Re: power independent of context?
Ellice A Forman (ellice+ who-is-at pitt.edu)
Tue, 12 Mar 1996 12:55:57 -0500 (EST)
Mike wrote on Monday, March 11, "What I am hoping for is to find some
research that takes on the study of the social context of knowledge
sharing more systematically than I can manage." I have a partial answer
to your question Mike. In a recently published study, Jorge
Larreamendy-Joerns and I took a more systematic look at the distribution
of knowledge and social dominance in a sample of 9-13 year olds who were
involved in a study of collaborative problem solving. The students were
pvideotaped while they worked as individuals on a shadow
projection task in pretest and posttest sessions and also as dyads
working on the same task for multiple sessions. In addition to examining
group differences (younger vs. older) in pretest-posttest change in
reasoning, we looked at each dyad separately over time and across
individual and dyadic contexts. In our article we wrote up three
different cases: a dyad with equivalent pretest expertise and two dyads
with dissimilar pretest expertise. We found that the first dyad worked
together in a more balanced way (both were equally involved in performing
task activities and directing the other) and learned an equivalent
amount. The other two dyads were unequal in expertise on the pretest and
interacted in dissimilar ways during their dyadic sessions. In one dyad,
the partner who was less expert on the pretest ended up dominating his
partner during the dyadic sessions and also ended up showing more pretest
to posttest gain than his partner. More details about our results are
available, of course, in the article.
--Ellice Forman
Forman, E.A., & Larreamendy-Joerns, J. (1995). Learning in the context of
peer collaboration: A pluralistic perspective on goals and expertise.
Cognition and Instruction, 13(4), 549-564.