Effect of collaborative learning and direct instruction on myside bias

This study investigates the effect on instructional discourse on myside bias; the tendency of people to argue without considering different sides of an issue. 766 Fifth-grade students from two urban districts completed a unit on wolves integrating science, social studies, and the English language arts. The study design was quasi-experimental with triples of classroom matched on demographics, and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Direct Instruction (DI), Collaborative Group Work (CG), and Wait-Listed Control (CTL). Transcripts of a representative sample of classroom videos were coded for low-inference discourse markers of connected and elaborated talk. The analysis indicated that CG students used connective words much more frequently than DI students. CG students also made more challenges and requests for explanation than students or teachers in the DI condition. Three outcome measures designed to elicit student argumentation were analyzed for aspects of reasoning including the consideration or reasons on both sides of the controversy. When writing about the issue of wolves, which students had studied for six weeks, students in DI and CG were equally likely to consider reasons on both sides of an issue. In two transfer tasks - with topics that had varying degrees of overlap with the wolf unit- students in CG outperformed students in DI, who were no more likely to consider both sides than students in the uninstructed control group. Students in CG who considered reasons on both sides of the wolf issue, were twice as likely as DI and CTL students to consider a reason on one or both of the transfer measures. This study provides distinctive new evidence about how instructional frameworks can impact students’ propensity to consider both sides when reasoning about various issues. We theorize that CG students’ increased propensity to consider both sides was based on their improved sensitivity to potential audiences for the arguments they were constructing, and that this sensitivity was fostered during students’ participation in dialogic argumentation where the challenging of positions and the requesting and providing of explanations was a common occurrence.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Morris, Joshua Andrew

Contributors dc:contributor

• Anderson, Richard C.
• Mercier, Emma
• Perry, Michelle
• Nussbaum, Michael

• Collaborative learning
• Reasoning
• Argumentation
• Myside bias

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Joshua Morris

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98100

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98100