Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England, 12-14 September 2002

Effective group work in the classroom – the roles children play

Jane Maloney Institute of Education, University of London

ABSTRACTThis paper describes the roles children, aged 10-11, adopt in decision-making activities in science lessons. The activities involve the children in using evidence to come to a decision. Observations of the groups indicate that children take on different roles in the discussions and that these roles have an important influence on how the evidence is used to make decisions. A taxonomy of roles has been devised for the children drawing upon roles defined by management theorists in the study of successful business teams; the taxonomy includes five roles that have a positive influence on the way the group uses the evidence and four negative roles. The paper explores the links between the roles and the most effective use of evidence; results suggest that a team where a child takes on the role of ‘Chair’ works particularly well and explores a wide range of evidence. As much of the work in science, both in primary and secondary schools, is carried out in groups, this research has important implications for teachers when selecting the composition of class groups.

Introduction

The study was designed to explore how young children, age 10-11 years old, use evidence in decision-making activities in science. The idea for the research project emerged from a belief that although the skills of evaluating and interpreting evidence are important scientific skills there is insufficient emphasis devoted to the development of these skills in science education. It is argued that the way the science curriculum is being interpreted at present means that an opportunity for school science to contribute to developing children’s interpretative and evaluative skills is sadly being missed. Yet, these are skills children will need as future citizens when, as adults they will be faced with conflicting arguments about contentious and important issues, many of which will be scientific in nature e.g. whether to use mobile telephones, eat GM food or have their children vaccinated.

The Role of Science Education

Science education, it might be argued, already does contribute to preparing young children to cope with some of these choices by giving them scientific subject knowledge. However, this alone is not enough because some issues are too complex for most people to understand. Norris (1995) argues that non-scientists cannot analyse scientific knowledge and claims that they are ‘epistemically dependent’ on the scientists. For example, do you need to know how a mobile telephone works to understand what might be the dangers of using one? The answer may be not necessarily but you do need to have some understanding of how to evaluate the different claims being made about the possible harmful effects. As most of our future citizens would be classed as non-scientists they will have to be able to judge whose evidence they trust and to be able to make valid judgements they will need to be able to think critically about the evidence available.

It is important then that children are prepared to make such judgements and this paper argues that a key role of education is to develop young people’s skills so they take part in debate and can make reasoned judgements about potentially complex topics. Fuller (1997) believes that most of what the non-scientists need to know in order to make informed decisions about science “...fall under the rubric of history, philosophy, and sociology of science, rather than the technical content of scientific subjects.” (1997:10). Fuller may be right but it does not mean that science education does not have a role in preparing people to make decisions about science. What is important is that the science curriculum should not just be about content. The curriculum needs to involve pupils in decision-making activities where they have to base their decisions on available evidence and where the answers may be inconclusive.

Osborne (2000) suggests that young people should have the opportunity to study aspects of science-in–the-making so that they can appreciate the uncertainties of scientific work. It is also important that science education encourages pupils to consider once contentious issues that are now clearly accepted in science, for example, Harvey’s research on the circulation of blood published in 1628. At the time it was believed that blood was consumed in the tissues but Harvey’s observations led him to a contentious conclusion that blood circulated round the body. However, as he did not have the opportunity to directly observe the connections between arteries and veins (capillaries were first observed by Malpighi 1628-94) he had no way of proving his theory. Studies of how some scientific theories that have since been refuted can also help children appreciate the way that scientific knowledge develops with an increase in, and accuracy of, evidence. Indeed some of today’s issues have no immediate answer and children will need to understand that they will have to determine quality of evidence and appreciate the element of risk involved with such decisions. Some choices, for example, taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT), are about weighing up the risks involved; taking HRT may increase the risk of developing breast cancer but decreases the risk of developing osteoporosis. As scientific knowledge increases people will need to know how to handle large amounts of information and how to disentangle opinions and interpretations from fact (Duggan and Gott 2000).

A science curriculum that presents children with a view of science as a body of knowledge and disregards the notions of scientific uncertainty, probability and risk will encourage them to expect conclusive answers from the scientists. Yet, just as we are today, they are likely to be faced with a range of opinions on a range of scientific issues and they should be better prepared to cope with such conflicts in opinions. One point seems clear, a science curriculum needs to balance the need for pupils to know and understand scientific facts alongside the skills to enable them to consider the benefits and drawbacks of the application of science in everyday life.

The Science Curriculum

The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1989 (in England & Wales) ensured that science was taught in all state primary schools. However, the curriculum portrays science as knowledge, which is uncontested, unquestioned and unequivocal (Claxton 1991). In contrast contemporary science is controversial and contested. Although developments in the curriculum included an emphasis on scientific enquiry skills (DfES & QCA) research suggests that little attention is given to children’s critical evaluation of evidence. Clearly there is a missed opportunity here for making the curriculum relevant for the adults of the future. Carré (1998) suggests that it would be more realistic to relate school science to the thinking that is needed to prepare children for an ever-changing world. What people need to be able to do is think critically and if we want to develop children’s thinking skills in science then one way is through argumentation. Siegel writes that, ‘Argumentation - whatever else it may be - is aimed at the rational resolution of questions, issues and disputes’ (1995 p. 162). Science education can provide the opportunities for children to argue, to use evidence and assess its value; yet, the science taught in schools has paid little attention to the development of the pupils’ skills of argument (Driver, et al. 2000). Since the consideration and evaluation of evidence is core to the practice and learning of science, then it seems clear that it provides an excellent vehicle for promoting such skills in children. Although there is now an increasing interest being shown in argumentation in schools within science (Erduran, et al. 2000; Jimenez-Aleixandre, et al. 2000) and other subjects in the curriculum (Pontecorvo and Giradet 1993; Andrews 1995), little work has been carried out in the primary schools. (Kuhn 1993) concludes from her research that argumentative reasoning skills develop early and this would indicate that it is in the primary school that we need to begin. This research project was designed to see how children do argue and use evidence when making decisions in science.

Research Design and Method

Activities were designed that provide an opportunity for children to use evidence in making decisions in a scientific context. The activities were also designed enable the groups to have an opportunity to explore their reasoning and expose their thinking. As children discussed the issues they made their thinking visible and therefore some judgements can be made about the quality of this thinking. Making thinking visible is, as Linn (2000) suggests, far more easily advocated than accomplished! She acknowledges that time limits in the normal classroom motivate teachers to simplify the thinking process and lead the discussion to a conclusion. In this research the children were encouraged to think more widely about their ideas and no time limits were given for the activities in which they engaged. Also the children managed their discussions autonomously so that there was no teacher directing them towards a conclusion.

The tasks for this research had to be realistic for children aged 10-11 and so were set in a context familiar to them. The activities provided legitimate alternatives because if the decisions were very obvious to the children, there would be no reason for them to explore all (or any) of the evidence. The evidence was presented in a form that was accessible to the children in terms of language, presentation and amount of evidence provided.

Activity 1

This activity was adapted from a task in Unit 1 Home for Gerbils(SATIS 1993), where the children were asked to evaluate and select a home suitable for some gerbils. The children were given pictures and descriptions of three homes that they could use as evidence to guide their decisions. For ethical reasons, the choice of home was discussed with the children at the end of the activity. One of the homes is recommended by the RSPCA (Dunphy, Holden et al. 1993) as it is most like the natural environment of the gerbil, and this information was given to the children. Should the children be faced with such a choice in the future when looking after a gerbil, it is important that they understand the full implications of their choice.

Activity 2

In this activity the children were provided with data from an investigation about the properties of materials. For this investigation, Which cup to take on a picnic, the children were given three cups, one made of glass, one of thin plastic and one of thick plastic. The data provided information concerning the stability, the insulating properties, the mass (given as weight) and the strength of each cup. This information was presented in a tabular form familiar to the children. Using this evidence the children were asked to decide which cup they would take on a picnic.

Activity 3

This activity was adapted from, Book 3, Unit 5 Bats in Conflict(SATIS 1993). The children were presented with the problem ‘What to do about bats in the library roof?’ for which they first suggest individual solutions. The children recorded their ideas about what to do about the bats as individuals to ensure that they all had something to contribute to the discussion. They were then presented with ‘evidence’ in a form of the Bat Facts? cards. As the children read the facts and ascertained whether the fact were true or false, issues were raised that required them to reconsider their plans. For example, if the plan involved killing the bats they soon found out from the Bat Facts? cards that they would be fined £2000 should they harm any bats. The children then produced a new or revised group plan; this new plan reveals which pieces of evidence influenced the children decisions. For ethical reasons, the action plan was discussed with the children at the end of the activity. Bats are protected by law and the children should recognise whether their proposed actions are feasible or not

Activity 4

This activity involved the children reading three different accounts of a scientific investigation carried out by four fictitious Year 6 pupils called Katie, Winston, Rebecca and Hari. They were also given data these pupils had recorded when investigating the time taken for a marble to roll down two tubes covered in two different surfaces; one tube has ridges of glue down its length and the other is covered with bubble wrap. Models of the tubes with the appropriate covering were also given to the children.

The children were asked to read the accounts and decide what had happened during the investigation. The accounts given to the children showed that Katie and Winston’s results and conclusions were in agreement i.e. Katie and Winston’s data showed that the marble rolled down the glue ridged tube faster than the bubble wrap tube and their conclusion reflected these results. However, Rebecca and Hari’s were not in agreement; they had the same results as each other but they had different conclusions; although their results showed that the marble rolled faster down the bubble wrap tube, Rebecca had concluded that the marble rolled down the glue-ridged tube faster. The activity involved the children reading the reports and deciding down which tube they think the marble would roll down faster.

The Schools

The research took place in three different schools, two state schools from two Inner London and a private school in Surrey and the children came from a range of ethnic and cultural origins. Each group was selected by the class teachers using two criteria. One criterion was that the children should be of similar abilities and the other was that the children were likely to co-operate and work well together as a group. A summary of the groups is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: The schools and children involved in the study

St Anne’s
Primary School / St Anne’s
Primary School / Castle Hill
Private School / Woodstreet
Junior School / Woodstreet
Junior School
Group 1 (6O) / Group 2 (6L) / Scholars Class / Group 1 (6D) / Group 2 (6M)
Luke
Naveed
Osei
Sheerah / Alicia
Daniel
Heidi
Junior / Alex
Cicely
Joanne
Simon / Amy
Che
Jillese
Patrick / Chantal
Elijah
Jason
Sharon

Data Collection

The children were video and audio-taped when taking part in the activities and the conversations were fully transcribed. There are 20 transcripts of the groups’ discussions, one for each of the 4 activities from 5 different groups of children.

Analysis of data

The key aim of the analysis was to compare how the five groups of children used the evidence in the discussion and to identify some possible reasons to account for the different ways they work together in coming to their decisions i.e. the argumentation process. More specifically, criteria for characterising good argumentation drawn from Mitchell’s (2001) list of parameters, were identified. These criteria indicate what young children could be expected to demonstrate in the research activities in which they took part. i.e. the children should

  1. discuss most or all of the evidence made available,
  2. provide claims supported by evidence,
  3. test alternative choices and consider both positive and negative issues of the possible options and
  4. engage in sustained dialogue by making claims, reviewing evidence and discussing arguments as an iterative process.

In order to make the comparisons of the different argumentation skills demonstrated by the children, coding schemes were devised to analyse the data in terms of these four criteria.

a)The evidence used by each group

The children are provided with evidence in the form of written evidence (and pictures in the Home for Gerbils activity) but they also draw on other sources such as personal experiences and the comments of other people. The evidence is identified using the codes E1 and E2; E1 is evidence taken from the written text or the pictures of the homes and E2 is evidence that the children cite which is not provided. It is possible to quantify how many pieces of E1 evidence each group uses and so identify the E1 evidence that is not used by the children. In the four activities there is a total of 60 pieces of E1 evidence.

b)Using evidence to support and claims- the arguments

For the purposes of this research, when the claim was supported by a reference to evidence it was identified as an ‘argument’. These arguments were identified using an analytical scheme based on the work of Stephen Toulmin (1958). His model for identifying the pattern of an argument, Toulmin’s Argument Patterns (TAP), consists, in its simplest form, of a claim supported by an appeal to data (evidence). Identifying an ‘appeal to data’ will indicate that a claim has been justified in some way.