Development of reading competency through scaffolded peer interaction and individual activity

Abstract

The central theme in which this study is positioned is the role of others in the cognitive competencies development. For several decades, the research of this area has been providing us with a substantial corpus of evidence about the importance of social interaction for cognitive development. However, present knowledge of this field has not given us a lot of evidence about the power of mediated and enhanced children’s activity depending on whether it is performed individually or with another person. The key research question of the following paper refers to comparing the roles of mediated individual work and mediated cooperation in the development of new abilities or qualitatively new patterns of thought. The influence of investigated factors has been examined in the case of development of an important life competency - reading competency. Available empirical findings of a small number or studies performed in Serbia reveal alarming evidence about competencies in this domain, which was all the more reason for selecting this competency. Thus, the imposing question was what to kind of incentives we should expose children in order for them to adequately understand the materials they are reading. The research has been conducted in three phases, based on experimental designs with repeated measures. In the pre-test phase, children’s initial achievements on the reading competencies’ tasks have been identified. Afterwards, in the experimental phase, factors type of interaction and type of support children receive have been varied in different groups. Finally, after two weeks, in a post-test phase, children’s achievement has been re-tested. The sample comprised 329 ten-year-olds from three different schools in Serbia. The obtained data has been analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. In other words, apart from quantitative data on children’s achievement in different phases of testing, the analysis also included the data obtained through video recording of all interactions which emerged as a product of the experiment. Results of quantitative analysis showed that children’s achievement on post-test depends both on training they received and type of interaction they participated in since three-way interaction of the examined factors has been found. The main effects of type of interaction and training children received have not been identified; therefore we cannot state that re-test achievement depends solely on whether children work individually or in pairs or whether they receive a training that mediates tasks solving. Additionally, we learned that differences in the quality of children’s cooperation and in the usage of reading strategies do not predict difference between pre- and post-test achievement. All of these findings suggest the presence of strong individual and intergroup differences between children. Hence, we performed qualitative analysis which has revealed some of the phenomena that influenced children’s achievement. Namely, children who were active during task solving, who entered dedicated and motivated into the experimental process, progressed more in the re-test than the children who were passive no matter which group they were in. Moreover, it was noticed that children who were in groups with friendly atmosphere as well as those who gave arguments their opinion showed better achievement in reading when tested after two weeks. However, additional quantitative analysis did not confirm significance of these factors’ effects for re-test achievement. The impact of this research is reflected in the findings which describe specific situations in which children, with the assistance of symmetrical peer or adult scaffolding, can make progress on the test measuring reading competency. In other words, we have demonstrated that although mediated peer cooperation and individual work have their potentials, they are not crucial factors per se for achieving better results. Additionally, we would like to emphasize the importance of the meaning children attribute to all interactions they participate in and that this is the factor that has crucial role in their latter attitude towards solving same type tasks.

Centralna tema u koju je smeštena ova istraživačka studija je uloga drugih u razvoju kognitivnih kompetencija. Već nekoliko decenija istraživanja ove oblasti obezbeđuju nam znatan korpus podataka o važnosti socijalne interakcije u kognitivnom razvoju. Međutim, dosadašnja saznanja iz ove oblasti nisu nam dala puno podataka o snazi posredovane i osnažene aktivnosti dece u zavisnosti od toga da li istu aktivnost izvršavaju samostalno ili sa još nekom osobom. Ključno istraživačko pitanje u radu koji sledi odnosi se na upoređivanje uloga koju posredovani samostalni rad i posredovana saradnja imaju u u razvoju novih sposobnosti ili kvalitativno novih obrazaca mišljenja. Uticaj ispitivanih faktora proveren je na primeru razvoja jedne važne životne kompetencije - čitalačka kompetencija. Dostupni empirijski nalazi malog broja istraživanja u Srbiji pokazuju zabrinjavajuće podatke o kompetencijama u ovom domenu, što je bio razlog više za izbor ove kompetencije. Pitanje koje se stoga nama nametnulo je kakvoj vrsti podsticaja treba da izložimo decu kako bi adekvatno razumela materijale koje čitaju. Istraživanje je izvedeno iz tri dela, po uzoru na eksperimentalne nacrte sa ponovljenim merenjima. U pretestu su određena početna postignuća dece na zadacima čitalačke kompetencije.Zatim su u eksperimentalnojfaziu različitim grupama varirani faktori tipa interakcije i tipa podrške koju deca dobijaju.Konačno, nakon dve nedelje, u posttest faziponovo su proveravanapostignućadece. Uzorak je činilo 329 desetogodišnjaka iz tri različite škole u Srbiji. Istraživanjem su prikupljeni podaci koji su analizirani na kvanitativan i kvalitativan način. Drugim rečima, pored kvanitativnih podataka o postignućima dece u različitim momentima testiranja u analizu su uključeni i podaci dobijeni video-snimanjem svih interakcija koje su nastale kao produkt dizajniranog eksperimenta. Rezultati kvanitativne analize pokazali su da postignuće dece na retestu zavisi i od obuke koju dete prolazi i od tipa interakcijeu kome dete učestvuje jer je dobijena trostruka interakcija ispitanih faktora. Glavni efekti tipa interakcije i efekat obuke koju su deca prošla nisu dobijeni tako da ne možemo govoriti o zavisnosti postignuća na retestu samo na osnovu toga da li deca rade samostalno ili u paru ili prolaze neku od obuka koje posreduju rešavanje zadataka. Dodatno, saznali smo da procenjene razlike u kvalitetu saradnje među decom i razlike u korišćenju strategija čitanja ne predviđaju razliku u postignuću dece koja se javlja u pretestu i retestu. Svi ovi podaci ukazali su nam na jake individualne razlike ali i intergrupne razlike među decom. Zbog toga smo sproveli kvalitativnu analizu koja nam je otkrila neke od fenomena koji su uticali na postignuće dece.Deca koja su bila aktivna prilikom rešavanja zadataka, koja su posvećeno i motivisano ušla u proces koji je bio predviđen eksperimentalnim nacrtom, više su napredovala u retestu od dece koja su bila pasivna bez obzira na to iz koje su grupe. Pored toga, primećeno je su deca koja su imala prijateljsku atmosferu u grupi kao iona koja deca koja su argumentovala svoje mišljenje pokazivala bolja postignuća iz čitanja kada su testirana nakon dve nedelje. Međutim, dodatne kvanitativne analize nisu potvrdile značajnost ovih faktora na postignuće ispitanika u retestu. Značaj ovog istraživanja ogleda se u dobijenim nalazima koji su opisali specifične situacije u kojima su deca uz podršku simetričnog vršnjaka ili uz potporu odraslog mogu da napreduju na testovima koji mere čitalačku kompetenciju. Drugim rečima, pokazali smo da i posredovani vršnjački i individualni rad ima svoje potencijale, ali da to nisu presudni faktori sami po sebi za postizanje boljih rezultata. Dodatno, istakli bismo važnost značenja koju dete pridaje svim interakcijama u kojima učestvuje i da je ono igra važnu ulogu u njegovom kasnijem stavu prema rašavanju zadataka istog tipa.