Finnish upper secondary students’ collaborative processes in learning statistics in a CSCL environment

Abstract

This design-based research project focuses on documenting statistical learning among 16–17-year-old Finnish upper secondary school students (N = 78) in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. One novel value of this study is in reporting the shift from teacher-led mathematical teaching to autonomous small-group learning in statistics. The main aim of this study is to examine how student collaboration occurs in learning statistics in a CSCL environment. The data include material from videotaped classroom observations and the researcher's notes. In this paper, the inter-subjective phenomena of students’ interactions in a CSCL environment are analysed by using a contact summary sheet (CSS). The development of the multi-dimensional coding procedure of the CSS instrument is presented. Aptly selected video episodes were transcribed and coded in terms of conversational acts, which were divided into non-task-related and task-related categories to depict students’ levels of collaboration. The results show that collaborative learning (CL) can facilitate cohesion and responsibility and reduce students’ feelings of detachment in our classless, periodic school system. The interactive .pdf material and collaboration in small groups enable statistical learning. It is concluded that CSCL is one possible method of promoting statistical teaching. CL using interactive materials seems to foster and facilitate statistical learning processes.

Keywords:

• statistics learning
• computer-supported collaborative learning
• design-based research
• collaborative learning

Acknowledgements

This study has been supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation, The Finnish Cultural Foundation – North Savo Regional Fund, The Finnish Graduate School and the Nordic Society for Research in Mathematics Education (NoRME).

This paper is based on a talk given at the International Conference on Technology and its Integration in Mathematics Education, Tartu, Estonia, July 2012 (TIME 2012). TIME 2012 submissions to iJMEST were edited by José Luis Galán García, Pedro Rodriguez Cielos and Gabriel Aguilera Venegas.