No abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.252.67.66 on Tue,We propose an approach to the theoretical and empirical identification processes of abstraction in context. Although our outlook is theoretical, our thinking about abstraction emerges from the analysis of interview data. We consider abstraction an activity of vertically reorganizing previously constructed mathematics into a new mathematical structure. We use the term activity to emphasize that abstraction is a process with a history; it may capitalize on tools and other artifacts, and it occurs in a particular social setting. We present the core of a model for the genesis of abstraction. The principal components of the model are three dynamically nested epistemic actions: constructing, recognizing, and building-with. To study abstraction is to identify these epistemic actions of students participating in an activity of abstraction.Abstraction has been the focus of extensive interest in several domains, including mathematics education. Many researchers have taken a predominantly theoretical stance and have described abstraction as some type of decontextualization. In this

In this paper we attempt to identify which peer collaboration characteristics may be accountable for conceptual change through interaction. We focus on different socio-cognitive aspects of the peer dialog and relate these with learning gains on the dyadic as well as the individual level. The scientific topic that was used for this study concerns natural selection, a topic for which students' intuitive conceptions have been shown to be particularly robust. Learning tasks were designed according to the socio-cognitive conflict instructional paradigm. After receiving a short instructional intervention on natural selection, paired students were asked to collaboratively construct explanations for certain evolutionary phenomena while engaging in dialectical argumentation. Two quantitative coding schemes were developed, each with a different granularity. The first assessed discrete dialog moves that pertained to dialectical argumentation and to consensual explanation development. The second scheme characterized the dialog as a whole on a number of socio-cognitive dimensions. Results from analyses on the dyadic as well as the individual level revealed that the engagement in dialectical argumentation predicted conceptual learning gains, whereas consensual explanation development did not. These findings open up new venues for research on the mechanisms of learning in and from peer collaboration.

In this study the effects of argumentation-eliciting interventions on conceptual understanding in evolution were investigated. Two experiments were conducted: In the first, 76 undergraduates were randomly assigned to dyads to collaboratively solve and answer items in evolution; half of them were instructed to conduct an argumentative discussion, whereas control dyads were only asked to collaborate. In the second experiment, 42 singletons participated in one of two conditions: Experimental students engaged in monological argumentation on their own and a confederate's solution in response to prompts read by the confederate, whereas in the control condition they merely shared their solutions. Conceptual gains were assessed on immediate and delayed post-tests. In both experiments, students in the argumentative conditions showed larger learning gains on the delayed post-test than control students. Students in argumentative conditions were able to preserve gains that were obtained immediately following the intervention, whereas control subjects either lost immediate gains (dialogical condition) or did not improve their conceptual understanding at any time (monological condition).

Journal of the Learning SciencesPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:In this article, we elaborate methodologies to study construction of knowledge in argumentative activities. For this purpose, we report on a quasi-empirical study on construction of knowledge through successive argumentative activities on a controversial issue. A group of 120 fifth grade students participated in successive argumentative activities; some activities involved individuals and some involved collectives. According to a first methodology, construction of knowledge was measured through arguments/outcomes produced. We developed tools for evaluating changes in individual and collective arguments. In the study, we showed the generally beneficial effect of argumentative activities on collective and individual arguments/outcomes. The significant discrepancies between collective and individual arguments suggested that individual students only partly internalized the collectively constructed arguments. We developed a qualitative methodology to refine this hypothesis as well as other hypotheses concerning the interpretation of the quantitative study. The integration of the quantitative and qualitative methodologies for studying argumentation helped identify several mechanisms of construction of knowledge in argumentative activities. In particular, it brought new light on the mediating role of representational tools such as Argumentative Maps or Pro-Con tables.The idea that construction of knowledge emerges from social and cultural contexts is of course not new (Vygotsky, 1986). However, adequate methodologies for evidenc-ing construction of knowledge in rich contexts are difficult to elaborate. For example, although argumentation is recognized as potentially leading to construction of knowledge, experimental studies focusing on the changes that individuals and groups undergo during and after argumentative activities are rare. In this article we attempt to contribute to the elaboration of methodologies for studying construction of knowledge in context, in argumentative activities. We show the methodologies we developed through an experimental study on construction of knowledge through successive argumentative activities. The quantitative measure of construction of knowledge relies on a research setting in which individual argument-outcomes alternated with collective argument-outcomes. The participants were 120 fifth grade students who engaged in argumentative activities on a controversial issue (whether to permit or forbid experiments on animals). Students first completed a questionnaire to express their standpoint individually. They then formed triads and engaged in argumentative talk. At this stage, triads had at their disposal short texts presenting information on the issue. At the end of the conversation, individuals completed the questionnaire again. The triads went on with their argumentative talk and displayed their arguments. In a first group (G1, N1 = 60), triads used a computerized tool, ...