Individual to collaborative: guided group work and the role of teachers in junior secondary science classrooms

ABSTRACT

This paper, through discussion of a teaching intervention at two secondary schools in Hong Kong, demonstrates the learning advancement brought about by group work and dissects the facilitating role of teachers in collaborative discussions. One-hundred and fifty-two Secondary Two (Grade 8) students were divided into three pedagogical groups, namely ‘whole-class teaching’, ‘self-directed group work’ and ‘teacher-supported group work’ groups, and engaged in peer-review, team debate, group presentation and reflection tasks related to a junior secondary science topic (i.e. current electricity). Pre- and post-tests were performed to evaluate students’ scientific conceptions, alongside collected written responses and audio-recorded discussions. The results indicate that students achieved greater cognitive growth when they engaged in cooperative learning activities, the interactive and multi-sided argumentative nature of which is considered to apply particularly well to science education and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development framework. Group work learning is also found to be most effective when teachers play a role in navigating students during the joint construction of conceptual knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaborative discussions
• conceptual knowledge
• current electricity
• group work
• physics education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Dennis Fung is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. His expertise is in physics education and collaborative group work. He received Doris Zimmern HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship in 2012 and 2015 and was a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Education, the University of Cambridge.

Miss Wai-Mei Lui is the Project Manager of the current research project that specialises in analysing the effects of collaborative group work on junior secondary science learning and teacher’s facilitating role in it. She joined the Faculty of Education in 2015 and has since then participated in the publications of local citizenship education research.

Notes

1. The diagnostic questions were extracted from EPSE Project 1 (Sample Diagnostic Questions – Set 3), which evaluates students’ understanding of circuit behaviour.

2. Sample questions are shown in Appendix 1.

3. The effect size calculations in the current study were based on partial-η² values (Cohen, 1973). Cohen (1988) provided estimates of what constitutes a small (0.01), medium (0.06) and large (0.14) effect for partial η².

4. Due to space limitations, analysis of the quality of the arguments in some of the sample excerpts (i.e. Extracts 1A–1C) is given in Appendix 2.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Early Career Scheme; Research Grant Council (Hong Kong) [grant no 27400914].