00021 TaeYeon Kim-ByungSoon Choi

8/11/2019 00021 TaeYeon Kim-ByungSoon Choi

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Proceeding of the 2nd

NICE Symposium July 30-31, 2007, Taipei, TAIWAN

Relationship between verbal interactions and the cognitive and affectivecharacteristics of high school students

in small group creative scientific activities

Tae-Yeon Kim Byung-Soon Choi

Korea National University of Education, Chungju, Rep. of [email protected]

AbstractThe purposes of this study were to analyze the characteristics of verbal interactions

during the creative scientific group activities and to find out the relationships between

the verbal interactions and the cognitive and affective characteristics of the students.

Samples of discourses were collected from 16 11th grade students in four groups

throughout 10 creative activities on drawing science concepts underlying various

phenomena and designing simple experiments using those science concepts. Results

of the study and implications were discussed.

IntroductionBecause small group activities are central in inquiry oriented science classrooms,

it is important to understand what limits and promotes students' learning in group

activities. In relation to science learning, it is now accepted that scientific theories

and explanations cannot be discovered through personal interaction with phenomena,

and talk with both peers and teachers is at the center of children's conceptual

understanding(Driver, 1989; Sutton, 1992; Alexopoulou & Driver, 1996).

One dimension of the dynamics of science learning in the classrooms that social

constructivist focused is student's role in group activities(Alexopoulou & Driver,

1996; Richmond & Striley 1996; Hogan, 1999). Teachers who use traditionalcooperative learning model often assign prosocial and managerial roles to students

such as encourager, praiser, recorder and materials monitor(Kagan, 1992) to promote

positive interactions and efficient task completion. Researchers who have developed

more cognitive-oriented approaches to peer collaboration assign roles that promote

group reasoning such as regulator, reflector, generator, questioner, explainer and

elaborator(King, 1994; Webb et al. 1995; Hogan, 1999).

But the roles that emerge naturally in groups working together are not always so

productive. For instance, the student who emerges as the leader of a science group

can have profound influence on whether other group member are included in or

alienated from participating in tasks(Kurth et al. 1994; Richmond & Striley 1996).

Individual differences among group members might influence the roles they played ingroup activities. Hogan suggested that the resources each person brings to the group

such as prior science knowledge and experiences, cognitive and sociocognitive skills

should be explored further to refine our understanding of both the roles students play

and the quality of the work they produce in academic groups.

In this study we examined groups of 11th grade students engaged in creative

scientific activities and analyzed their verbal interactions during the group activities.

We also sought to understand how individual differences among students in cognitive

and affective aspects might influence the roles they played in their groups.


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Method

SubjectsThe subjects engaged in this study were 16 female students participated in

extracurricular science activities voluntarily at Busan Girls' High School, Busan,

Korea. Students were assigned to four groups so that the groups were heterogeneouswith respect to students' cognitive level and personality. Cognitive level of the

students was measured by SRTIII developed by Shayer and Adey based on the

growth of logical thinking from adolescent to adulthood by Piaget. Personality of the

students was measured by Standard NEO Personality Test which measures five

personal traits of extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness,

neuroticism. TTCT was also administered to measure the level of creativity of the

students.

ProcedureThe study was carried out as follows.

Review of the literature

Research design

Administration of SRTIII and Personality test

Development of creative scientific activities(CSA)

Intervention of CSA

Classroom observation and recording of group discourse

Analysis of group discourse

Results and conclusions

Figure 1. Procedures of the study

Creative Scientific Activity(CSA)Ten CSAs were developed using SCAMPER strategy to foster divergent thinking

of the students. CSA was implemented to the students as an extracurricular activityfor two class hours a week. Each CSA is consisted of two parts. In part one simple

experiment related to the properties of gas is shown and ask the students to think

about the science concept which explains the phenomena shown. Meaningful verbal

interactions were emphasized in the process of drawing out science concepts

underlying the phenomenon. In part two students are encouraged to design a variety

of experiments based on the concept or principle they drew. In the process of

designing new experiment students are asked to use various strategies to think

creatively such as brainstorming, brainwriting, braindrawing, SCAMPER.


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Findings

1. Cognitive and affective characteristics of the students

Cognitive characteristics of the students are shown in table 1. This table indicatesthat creativity of the students in group D is higher than that in any other groups even

though the cognitive level of the students tended to be distributed evenly in each

group.

Table 1. Cognitive level and creativity test scores of the subjects

CreativityStudents in each group

Fluency Flexibility Originality

Cognitive

level

Keumhee 38 52 60 3B

Eujin 24 35 51 3B

Eunsil 28 60 48 2B/3AGroup A

Aeri 43 62 59 2B/3A

Miran 75 92 85 3B

Eunhwa 38 35 43 3B

Sungsil 16 30 29 2B/3AGroup B

Jimin 64 70 78 3B

Jaehee 17 19 43 2B/3A

Soree 39 52 57 3B

Sunjung 19 17 36 2B/3AGroup C

Miyoung 49 62 64 3B

Sunhee 64 75 83 3A

Sojung 55 73 75 3BSoonmi 58 62 71 3B

Group D

Chorong 38 41 62 3A

Table 2 shows personality traits of the students in each group. It is not easy to find

any regularity among cognitive level, creativity, and personality scores of the

students. However, we sought to find that the students who got higher scores in

creativity test got also high scores in openness trait of personality test.


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Table 2. T-scores on personality traits of the subjects

NEO personality test scores(T-score)

Group Studentsextro

-versionopen

-ness

agreeable-

ness

conscien

-tiousness

Neuro

-ticism

Keumhee 40# 42# 60* 50 46

Eujin 62* 56* 50 60* 50

A Eunsil 66* 69* 53 65* 27#

Aeri 49 48 57* 52 39#

Miran 54 60* 54 57* 47

Eunhwa 55* 63* 64* 58* 50

B Sungsil 37# 50 39# 44# 52

Jimin 61* 55* 43# 55* 63*

Jaehee 52 61* 56* 58* 64*

Sori 44# 58* 50 72* 49

C Sunjung 43# 49 51 55* 45#

Miyoung 48 77* 50 73* 58*

Sunhee 41# 72* 43# 53 57*

Sojung 57* 58* 63* 54 43#

D Soonmi 41# 49 45# 39# 62*

Chorong 62* 56* 47 58* 32#

*High level of traits #Low level of traits

2. Characteristics of verbal interactions in each group

In general verbal interactions of cognitive aspect predominate over those of

affective aspect. And the frequencies of interactions varied very much from group to

group. The frequencies of interactions in group A were almost doubled those in group

C. Not only total frequency of interactions in group C is lowest, but also the

percentages of interactions unrelated to the tasks of group C were higher than those of

any other groups(Table 3).


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Table 3. Average frequency of verbal interactions by group

Interactions related to the tasks(%)Group

Cognitive aspect Affective aspect

Interactions unrelated

to the tasks(%)Total

A 387.3(68.2) 93.3(16.2) 96.0(16.6) 576.7

B 239.0(74.2) 33.0(10.3) 50.0(15.5) 322.0

C 186.7(61.5) 41.0(13.5) 76.0(25.0) 303.7

D 250.3(69.3) 61.0(16.9) 50.0(13.8) 361.3

Verbal interactions of the students in group A were most active among four

groups. Especially suggesting and receiving opinions appeared to be active. It was

observed that the atmosphere of discourse among the members of the group A was

very pleasurable and friendly. We think that is one of the reasons most of the group

members actively participated in talks within the group. It is also supported through

the fact Eunjin and Eunsil got high scores in both extroversion and openness and

Keumhee and Aeri got high scores in agreeableness while they all got low scores in

neuroticism. However we cannot observe any student who plays the role as a

leader.

Miran got highest scores in creativity test and played as a leader in group B.

Eunhwa played as a partner of Miran in the process of leading the group activities.

She got high scores in most sub-traits of personality test except neuroticism even

though she got low scores in creativity test. The other two members of the group are

also so cooperative in solving the task together that the members of group B have

solved the problem effectively.

Characteristics of verbal interactions of group C are both least frequency and low

level of interactions shown in group activities. One of the reasons seemed to be thefact that each member of the group C tried to solve the task individually. They are so

inactive and passive in communicating their opinions in the group. And they are so

sensitive to the recording of their activity. Nobody plays the role as a leader. Both

Miyoung and Sori got high scores in openness and conscientiousness of personality

test and creativity test, but got low scores in extroversion. And they didn't play the

role of leader.

Group D shows the good example that group interactions do highly depend on

the role of the leader. Sojung in group D plays as a leader. She got high scores in

both personality test and creativity test. She was so humorous and sociable that she

made the peers feel free during the group activities. Soonmi was greatly influenced

by Sojung. Soonmi got high scores in both SRT and creativity test, but got very lowscores in personality test. She was so passive and didn't participate actively in the

activity at first. However she became active later. She seemed to overcome demerit

in her personality with the help of Sojung. The good partnership of Sunhee who got

high scores in creativity test played great role in maintaining active verbal

interactions of the group.

3. Relationship between verbal interactions and characteristics of the students

(1) Relationship between verbal interactions and cognitive level and the

level of creativity of the students

It was found that the cognitive level of the students is closely related to high levelverbal interactions such as expanded questions(Q3), elaborative explanation(R3) and


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elaborative suggestions(MS4). However, it was correlated negatively with low level

interactions such as simple questions(Q1) and simple response(R1)(table 4).

Table 4. Correlations between the type verbal interactions and cognitive level

of the students

Type ofinteractions

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 R1 R2 R3 MS1 MS2

MS3

MS4

RO1 RO2

RO3 RO4

Correlation

coefficient-.080 .097 .412 .140

-.25

0

.05

5.409 .086

.01

9

.18

6

.40

4.142

.21

0.185

.01

1

Relationship between the sub-traits of creativity of the students and verbal

interactions was very similar to the relationship of cognitive level of the students and

verbal interactions. As table 5 shows the correlation coefficients between the

sub-traits of creativity of the students and verbal interactions are so high in high level

interactions such as Q3, MS3 and MS4. But they are negatively correlated in low

level interactions such as Q1 and R1.

Table 5. Correlations between verbal interactions and sub-traits of creativity

of the students

inter-

actions

creativity

Q1 Q2

Q3 Q4 R1

R2

R3

MS1

MS2

MS3

MS4

RO1 RO2 RO3 RO4

Fluency -.30 -.02 .43 .16 -.49 .20 .10 .08 .19 .31 .41 -.06 -.06 .23 .15

Flexi

-bility -.30 .12 .46 .26 -.41 .33 .07 .13 .30 .48 .47 .02 .08 .29 .25Origi

-nality-.28 .16 .41 .23 -.33 .21 .05 .17 .24 .34 .41 .09 .06 .22 .09

The cognitive level of the students is not so correlated with verbal interactions in

creativity aspects except elaboration. Correlation coefficients between cognitive level

of the students and elaboration of creativity was 0.371. Correlation coefficients

between the sub-traits of creativity of the students and elaboration of creativity was

also appeared high compared with other sub-traits of creativity(table 6). Table 6

also indicates that flexibility shows relatively high correlation with the sub-traits of

creativity students show in the process of solving the creative tasks.

Table 6. Correlations between the sub-traits of creativity of the students

and the verbal interactions of creativity aspect

Inter

-actions

Creativity

Sensitivity Fluency Flexibility Originality Elaboration

Fluency -.019 -.268 .296 .171 .387

Flexibility .217 -.172 .441 .402 .465

Originality .002 -.234 .255 .278 .371


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(2) Relationship between verbal interactions and affective aspect of the students

It was found that verbal interactions of the students correlated strongly with

agreeableness and extroversion than any other traits of personality test. However

neuroticism was negatively correlated with the verbal interactions. It was

interesting to find out that the students who got high scores in conscientiousness in

personality test tended to show high frequency in low level of verbalinteractions(table 7).

Table 7. Correlations between the type of verbal interactions and the sub-traits of

personality test

Type of

Interactions

Extr

-versionOpenness

Agreeable

-ness

Conscien

-tiousness

Neuro

-ticism

Q1 -0.063 0.048 0.238 0.514(*) -0.105

Q2 0.384 -0.077 0.53(*) 0.228 -0.585(*)

Q3 0.281 -0.226 0.347 -0.158 -0.171

Q4 -0.168 -0.207 0.213 -0.224 -0.152

R1 0.146 0.049 0.122 0.229 -0.045

R2 0.507(*) 0.14 0.558(*) 0.111 -.504(*)

R3 0.315 -0.216 .630(**) -0.022 -0.193

MS1 0.402 0.305 -0.132 0.204 -0.395

MS2 0.259 -0.153 0.683(**) 0.003 -.596(*)

MS3 0.453 -0.066 0.596(*) -0.132 -.514(*)

MS4 0.455 -0.117 0.554(*) -0.103 -0.225

RO1 0.086 -0.042 0.491 0.379 -0.367

RO2 -0.187 -0.246 0.371 0.172 -0.125

RO3 0.497 0.048 0.054 0.047 -0.254

RO4 0.263 -0.064 0.52(*) 0.003 -0.388Total 0.447 -0.064 0.658(**) 0.088 -0.541(*)

* p


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considered in constructing the group. And the group leader should be assigned

carefully and be encouraged to maintain his/her role successfully.

ReferencesAlexopoulou, E. and Driver, R.(1996) Small group discussion in physics: peer

interaction modes in pairs and fours. Journal of Research in ScienceTeaching, 33, 1099-1114.

Hogan, K. (1999) Sociocognitive roles in science group discourse.

International Journal of Science Education, 21(8), 855-882.

Kagan, S. (1992) Cooperative Learning (San Juan Capistrano, CA: Resources for

Teachers).

King, A. (1994) Guiding knowledge construction in the classroom: effects of

teaching children how to question and how to explain. American

Educational Research Journal, 31, 338-368.

Richmond, G. and Striley, J.(1996) Making meaning in classroom: social

processes in small-group discourse and scientific knowledge building.Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33, 839-858.

Webb, M., Troper, J. and Fall, R.(1995) Constructive activity and learning in

collaborative small groups. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87,

406-423.

00021 TaeYeon Kim-ByungSoon Choi

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