The impact of working memory capacity on collaborative learning in elementary school students

Abstract

Working memory capacity may be a critical factor that influences the effectiveness of collaborative learning; however, no studies have directly explored this effect. Using worked examples as learning tasks, Experiment 1 used a 2 (working memory capacity) × 2 (learning format) factorial design to examine the effects of collaborative learning versus individual learning of 4th-grade Chinese elementary school students with different working memory capacities. High-capacity learners displayed less working memory resource depletion and better transfer performance during collaborative learning than individual learning. In contrast, no differences were found among the low-capacity learners. Collaborative learning benefited high-capacity learners but not low-capacity learners, per our observations. To further optimize collaborative learning for low-capacity learners and expand the findings to heterogeneous collaborative learning, Experiment 2 adopted a 2 (member capacity) × 2 (group capacity) factorial design to explore the effects of member and group working memory capacity on collaborative learning in heterogeneous groups. High-capacity members displayed less working memory resource depletion and better far transfer performance in high-capacity groups compared to low-capacity groups. Simultaneously, all members had better near transfer performance in high-capacity groups compared to low-capacity groups. Both member and group working memory capacities influenced the effect of heterogeneous collaborative learning. However, low-capacity members only partially benefited from collaborative learning in high-capacity heterogeneous groups.

Collaborative Τeaching as a Social form of Organizing Teaching in Primary Education: Views and Attitudes of Greek Teachers

“…The body In recent years, collaborative learning has been the subject of intense academic debate due to the increasing importance of working in teams to solve increasingly challenging problems in modern life and work (Du et al, 2022). In this context, the idea of collaborative work as a method of promoting social and relational skills in the classroom, such as sociability, cooperativeness, responsibility, empathy, tolerance, as well as feelings of self-esteem, usefulness and acceptance, began to develop in the 1970s (Bores -García et al, 2021;Kaldi et al, 2009;Koutrouba & Alexaki, 2016;Mpotsoglou et al, 2007;Ferguson -Patrick, 2022;Tzika et al, 2015).…”