Friendship and Gender Differences in Task and Social Interpretations of Peer Collaborative Problem Solving

Abstract

Investigations of peer collaboration often vary task or social aspects of collaborative contexts and assume that these aspects of the context are experienced similarly by individuals. The present study examined how social aspects (group friendship and gender) of a peer collaborative context related to differences in adolescents' interpretations of task and social problems that occurred while collaborating with peers in a naturalistic classroom setting. Eighth-grade adolescents (N = 82, 44 females) worked with peers on a six-week Spanish project at school. Adolescents chose to work primarily with same-gender peers and friends. Task and social interpretations of problems were assessed twice. The salience of task problems decreased over time; social problems became somewhat more salient. Social problems were less salient to females than to males. Greater group friendship was associated with the lesser salience of task problems early in the project. The salience of social problems, gender, and friendship were important for understanding performance on the project. The value of considering the context of peer collaborative problem solving from individuals' perspectives is discussed.

Ideas and Identities: Supporting Equity in Cooperative Mathematics Learning

“…Many students prefer to work with friends, and may be more likely to disagree and to work through disagreements (Azmitia & Montgomery, 1993;Strough, Berg, & Meegan, 2001;Zajac & Hartup, 1997).…”

When is collaborating with friends a good idea? insights from design education

“…On this binary view, nonfriend dyads include both pairs that do not know each other and pairs that do not like each other. By aggregating these two distinct cases, it has been suggested that the "friend" condition fares more favorably than if it were compared simply against pairs who did not know each other (Strough, Berg, & Meegan, 2001). An additional factor to consider is that pairs may not rate each other symmetrically.…”

Adolescents' collaboration in the classroom: Do peer relationships or gender matter?

“…Vygotskian sociocultural theory predicts that collaboration leads to cognitive growth when partners arrive at a shared or intersubjective understanding of the situation (Bearison, Magzamen, & Filardo, 1986;Gauvain & Rogoff, 1989;Glassman, 1994;Hartup, 1996a;Russell, 1982;Tudge, 1992;Tudge, Winterhoff, & Hogan, 1996). Researchers have begun to address whether friendship of partners is associated with the development of a shared understanding of tasks and performance on such tasks (Azmitia & Montgomery, 1993;Strough, Berg, & Meegan, 2001;Strough & Cheng, 2000;Strough, Swenson, & Cheng, 2001). This focus on friendship comes from research indicating that having a friend is beneficial to adjustment in general (Demir & Urberg, 2004;Dunn, 2004;Hartup, 1996b;Hartup & Stevens, 1997;Ladd & Kochenderfer, 1996).…”