Examining Junior High School Students’ Collaborative Knowledge Building: Based on the Comparison of High- & Low-Performance Groups’ Mathematical Problem-Solving

Abstract

AbstractMathematical problem-solving-based collaborative learning’s (MPSCL) unique teaching value has attracted much attention among those interested in integrating “21st-century skills” in mathematics education and promoting practical and innovative talents. But learning improvement during this activity is still challenging because of some students’ lower learning efficiency and poor performance in collaborative problem-solving. Collaborative knowledge building (CKB) emphasises that students exchange views, discuss, negotiate, solve problems, and create valuable public knowledge for the team, and has become an important perspective reflecting this learning process and learning quality. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to investigate junior high school students’ CKB process based on a comparison of high- and low-performance groups’ mathematical problem-solving. Design-based method was adapted to implement the experimental investigation. Choosing “Xiaoming’s Apartment” as a sample learning task, we evaluated the quality of the problem-solving solutions from 29 groups in three classes, selecting 48 students from 12 groups as research participants. The analysis framework was developed to analyse 3,244 interactive dialogues in more than 90,000 transcripts. Results suggest that students could carry out CKB as the core in general, and their CKB went through six stages, reached a deep level, and had a variety of interactive modes. But the proportion of discussion for knowledge building, “sublimation viewpoints,” and knowledge building of deep level in high-performance groups is higher than the low-performance groups, and the high-performance groups show a good spiral in the process of viewpoints evolution. The findings of these CKB characteristics provide evidence for enhancing MPSCL.