Talking About Reasoning: How Important Is the Peer in Peer Collaboration?

摘要

Using data from two studies of scientific reasoning, this chapter explores whether transactive discussion is the basis of productive peer collaborations and questions what role the partner plays in the apparent effectiveness of this type of discussion. In the first study, dyads who engaged in transactive discussion showed more improvement than dyads who did not have transactive discussions. In the second study, both dyads and children working alone showed improvement related to talk in general. However, dyads produced more transactive types of talk and showed a more complex understanding of the problem that they generated more quickly. Having a partner was not a necessary or sufficient condition for producing transactive talk but increased likelihood that it would occur. The data from these studies suggest that the value of peer collaborations may be that the presence of a partner provides a natural context for elaborating one's own reasoning.