Developing argumentation skills in mathematics thr

Authors: Freydis Vogel Ingo Kollar Stefan Ufer Elisabeth Reichersdorfer Kristina Reiss Frank Fischer

Publish Date: 2016/07/05

Volume: 44, Issue: 5, Pages: 477-500

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Abstract

Collaboration scripts and heuristic worked examples are effective means to scaffold university freshmen’s mathematical argumentation skills Yet which collaborative learning processes are responsible for these effects has remained unclear Learners presumably will gain the most out of collaboration if the collaborators refer to each other’s contributions in a dialectic way dialectic transactivity Learners also may refer to each other’s contributions in a dialogic way dialogic transactivity Alternatively learners may not refer to each other’s contributions at all but still construct knowledge constructive activities This article investigates the extent to which constructive activities dialogic transactivity and dialectic transactivity generated by either the learner or the learning partner can explain the positive effects of collaboration scripts and heuristic worked examples on the learners’ disposition to use argumentation skills We conducted a 2 × 2 experiment with the factors collaboration script and heuristic worked examples with N = 101 math teacher students Results showed that the learners’ engagement in selfgenerated dialectic transactivity ie responding to the learning partner’s contribution in an argumentative way by critiquing and/or integrating their learning partner’s contributions mediated the effects of both scaffolds on their disposition to use argumentation skills whereas partnergenerated dialectic transactivity or any other measured collaborative learning activity did not To support the disposition to use argumentation skills in mathematics learning environments should thus be designed in a way to help learners display dialectic transactivity Future research should investigate how learners might better benefit from the dialectic transactivity generated by their learning partnersThis research is part of the project ELKMath funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG under grant RE 1247/91 and FI 792/71 This contribution contains work that is part of the doctoral dissertation of Freydis Vogel under the supervision of Prof Dr Frank Fischer and Prof Dr Ingo Kollar

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