s ability to perform the task. Forty-eight children carried out a classification task individually. Then, twenty-four of them were told how excellent their performance has been. The other twenty-four children were not told anything. They formed the “expert” group.
2. —The other was the representation the children had of others. Each “expert” child was paired with a partner chosen from the children who had not performed the first task (“novice” subjects). Half of them were told how good has been the partner they were going to work with. Twelve of these children were given that information in the presence of their partner and twelve in his or her absence. The twenty-four remaining novices were not told anything.

The results show that:

1. performance was superior when children worked in dyads, and that dyad composition had an effect on the results.
2. Different interaction modes were observed, depending on dyad composition.

It seems that the way a child is seen by his her partner rather than the way he or she sees himself, so far as a task is concerned, determines both interaction mode and level of achievement.     

Meaningful interaction in web-based learning: A social constructivist interpretation

Interaction is an essential ingredient in any learning process. However, every interaction does not lead to increased learning. When interaction has a direct influence on learners' intellectual growth, we can say the interaction is meaningful. The precise meaning of meaningful interaction is strongly related to the learning theories underlying the development of particular learning environments. The primary goal of this paper is to re-conceptualize online interaction in terms of meaningful learning based on the learning theory known as social constructivism. Analyzing interaction through this theoretical framework may yield design principles needed to improve the quality of Web-based learning environments. A secondary goal of this paper is to present the implications of meaningful online interaction for researchers and developers.